Sam Jones is an acclaimed American photographer and director whose portraits of President Obama, Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Bob Dylan, Kristin Stewart, Robert Downey Jr, Amy Adams, Jack Nicholson, and many others have appeared on the covers of Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Esquire, GQ, Time, Entertainment Weekly and Men’s Journal. His collection of candid celebrity portraiture, The Here And Now: The Photographs of Sam Jones, was published by Harper Collins. Other published works include Non-Fiction, a collection of cinematic portraiture, and Some Where Else, a photographic book and musical collaboration with musician Blake Mills.
Sam is also an acclaimed director, creating numerous national commercials for Skype, Sonos, Canon, Target, Dove and many others. He is a sought after music video director who won MTV’s music video of the year for Foo Fighters Walk. He has directed videos for Mumford and Sons, Tom Petty, John Mayer, and many others. He also directed the multi-award winning interactive video for Cold War Kids’ I’ve Seen Enough.
In 2013 Sam launched Off Camera with Sam Jones on Directv’s Audience Network. Off Camera is an hour long show created out of his passion for long form conversational interviews. Via worldwide broadcast, online magazine, and podcast, Jones shares his conversations with the artists, actors, and musicians who fascinate and inspire him most. Robert Downey Jr., Sarah Silverman, Dave Grohl, Laura Dern, Tony Hawk, Matt Damon and Will Ferrell have all appeared on the show.
Sam directed the feature length Showtime Documentary Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued, a film that reexamines Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes and documents new recordings of lost Dylan lyrics by Elvis Costello, Marcus Mumford and others in Capitol Records Studios. The film features Bob Dylan as narrator, and documents the exciting collaboration between some of the most successful current artists in music and a 26-year-old Bob Dylan. The film premiered on Showtime Networks.
In 2002, Sam started his feature-length documentary career with I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, which chronicles beloved indie-rock band Wilco’s tumultuous recording of their acclaimed fourth album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and his most recent feature length documentary, Until The Wheels Fall Off, a portrait of the life and career of legendary skateboarder Tony Hawk, was released earlier this year.
Sam lives in Los Angeles with his wife and three daughters.
On episode 186, Sam discusses, among other things:
- The unholy trinity of skateboarding, bands and zines.
- Finishing what you started.
- The amazing saga of his documentary about the band Wilco, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.
- How the town he grew up in, Fullerton, California, influenced his path in unexpected ways.
- Photography seeming like the safe choice.
- Confidence.
- The shift that occurred as he gained experience.
- His TV show / podcast, Off Camera and what he learned from doing it.
- The societal change in the way we see famous people.
- His documentary about skateboarder Tony Hawk, Until The Wheels Fall Off