Shelton Jackson Lee, nicknamed 'Spike' by his mother, is an American director and film-maker. His main theme is African-American culture and history, race relations, and urban life, including crime and poverty, and he often draws on his own environment in Brooklyn, New York. He was influenced by his parents (his father a jazz musician and his mother a teacher) and was supported by his family when he first started out, some of whom are now involved in the production side of his films. He also tends to use the same actors (such as Denzel Washington), and he took acting roles himself in some of his earlier movies.

Lee started early and connected to film-making by playing around with a friend's super 8 camera in New York during a summer break from Atlanta, Georgia where he attended Morehouse College. He captured scenes of chaos during blackouts at the time (1977) along with shots of the local area, and family members playing out scenes. This sparked interest in film making and he continued media study at Clark Atlanta University and Morehouse which led to his student films The Answer - a fictional short which explored the racial implications of D.W. Griffiths' silent movie The Birth of a Nation (1915), and Last Hustle in Brooklyn (1979), a short semi-documentary style film that used the footage he had shot in New York. The college seemed to consider Lee's subject matter and approach unusual or even controversial for a student.

Lee gained further opportunity during the early eighties through the Tisch School of Arts graduate film program in New York where he submitted a short film for his master's degree entitled Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads (Bed-Stuy refers to Bedford–Stuyvesant, a neighborhood in Brooklyn). The film won a student award from AMPAS (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences).

Lee's early cinematic influences included On The Water Front (1954) a crime drama about corruption set around the docks in New York, directed by Elia Kazan and starring Marlon Brando - and the Martin Scorsese film Mean Streets (1973) a crime film directed by Scorsese who had also progressed through the Tisch School of Arts in 1966. The film starred Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro and Amy Robinson among others. Lee later became friends with Scorsese.

Because he was independent, Lee could be more selective with his subject matter from the start which got him noticed and was sometimes controversial, and he slowly built on success and created progressively bigger stories and longer movies. He applied his own unique directing style (often using pan and dolly shots) and referred to his movies as 'joints' rather than films.

When interviewed he has a deliberate spoken delivery and appears laid-back, but he has an edge - sometimes he is loud and expressive, sometimes humorous, sometimes terse. When away from his work, Spike Lee seems to play himself and doesn't perform for the media or feels the need to justify his work or views.

He secured a hit early on with the movie She's Gotta Have It (1986). This allowed him to set-up his own production company 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks - a name that called back to his film The Answer and referred to historical events in 1865 that had aimed to settle formerly enslaved black people and immigrant families by offering 40 acres of land and the loan of a mule (the project was later annulled by president Andrew Johnson who assumed office after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln).

With his own production company, Lee could independently produce movies for the studios with increasing budgets and a degree of control. The 'joint' School Daze (1988) was a success and the profits allowed him freedom to make Do the Right Thing (1989) exactly as he conceived it. The film saw a return to the Bed-Stuy neighborhood where the day was hot and steamy, tensions were high and the results explosive. The film was a success and confirmed Lee's writing and directing credibility. More movies followed over the years including a slightly different direction with the musical comedy drama Mo' Better Blues (1990), and the biographical Malcolm X (1992) - both staring Denzel Washington.

Spike Lee is happy to diversify, and contributed a short film to Lumière and Company - a project that restricted each participating director (41 in total) to using a Lumière camera and a maximum of three takes (released in 1995). Lee also continued a factual/documentary direction - notably the Oscar nominated 4 Little Girls (1997) - a documentary about a church bombing in the sixties. Lee became involved in commercials for brands such as Levi and Nike, and later went into the advertising business with industry giants Doyle, Dane, Bernbach, (internationally known as DDB). The Spike-DDB Agency (New York) now handles campaigns for big brand names such as Chevrolet and Pepsi.

During the late eighties and early nineties, Lee appeared in a series of Nike Air Jordan commercials as the fictional character, Mars Blackmon, a role played by Lee in She's Gotta Have It. He also appeared in Capital One credit card commercials along with actor Samuel L. Jackson and former pro-basketball player, Charles Barkley.

Spike Lee went full circle after teaching a film making course at Harvard in 1991. He returned to the Tisch School of Arts, but this time around he joined the faculty of the Graduate Film Program, and became Artistic Director in 2002.

Lee continues to make his independent joints (BlacKkKlansman, was released in 2018 and won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay), and continues to tutor aspiring film makers at Tisch School of Arts. He lends his support to community and creative projects, and is a basketball super-fan.

If you are an aspiring film maker, you can study the list of classic films Lee recommends to his students, and follow his advice about cinematography and the film industry. He has a website, and a Kickstarter account. There seems to be no Twitter account, and an instagram account may or may not be active. Both Spike Lee and Martin Scorsese provide online video tutorials on masterclass.com (a yearly membership fee is required).

By Matt Sheen August MMXX - See video playlist for references

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