Science Fiction Film Makers
Directors, screen writers, producers and special effects technicians who have entries in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (first edition 1979) edited by Peter Nicholls.
N.B. This list now includes additional entries from the on-line edition. An asterisk (*) indicates the new entries.
N.B. This list now includes additional entries from the on-line edition. An asterisk (*) indicates the new entries.
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- Producer
- Writer
- Music Department
Jeffrey Jacob Abrams was born in New York City and raised in Los Angeles, the son of TV producer parents. At 15, he wrote the music for Don Dohler's Nightbeast (1982). In his senior year of college, he and Jill Mazursky teamed up to write a feature film, which became Taking Care of Business (1990). He went on to write and produce Regarding Henry (1991) and Forever Young (1992). He also co-wrote Gone Fishin' (1997) with Mazursky. Along with other Sarah Lawrence alumni, he experimented with computer animation and was contracted to develop pre-production animation for Shrek (2001).
Abrams worked on the screenplay for Armageddon (1998) and co-created (as well as composing the opening theme of) Felicity (1998), which ran for four seasons. He founded the production company Bad Robot in 2001 with Bryan Burk. He created and executive-produced Alias (2001) and Lost (2004), composing the theme music for both, and co-writing episodes of "Lost". He also co-wrote and produced thriller Joy Ride (2001). He made his feature directing debut with Mission: Impossible III (2006), reinvigorating the series. He produced the hit mystery film Cloverfield (2008) and co-created Fringe (2008).
He directed the Star Trek (2009) reboot, proving successful with fans and newcomers to the franchise. He next directed Super 8 (2011), co-produced by Steven Spielberg and produced Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011). He returned to direct the follow-up to his reboot, Star Trek Into Darkness (2013). Disney and Lucasfilm announced J.J. as their choice for director of the first episode in the new 'Star Wars' trilogy, Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015). He initially resisted, as he didn't want to travel away from his family to London, but Kathleen Kennedy convinced him that his voice would be the best to reinvigorate this franchise, as he had done with two others before. He also produced Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) and Star Trek Beyond (2016), and executive-produced Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017). When it was announced that Colin Trevorrow would no longer direct Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019), it was announced that J.J. would return to complete the trilogy he started.*- Writer
- Producer
- Director
A graduate of New York's Columbia School of Journalism, Irwin Allen was a magazine editor, the producer/director of a radio show and the owner of an advertising agency before entering film production in the 1950s. His documentary, The Sea Around Us (1953), won an Academy Award. A successful TV series producer (The Time Tunnel (1966), Lost in Space (1965)), Allen was nicknamed "The Master of Disaster" in the 1970s due to the tremendous success of his two special effects-laden epics, The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974).- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Robert Altman was born on February 20th, 1925 in Kansas City, Missouri, to B.C. (an insurance salesman) and Helen Altman. He entered St. Peters Catholic school at the age six, and spent a short time at a Catholic high school. From there, he went to Rockhurst High School. It was then that he started exploring the art of exploring sound with the cheap tape recorders available at the time. He was then sent to Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington, Missouri where he attended through Junior College. In 1945, he enlisted in the US Army Air Forces and became a copilot of a B-24. After his discharge from the military, he became fascinated by movies and he and his first wife, LaVonne Elmer, moved to Hollywood, where Altman tried acting (appearing in the film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947)), songwriting (he wrote a musical intended for Broadway, "The Rumors are Flying"), and screen-writing (he co-wrote the screenplay for the film Bodyguard (1948) and wrote the story (uncredited) for Christmas Eve (1947)), but he could not get a foot hold in Tinseltown. After a brief fling as publicity director with a company in the business of tattooing dogs, Altman finally gave up and returned to his hometown of Kansas City, where he decided he wanted to do some serious work in filmmaking. An old friend of his recommended him to a film production company in Kansas City, the Calvin Co., who hired him in 1950. After a few months of work in writing scripts and editing films, Altman began directing films at Calvin. It was here (while working on documentaries, employee training films, industrial and educational films and advertisements) that he learned much about film making. All in all, Altman pieced together sixty to sixty-five short films for Calvin on every subject imaginable, from football to car crashes, but he kept grasping for more challenging projects. He wrote the screenplay for the Kansas City-produced feature film Corn's-A-Poppin' (1955), he produced and directed several television commercials including one with the Eileen Ford Agency, he co-created and directed the TV series The Pulse of the City (1953) which ran for one season on the independent Dumont network, and he even had a formative crack at directing local community theater. His big-screen directorial debut came while still at Calvin with The Delinquents (1957) and, by 1956, he left the Calvin Co., and went to Hollywood to direct Alfred Hitchcock's TV show. From here, he went on to direct a large number of television shows, until he was offered the script for M*A*S*H (1970) in 1969. He was hardly the producer's first choice - more than fifteen other directors had already turned it down. This wasn't his first movie, but it was his first success. After that, he had his share of hits and misses, but The Player (1992) and, more recently, Gosford Park (2001) were particularly well-received.*- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Gerry Anderson was born on 14 April 1929 in West Hampstead, London, England, UK. He was a writer and producer, known for Joe 90 (1968), Invasion: UFO (1974) and UFO (1970). He was married to Mary Robins, Sylvia Anderson and Betty Wrightman. He died on 26 December 2012 in Henley-on-Thames, England, UK.- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Actor
London-born Michael Anderson began his career in films as an office boy at Elstree studios. By 1938, he had progressed up the ladder to become assistant director for distinguished film makers Noël Coward, David Lean and Anthony Asquith. Shortly after, during wartime with the Royal Signals Corps (Army Kinematograph Service), Anderson made the acquaintance of Peter Ustinov. Upon demobilisation, the 24-year old up-and-coming director secured the release from the military of his 'favourite corporal' and mentor to work as first assistant on Secret Flight (1946) and Vice Versa (1948). For Ustinov's third venture, Private Angelo (1949), Anderson both co-directed and co-wrote the screenplay, but the picture that first put him on the map was to be the patriotic wartime drama The Dam Busters (1955), based on true events. Britain's most successful film of 1955, in turn, led to Anderson being hired by Mike Todd to direct the all-star blockbuster Around the World in 80 Days (1956). A hugely popular box-office hit and winner of five Academy Awards, it elevated Anderson into the realm of more ambitious international productions.
His strong visual style -- in no small way complemented by a fruitful and long-standing collaboration with the cinematographer Erwin Hillier -- became ideally suited for suspenseful thrillers and action subjects like Chase a Crooked Shadow (1958), the sub-Hitchcockian psychological whodunnit The Naked Edge (1961) or the underrated maritime drama The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959) (based on a novel by Hammond Innes and originally intended for Alfred Hitchcock who went on to do North by Northwest (1959) instead). Another little gem is the intricately plotted spy thriller The Quiller Memorandum (1966), tautly directed and noteworthy for supremely well captured Berlin exteriors (a familiarity which stemmed from Anderson having spent some of his early childhood in Berlin and Hillier having worked at Ufa in the 20s before collaborating on Fritz Lang's classic thriller M (1931)). According to Hillier, Anderson also had a reputation for being "superb at handling actors". This is reflected in his films which have often featured big name stars like Gary Cooper, Charlton Heston, Laurence Olivier or Alec Guinness.
Moving into science fiction, Anderson made style triumph over content with his (for the time) expensively made dystopian thriller Logan's Run (1976). Though not a big success with critics, the picture won at the box office and helped MGM out of its financial doldrums. Also in this genre, but with less distinction, Anderson directed Millennium (1989) and a miniseries, The Martian Chronicles (1980). A foray into the world of comic strip heroes, Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975), proved to be one of his rare failures. His more recent work of note has included the Gemini Award-winning TV movie Young Catherine (1991), based on the early life of Russia's Catherine the Great. Vanessa Redgrave, who played Empress Elizabeth, was also nominated for a Primetime Emmy in the Supporting Actress category.
In 1957, Anderson received the Silver Medallion for outstanding work from the Screen Director's Guild of America and was in 2012 also honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Directors Guild of Canada. A Canadian resident since the 1970s, Anderson passed away at his home on the Canadian Sunshine Coast in British Columbia on April 25 2018 at the age of 98.*- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Paul W.S. Anderson gained a fair bit of notoriety in his native England when he directed the ultra-violent Shopping (1994) (which he also wrote), starring Jude Law and Sean Pertwee in a story about thieves who steal by ramming a car into storefronts. The film was banned in some cinemas in England, and became a direct-to-video slightly edited release in the United States.
Shopping (1994) allowed Anderson to get the chance to direct Mortal Kombat (1995), an adaptation of the hit video game, which showcased his directorial trademarks - visually stunning scenery and quick-cut editing. The film did well enough for him to choose his next project, which was Soldier (1998) with Warner Bros., with Kurt Russell in the lead. Unfortunately, Russell decided at the time to go on hiatus, pushing the release date of that film into 1998. In the meantime, Anderson directed Event Horizon (1997) from a script by Philip Eisner, which featured Anderson regulars Sean Pertwee and Jason Isaacs. The science fiction/horror film, a Gothic horror version of Solaris (1972), was stylish and scary, but was critically panned and did not do well in the box office, which Anderson blamed on studio-enforced cuts to the story. (Anderson has promised a Director's Cut, though none has been announced as of yet).
Soldier (1998) didn't fare well with critics and box office either, and Anderson's planned 2000 remake of Death Race 2000 (1975) was canceled. This forced him to think smaller, which led to The Sight (2000), a supernatural mystery movie that was a minor hit. He then resurfaced to direct another video game adaption, Resident Evil (2002). Long rumored among fans to be a choice comeback vehicle for zombie grandfather George A. Romero, the writing and directing credits eventually transferred to Anderson. He next was given the helm for the long-awaited film adaption of the popular Dark Horse comic book, Alien vs. Predator (2004).*- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Jack Arnold reigns supreme as one of the great directors of 1950s science-fiction features. His films are distinguished by moody black and white cinematography, solid acting, smart, thoughtful scripts, snappy pacing, a genuine heartfelt enthusiasm for the genre and plenty of eerie atmosphere.
Arnold was born on October 14, 1912, in New Haven, Connecticut. He began his show business career as an actor in both on- and off-Broadway stage productions in the late 1930s and early 1940s; among the plays he appeared in are "The Time of Your Life," "Juke Box Jenny," "Blind Alibi," "China Passage," and "We're on the Jury." Arnold served in the US Army in the Signal Corps during World War II. He apprenticed under famous documentary filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty. Following his tour of duty Jack started making short films and documentaries. One short, With These Hands (1950), was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Documentary Feature. Arnold made his theatrical movie debut with the B picture Girls in the Night (1953). He then did his first foray into the science-fiction genre: the supremely spooky It Came from Outer Space (1953). Jack achieved his greatest enduring cult popularity with Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), a scary yet poetic reworking of "Beauty and the Beast". Revenge of the Creature (1955) was a worthy sequel. Tarantula (1955) was likewise a lot of fun. The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) rates highly as Arnold's crowning cinematic achievement; it's an intelligent and entertaining classic that's lost none of its potency throughout the years.
Arnold's final two genre entries were the enjoyable Monster on the Campus (1958) and the offbeat The Space Children (1958). His other movies are a pretty varied and interesting bunch, including the hugely successful The Mouse That Roared (1959) (which helped to establish Peter Sellers as an international star), the teen exploitation gem High School Confidential! (1958), the superior Audie Murphy western No Name on the Bullet (1959), the goofy comedy Hello Down There (1969) and the silly softcore romp The Bunny Caper (1974).
In addition to his film work, Arnold also directed episodes of such TV shows as Science Fiction Theatre (1955), Peter Gunn (1958), Perry Mason (1957), Rawhide (1959), Gilligan's Island (1964), Mod Squad (1968), Wonder Woman (1975), The Love Boat (1977), The Bionic Woman (1976) and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979).
The father of producer/casting director Susan Arnold, Jack Arnold died at age 79 on March 17, 1992.- Producer
- Writer
- Director
Darren Aronofsky was born February 12, 1969, in Brooklyn, New York. Growing up, Darren was always artistic: he loved classic movies and, as a teenager, he even spent time doing graffiti art. After high school, Darren went to Harvard University to study film (both live-action and animation). He won several film awards after completing his senior thesis film, "Supermarket Sweep", starring Sean Gullette, which went on to becoming a National Student Academy Award finalist. Aronofsky didn't make a feature film until five years later, in February 1996, where he began creating the concept for Pi (1998). After Darren's script for Pi (1998) received great reactions from friends, he began production. The film re-teamed Aronofsky with Gullette, who played the lead. This went on to further successes, such as Requiem for a Dream (2000), The Wrestler (2008) and Black Swan (2010). Most recently, he completed the films Noah (2014) and Mother! (2017).*- Director
- Producer
- Actor
English-born "Army brat" John Badham is the son of English actress Mary Hewitt and the stepson of an American Army general. Raised in Alabama and schooled at Yale, he cut his teeth producing and directing for TV before making his feature debut with The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (1976). Badham's breakthrough credit was the box office smash Saturday Night Fever (1977), made the following year; other hits on his resume include Blue Thunder (1983), WarGames (1983), and Short Circuit (1986).*- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Charles Band is a writer, producer, director and publisher. He was born on December 27, 1951 in Los Angeles, California, as Charles Robert Band. His father was producer and director Albert Band and his brother is composer Richard Band.
Band has been writing, producing and directing films in the horror, science fiction, fantasy and comedy genres since the 1970s both for other company's and with his own studios, Empire Pictures and Full Moon Features. He was instrumental in ushering in the home video boom of the early 1980s with his companies Meda (later renamed Media Home Entertainment) and Wizard Video, the latter imprint which was responsible for being among the first entities to distribute European horror movies from such now celebrated filmmakers as Jess Franco and Lucio Fulci.
Band is perhaps best known for his work with Empire Pictures, making such pictures as Ghoulies, The Dungeonmaster, Terrorvision, Re-Animator and From Beyond and later, with Full Moon Features making films like Puppetmaster, Doctor Mordrid, Subspecies, Pit and the Pendulum, Castle Freak and many more.
Despite the changes in the home video and theatrical film marketplaces, Band has never stopped making and distributing movies. Many of his classic Full Moon pictures can be found on his Full Moon Streaming channel and now on the Full Moon Amazon channel. Band also distributes hundreds of his own and other filmmakers movies on DVD and Blu-ray via Full Moon Direct, along with a myriad toys and related Full Moon universe merchandise.
Recent Full Moon Features productions include Evil Bong High 5, Trophy Heads, Killjoy's Psycho Circus, Ravenwolf Towers and Puppetmaster: Axis Termination.*- Producer
- Director
- Actor
A graduate of Wesleyan University, Michael Bay spent his 20s working on advertisements and music videos. His first projects after film school were in the music video business. He created music videos for Tina Turner, Meat Loaf, Lionel Richie, Wilson Phillips, Donny Osmond and Divinyls. His work won him recognition and a number of MTV award nominations. He also filmed advertisements for Nike, Reebok, Coca-Cola, Budweiser and Miller Lite. He won the Grand Prix Clio for Commercial of the Year for his "Got Milk/Aaron Burr" commercial. At Cannes, he has won the Gold Lion for The Best Beer campaign for Miller Lite, as well as the Silver for "Got Milk". In 1995, Bay was honored by the Directors Guild of America as Commercial Director of the Year. That same year, he also directed his first feature film, Bad Boys (1995), starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, which grossed more than $160 million, worldwide. His follow-up film, The Rock (1996), starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage, was also hugely successful, making Bay the director du jour.*- Writer
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Charles Beaumont was the pseudonym for Charles Leroy Nutt, born on Chicago's North Side on January 2 1929. He also occasionally wrote under the names Charles McNutt and E.T. Beaumont (the latter apparently based on the name of a Texas town). Tragically short-lived, Beaumont was a dynamic and imaginative author and screenwriter of macabre, cautionary tales -- frequently tinged with black humour -- blending the genres of science-fiction, fantasy and horror. With the sole exception of Rod Serling, he was the single most important creative force in the early years of The Twilight Zone (1959), responsible for many classic episodes, including "Perchance to Dream" (adapted from his original story, first published in 'Playboy' magazine in November 1958), "Printer's Devil" (from "The Devil, You Say?", his very first story, published in 'Amazing Stories', January 1951), "The Jungle" ('If' magazine, December 1954) and "In His Image" (one of the stories from his collection "Yonder", published in 1958). Much of Beaumont's early work was published in an anthology entitled "The Hunger and Other Stories", by Putnam in 1957. He also scripted or co-scripted several movies, including Roger Corman's The Premature Burial (1962), The Haunted Palace (1963) (Beaumont only took the title from the poem by Edgar Allan Poe, adapting the actual story from H.P. Lovecraft's novel "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward") and The Masque of the Red Death (1964). He also wrote an earlier script for Queen of Outer Space (1958) as a spoof, later ruefully commenting, that neither the director nor the cast seemed to have noticed that fact.
Beaumont had an extremely troubled childhood, which he later referred to as "one big Charles Addams cartoon". His mentally unstable mother at one time dressed him in girl's clothes and killed one of his pets as a form of punishment (this later inspired his short story "Miss Gentillbelle"). He was eventually farmed out to the care of five widowed aunts, who operated a boarding house and regaled young Charles with nightly tales, detailing the peculiar demise of each of their husbands. Somehow, perhaps unsurprisingly, young Charles developed his macabre sense of humour.
He first became interested in science fiction in his teens. He found school entirely boring, dropping out in the tenth grade. Then came a brief stint in the U.S. Army, but he was discharged after just three months for medical reasons (back problems). With little success, he tried his hand at acting, then sold illustrations to pulp magazines, worked as a railroad clerk in Mobile, Alabama; as an animator at MGM, even as a dishwasher. By the time he was twenty, he wrote prolifically, but remained unable to sell any of his first seventy-two stories, until the science-fiction magazine 'Amazing Stories' showed interest in "The Devil, You Say?", which was eventually published in early 1951. By the end of the decade, he had successfully segued into writing for films and television.
In 1964, at the height of his creative abilities, Beaumont was struck down by a savage illness (a combination of Pick's disease and early-onset Alzheimer's) which sadly claimed his life three years later at the age of thirty-eight.- Producer
- Writer
- Actor
Harve Bennett was born on 17 August 1930 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was a producer and writer, known for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982). He was married to Carole Patricia Oettinger and Jani. He died on 25 February 2015 in Medford, Oregon, USA.*- Writer
- Composer
Jerome Bixby was born on 11 January 1923 in Los Angeles County, California, USA. He was a writer and composer, known for The Man from Earth (2007), Star Trek (1966) and Fantastic Voyage (1966). He died on 28 April 1998 in San Bernardino, California, USA.- Additional Crew
- Actor
- Special Effects
Sketch artist, fine arts painter, sculptor and monster maker Paul Blaisdell was born July 21, 1927, in Newport, Rhode Island, and grew up in Quincy, Massachussetts. He sketched alien monsters and constructed model airplane kits in his childhood days. Following graduation from high school, Paul briefly worked as a typewriter repairman and served a hitch in the military. Using the G.I. Bill, he attended the New England School of Art and Design, where he met his future wife, Jacqueline "Jackie" Boyle. Paul and Jackie got married in 1952 after finishing college and moved to Topanga Canyon in Los Angeles, California. Blaisdell worked as a technical illustrator for Douglas Aircraft and submitted his illustrations to such publications as "Spaceways" and "Otherworlds." Legendary magazine publisher 'Forrest J. Ackerman' was so impressed with Paul's work that he became his agent. It was through Ackerman that Blaisdell got his first film job designing the alien creature for Roger Corman's low-budget sci-fi outing The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955). Paul went on to handle the special effects on and/or design monsters for such low-budget American-International Pictures drive-in fare as Not of This Earth (1957), Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957) and The Spider (1958).
Best known for his strikingly original and imaginative creature designs, Blaisdell's most memorable monsters are the grotesquely malformed mutant in Day the World Ended (1955), the infamous cucumber creature in It Conquered the World (1956), Tabanga the tree monster in From Hell It Came (1957) and the titular distaff beast in The She-Creature (1956). In addition to designing these creatures, he also often played them as well.
Blaisdell became increasingly disenchanted with the film business, however, and quit making contributions to movies in the late 1950s. In the early 1960s he and fellow hardcore horror cinema fan Bob Burns launched the magazine "Fantastic Monsters of the Films," a sadly short-lived publication that featured a how-to section by Paul called "The Devil's Workshop." He also, in the early 1960s, did conceptual artwork on several movies which never got made. Eventually Paul left the business altogether and eked out a modest living as a carpenter.
Paul died of stomach cancer at the tragically young age of 55 on July 10, 1983 in Topanga Canyon, California.*- Director
- Writer
- Visual Effects
Neill Blomkamp is a South African-Canadian film director and screenwriter who is known for the science fiction films District 9, Elysium and Chappie. He also directed the supernatural horror film Demonic and the 2007 short film Halo: Landfall, based on the Microsoft science fiction video game franchise. He had a child from his wife Terri Tatchell.*- Producer
- Director
- Writer
John Boorman attended Catholic school (Salesian Order) although his family was not, in fact, Roman Catholic. His first job was for a dry-cleaner. Later, he worked as a critic for a women's journal and for a radio station until he entered the television business, working for the BBC in Bristol. There, he started as assistant but worked later as director on documentaries, such as The Newcomers (1964). His friendship with Lee Marvin allowed him to work in Hollywood (e.g. Point Blank (1967) and Hell in the Pacific (1968)) from where he returned to the UK (e.g. Leo the Last (1970), Zardoz (1974) or Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)). He became famous for Excalibur (1981), The Emerald Forest (1985) and his autobiographic story Hope and Glory (1987) where he tells his own experiences as a child after World War II and which brought him another Academy Award Nomination after Deliverance (1972).- Writer
- Producer
- Actor
Ray Bradbury was an American science fiction writer whose works were translated in more than 40 languages and sold millions of copies around the world. Although he created a world of new technical and intellectual ideas, he never obtained a driver's license and had never driven an automobile.
He was born Ray Douglas Bradbury on August 22, 1920, in Waukegan, Illinois. He was the third son in the family. His father, Leonard Spaulding Bradbury, was a telephone lineman and technician. His mother, Esther Marie Bradbury (nee Moberg), was a Swedish immigrant. His grandfather and great-grandfather were newspaper publishers. In 1934, his family settled in Los Angeles, California. There, young Bradbury often roller-skated through Hollywood, trying to spot celebrities. He attended Los Angeles High School, where he was involved in the drama club and planned to become an actor. He graduated from high school in 1938 and had no more formal education. Instead, he learned from reading works of such writers as Lev Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky, among others.
From 1938-1942, he was selling newspapers on the streets of Los Angeles, spending days in the local library and nights at the typewriter. At that time, he published his stories in fanzines. In 1941, he became a paid writer when the pulp magazine Science Stories published his short story, titled "Pendulum", and he was a full-time writer by the end of 1942. His first book - "Dark Carnival" - was a collection of stories published in 1947. That same year, he married Marguerite McClure (1922-2003), whom he met at a bookstore a year earlier. Maggie, as she was affectionately called, was the only woman Bradbury ever dated. They had four daughters and, eventually, eight grandchildren.
Ray Bradbury shot to international fame after publication of "The Martian Chronicles" (1950), a collection of short stories partially based on ideas from ancient Greek and Roman mythology. Then he followed the anti-Utopian writers Yevgeni Zamyatin and Aldous Huxley in his best-known work, "Fahrenheit 451" (1953). The film adaptation (Fahrenheit 451 (1966)) by director François Truffaut, starring Julie Christie, received several nominations. However, Bradbury was not happy with the television adaptation (The Martian Chronicles (1980), starring Rock Hudson) of his story "The Martian Chronicles". His other novels and stories also have been adapted to films and television, as well as for radio, theatre and comic books. Bradbury had written episodes for Alfred Hitchcock's television series, as well as for many other television productions. His total literary output is close to 600 short stories, more than 30 books and numerous poems and plays. He was writing daily.
In 2004, Bradbury received a National Medal of Arts. He was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6644 Hollywood Boulevard. An asteroid was named in his honor, "9766 Bradbury", and the Apollo 15 astronauts named an impact crater on the moon "Dandelion Crater", after his novel, "Dandelion Wine". He also received the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Grand Master Award from Science Fiction Writers of America, an Emmy Award for his work as a writer on "The Halloween Tree", and many other awards and honors. Ray Bradbury died on June 6, 2012, at the age of 91, in Los Angeles, California.- Writer
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Alan Brennert was born on 30 May 1954 in Englewood, New Jersey, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for L.A. Law (1986), The Twilight Zone (1985) and Darkroom (1981).*- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Mel Brooks was born Melvin Kaminsky on June 28, 1926 in Brooklyn, New York. He served in WWII, and afterwards got a job playing the drums at nightclubs in the Catskills. Brooks eventually started a comedy act and also worked in radio and as Master Entertainer at Grossinger's Resort before going to television.
He was a writer for, Your Show of Shows (1950) Caesar's Hour (1954) and wrote the Broadway show Shinbone Alley. He also worked in the creation of The 2000 Year Old Man (1975) and Get Smart (1965) before embarking on a highly successful film career in writing, acting, producing and directing.
Brooks is famous for the spoofs of different film genres that he made such as Blazing Saddles (1974), History of the World: Part I (1981), Silent Movie (1976), Young Frankenstein (1974), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), High Anxiety (1977), Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995), and Spaceballs (1987).*- Producer
- Additional Crew
- Director
Timothy Walter Burton was born in Burbank, California, to Jean Rae (Erickson), who owned a cat-themed gift shop, and William Reed Burton, who worked for the Burbank Park and Recreation Department. He spent most of his childhood as a recluse, drawing cartoons, and watching old movies (he was especially fond of films with Vincent Price). When he was in the ninth grade, his artistic talent was recognized by a local garbage company, when he won a prize for an anti-litter poster he designed. The company placed this poster on all of their garbage trucks for a year. After graduating from high school, he attended California Institute of the Arts. Like so many others who graduated from that school, Burton's first job was as an animator for Disney.
His early film career was fueled by almost unbelievable good luck, but it's his talent and originality that have kept him at the top of the Hollywood tree. He worked on such films as The Fox and the Hound (1981) and The Black Cauldron (1985), but had some creative differences with his colleagues. Nevertheless, Disney recognized his talent, and gave him the green light to make Vincent (1982), an animated short about a boy who wanted to be just like Vincent Price. Narrated by Price himself, the short was a critical success and won several awards. Burton made a few other short films, including his first live-action film, Frankenweenie (1984). A half-hour long twist on the tale of Frankenstein, it was deemed inappropriate for children and wasn't released. But actor Paul Reubens (aka Pee-Wee Herman) saw Frankenweenie (1984), and believed that Burton would be the right man to direct him in his first full-length feature film, Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985). The film was a surprise success, and Burton instantly became popular. However, many of the scripts that were offered to him after this were essentially just spin-offs of the film, and Burton wanted to do something new.
For three years, he made no more films, until he was presented with the script for Beetlejuice (1988). The script was wild and wasn't really about anything, but was filled with such artistic and quirky opportunities, Burton couldn't say no. Beetlejuice (1988) was another big hit, and Burton's name in Hollywood was solidified. It was also his first film with actor Michael Keaton. Warner Bros. then entrusted him with Batman (1989), a film based on the immensely popular comic book series of the same name. Starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson, the film was the most financially successful film of the year and Burton's biggest box-office hit to date. Due to the fantastic success of his first three films, he was given the green light to make his next film, any kind of film he wanted. That film was Edward Scissorhands (1990), one of his most emotional, esteemed and artistic films to date. Edward Scissorhands (1990) was also Burton's first film with actor Johnny Depp. Burton's next film was Batman Returns (1992), and was darker and quirkier than the first one, and, while by no means a financial flop, many people felt somewhat disappointed by it. While working on Batman Returns (1992), he also produced the popular The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), directed by former fellow Disney Animator Henry Selick. Burton reunited with Johnny Depp on the film Ed Wood (1994), a film showered with critical acclaim, Martin Landau won an academy award for his performance in it, and it is very popular now, but flopped during its initial release. Burton's subsequent film, Mars Attacks! (1996), had much more vibrant colors than his other films. Despite being directed by Burton and featuring all-star actors including Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Pierce Brosnan and Michael J. Fox, it received mediocre reviews and wasn't immensely popular at the box office, either.
Burton returned to his darker and more artistic form with the film Sleepy Hollow (1999), starring Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci and Casper Van Dien. The film was praised for its art direction and was financially successful, redeeming Burton of the disappointment many had felt by Mars Attacks! (1996). His next film was Planet of the Apes (2001), a remake of the classic of the same name. The film was panned by many critics but was still financially successful. While on the set of Planet of the Apes (2001), Burton met Helena Bonham Carter, with whom he has two children. Burton directed the film Big Fish (2003) - a much more conventional film than most of his others, it received a good deal of critical praise, although it disappointed some of his long-time fans who preferred the quirkiness of his other, earlier films. Despite the fluctuations in his career, Burton proved himself to be one of the most popular directors of the late 20th century. He directed Johnny Depp once again in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), a film as quirky anything he's ever done.*- Writer
- Producer
- Director
James Francis Cameron was born on August 16, 1954 in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada. He moved to the United States in 1971. The son of an engineer, he majored in physics at California State University before switching to English, and eventually dropping out. He then drove a truck to support his screenwriting ambition. He landed his first professional film job as art director, miniature-set builder, and process-projection supervisor on Roger Corman's Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) and had his first experience as a director with a two week stint on Piranha II: The Spawning (1982) before being fired.
He then wrote and directed The Terminator (1984), a futuristic action-thriller starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton. It was a low budget independent film, but Cameron's superb, dynamic direction made it a surprise mainstream success and it is now regarded as one of the most iconic pictures of the 1980s. After this came a string of successful, bigger budget science-fiction action films such as Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). In 1990, Cameron formed his own production company, Lightstorm Entertainment. In 1997, he wrote and directed Titanic (1997), a romance epic about two young lovers from different social classes who meet on board the famous ship. The movie went on to break all box office records and earned eleven Academy Awards. It became the highest grossing movie of all time until 12 years later, Avatar (2009), which invented and pioneered 3D film technology, and it went on to beat "Titanic", and became the first film to cost two billion dollars until 2019 when Marvel took the record.
James Cameron is now one of the most sought-after directors in Hollywood. He was formerly married to producer Gale Anne Hurd, who produced several of his films. In 2000, he married actress Suzy Amis, who appeared in Titanic, and they have three children.*- Music Department
- Writer
- Composer
John Howard Carpenter was born in Carthage, New York, to mother Milton Jean (Carter) and father Howard Ralph Carpenter. His family moved to Bowling Green, Kentucky, where his father, a professor, was head of the music department at Western Kentucky University. He attended Western Kentucky University and then USC film school in Los Angeles. He began making short films in 1962, and won an Academy Award for Best Live-Action Short Subject in 1970, for The Resurrection of Broncho Billy (1970), which he made while at USC. Carpenter formed a band in the mid-1970s called The Coupe de Villes, which included future directors Tommy Lee Wallace and Nick Castle. Since the 1970s, he has had numerous roles in the film industry including writer, actor, composer, producer, and director. After directing Dark Star (1974), he has helmed both classic horror films like Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), and The Thing (1982), and noted sci-fi tales like Escape from New York (1981) and Starman (1984).*- Composer
- Actor
- Producer
Writer-director Shane Carruth, a former software engineer, burst onto the independent movie scene with his extremely low-budget science-fiction film Primer (2004) in 2004. Carruth also played one of the two leads in the film and composed its music. "Primer" won the Grand Jury Prize and the Alfred P. Sloan Award at the Sundance Film Festival.
Born in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in 1972, Carruth studied mathematics in college and became a flight simulation software developer before making his first movie. Carruth then spent the next eight years developing "A Topiary", another science-fiction film. The movie was never made and Carruth said that "I basically wasted my whole life on" the project.
Carruth finally made a second film, Upstream Color (2013), which was released in 2013 after debuting at the Sundance Film Festival. He is working on his third film, "The Modern Ocean".*- Make-Up Department
- Actor
- Art Department
John Chambers worked out of his home in a blue collar neighborhood in Burbank, California, just a few short blocks from Disney Studios, (actually, his garage transformed into a makeup lab) where the likes of Lana Turner could be found sitting for a set of teeth, Howard Keel getting a fitting for an Indianesque nose, Leonard Nimoy acquiring the trademark pointed ears for his inimical character Mr. Spock. Marlon Brando, Mickey Rooney and Lee Marvin (who wore one of Chamber's nose jobs in Marvin's 1965 Academy Award-winning "Cat Ballou" role) were also known to have visited his garage for fittings of one thing or another.
Indeed, Chambers was the special effects master, stamping (and molding) his influence with his work in such movies and television series as: Planet of the Apes (1968), The List of Adrian Messenger (1963), The Outer Limits (1963), The Munsters (1964), Lost in Space (1965) and Mission: Impossible (1966).
Though he developed many of his makeup innovations in the 1950s and 1960s, they are still in use today. His custom design skull caps, for instance, are a standard in the business. It is perhaps with Planet of the Apes (1968) that Chambers experienced one of his greatest challenges. His preparation and research for the movie included so much time spent making notes and drawings of monkeys at the Los Angeles Zoo, that he became something of a zoo fixture and a drawer himself. In fact, visitors to the zoo, began watching him as much as they watched the monkeys!
For his efforts, before the Motion Picture Academy decided in 1981 to designate a category for a makeup award, Chambers received an honorary Academy Award at the 1969 Oscars ceremony. Through his career, Chambers has received many other honors, most notably an Emmy Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Not unlike many a professional, he began his career in the United States Army during World War II, where he served as a dental technician. It was in this capacity that he found himself working with the scars of war - actually, working against the scars of war - and gaining a great deal of knowledge of repairing more than teeth: entire faces.
His experience with creating new ears, noses, and chins, as well as teeth, for veterans ravaged by war, landed Chambers at NBC in 1953 with a job in makeup. His wartime experiences also influenced Chambers to use his skills to help indigent cancer victims acquire prosthetics against the ravages of another kind of war. Few knew of his charitable work, but few who knew him would be surprised by it.
Through his life he took many artists under his wing, giving guidance and training to the like of Michael Westmore, Maurice Stein, Thomas R. Burman, Michael McCracken, David Dittmar, and other accomplished makeup artists, asking only in return that they (to borrow from a recent movie) "pay it forward". Retired since 1982, John Chambers died of diabetes at a hospital in Woodland Hills, California on August 25, 2001.*- Additional Crew
- Art Department
- Production Designer
Artist, writer, film conceptual designer, and cartoonist Ron Cobb was born in 1937 in Los Angeles, California. Cobb began his career in the mid-1950's as an inbetweener/breakdown artist on the classic Walt Disney animated feature "Sleeping Beauty." Ron was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1960 and served in the Signal Corps during the Vietnam war in 1963. Following his tour of duty Cobb became a political cartoonist for the L.A. Free Press, which lasted from 1965 to 1970. He designed the cover for the Jefferson Airplane album "After Bathing at Baxter's." In 1969 Ron designed the international symbol for Ecology. In 1972 he moved to Sydney, Australia. Cobb's first film assignment was designing the spaceship exterior for John Carpenter's science fiction cult comedy "Dark Star." Ron was the production designer on the movies "Conan the Barbarian" (Cobb also has an uncredited bit part in this particular picture), "The Last Starfighter," and "Leviathan." Among the films Cobb made conceptual contributions to are "Star Wars," "Alien," "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind: The Special Edition," "Back to the Future," "Real Genius," "Aliens," "The Abyss," "Total Recall," "True Lies," "Space Truckers," "The Sixth Day," "Titan A.E.," and "Southland Tales."
Moreover, Ron designed the opening credits sequence for the anthology TV series "Amazing Stories" and wrote the "Shelter Skelter" episode of the mid-1980's revival of "The Twilight Zone." In addition, Cobb originated the story for "Night Skies," a darker earlier version of "E.T." which alas never got made. He directed the comedy "Garbo" in 1990. Outside of his film and television work, Ron did designs and wrote scenarios for several video games. His illustrations were published in the books "RCD-25," "Mah Fellow Americans," "Raw Sewage," "The Cobb Book," "Cobb Again," and "Colorvision." Cobb lived in Sydney, Australia with his wife Robin Love and son Nicky. He died at age 83 from lewy body dementia on September 21, 2020.*- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Larry Cohen was born July 15, 1936, in New York, New York, and spent time in Kingston, a small town north of New York City. At a young age, his family moved to the Riverdale section of the Bronx, and he eventually majored in film at the historic City College of New York, from which he graduated in 1963. An independent maverick who got his start in studio-based television, he is best known for inventive low-budget horror films that combine scathing social commentary with the requisite scares and occasional laughs. He was also a major player in the Blaxploitation films of the 1970s. Later in his career, he became a sought-after screenplay writer. Although not very prolific in his screen writing, these works still combine provocative social commentary--but with more conventional storytelling. Sadly, Cohen died of cancer on March 23, 2019.*- Producer
- Director
- Actor
Roger William Corman was born April 5, 1926, in Detroit, Michigan. Initially following in his father's footsteps, Corman studied engineering at Stanford University, but, while in school, he began to lose interest in the profession and developed a growing passion for film. Upon graduation, he worked a total of three days as an engineer at US Electrical Motors, which cemented his growing realization that engineering wasn't for him. He quit and took a job as a messenger for 20th Century Fox, eventually rising to the position of story analyst.
After a term spent studying modern English literature at England's Oxford University and a year spent bopping around Europe, Corman returned to the US, intent on becoming a screenwriter/producer. He sold his first script in 1953, "The House in the Sea," which was eventually filmed and released as Highway Dragnet (1954).
Horrified by the disconnect between his vision for the project and the film that eventually emerged, Corman took his salary from the picture, scraped together a little capital and set himself up as a producer, turning out Monster from the Ocean Floor (1954). Corman used his next picture, The Fast and the Furious (1954), to finagle a multi-picture deal with a fledgling company called American Releasing Corp. (ARC). It would soon change its name to American-International Pictures (AIP) and with Corman as its major talent behind the camera, would become one of the most successful independent studios in cinema history.
With no formal training, Corman first took to the director's chair with Five Guns West (1955) and over the next 15 years directed 53 films, mostly for AIP. He proved himself a master of quick, inexpensive productions, turning out several movies as director and/or producer in each of those years--nine movies in 1957, and nine again in 1958. His personal speed record was set with The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), which he shot in two days and a night.
In the early 1960s, he began to take on more ambitious projects, gaining a great deal of critical praise (and commercial success) from a series of adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories, most of them starring Vincent Price. His film The Intruder (1962) was a serious look at racial integration in the South, starring a very young William Shatner. Critically praised and winning a prize at the Venice Film Festival, the movie became Corman's first--and, for many years, only--commercial flop. He called its failure "the greatest disappointment in my career." As a consequence of the experience, Corman opted to avoid such direct "message" films in the future and resolved to express his social and political concerns beneath the surface of overt entertainments.
Those messages became more radical as the 1960s wound to a close and after AIP began re-editing his films without his knowledge or consent, he left the company, retiring from directing to concentrate on production and distribution through his own newly formed company, New World Pictures. In addition to low-budget exploitation flicks, New World also distributed distinguished art cinema from around the world, becoming the American distributor for the films of Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Federico Fellini, François Truffaut and others. Selling off New World in the 1980s, Corman has continued his work through various companies in the years since--Concorde Pictures, New Horizons, Millenium Pictures, New Concorde. In 1990, after the publication of his biography "How I Made A Hundred Movies in Hollywood And Never Lost A Dime"--one of the all-time great books on filmmaking--he returned to directing but only for a single film, Frankenstein Unbound (1990)
With hundreds of movies to his credit, Roger Corman is one of the most prolific producers in the history of the film medium and one of the most successful--in his nearly six decades in the business, only about a dozen of his films have failed to turn a profit. Corman has been dubbed, among other things, "The King of the Cult Film" and "The Pope of Pop Cinema" and his filmography is packed with hundreds of remarkably entertaining films in addition to dozens of genuine cult classics. Corman has displayed an unrivaled eye for talent over the years--it could almost be said that it would be easier to name the top directors, actors, writers and creators in Hollywood who DIDN'T get their start with him than those who did. Among those he mentored are Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Jack Nicholson, James Cameron, Robert De Niro, Peter Bogdanovich, Joe Dante and Sandra Bullock. His influence on modern American cinema is almost incalculable. In 2009, he was honored with an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Throughout his years in the industry, Alex Cox, an English writer-director, has not only proven his loyalty and integrity to cult cinema, but also his love for it. This all began in 1977, when Cox dropped out of Oxford University to study Radio, Film & TV at Bristol until graduating in 1977. Seeing difficulties in the British film scene at the time, Cox first went to Los Angeles to attend film school at UCLA in 1977. Here he produced his first film, Edge City/Sleep is for Sissies.. The same year, Cox wrote a screenplay for Repo Man, which he hoped to produce for a budget of $70,000, and began seeking funding.
Sometime after, Monkees member Michael Nesmith agreed to produce Repo Man, and convinced Universal Studios to back the project with a budget of over a million dollars. The initial cinema release was limited to Chicago, followed by Los Angeles, and was short-lived. After the success of the soundtrack album, there was enough interest in the film to earn a re-release in a single cinema in New York City, but only after becoming available on video and cable. Nevertheless, it ran for 18 months, and eventually earned $4,000,000.
Continuing his fascination with punk music, Cox's next film was an independent feature shot in London and Los Angeles, following the career and death of bassist Sid Vicious and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen, initially titled Love Kills and later renamed Sid and Nancy. It was met warmly by critics and fans, though heavily criticized by some, including Pistols' frontman John Lydon, for its inaccuracies.
After this, Cox wrote and directed Straight To Hell, a neo-western starring Joe Strummer of The Clash. The film was widely panned critically, but was successful in Japan and retains a cult following.
On his next film, Cox's "Walker" followed the life of William Walker, set against a back drop of anachronisms that drew parallels between the story and modern American intervention in the area. The $6,000,000 production was backed by Universal, but the completed film was too political and too violent for the studio's tastes, and the film went without promotion. When Walker failed to perform at the box office, it ended the director's involvement with Hollywood studios, and led to a period of several years in which Cox would not direct a single film. Despite this, Cox and some critics maintain that it is his best film.
After this, Alex struggled to find work in America, and stopped writing/directing big budget films. Since then, he has written+directed many internationally funded films including Highway Patrolman, Searchers 2.0, Death And The Compass, Repo Chick and the cult classic Three Buisnessmen. Although, In 1998, Cox co-wrote "Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas" with Terry Gilliam, who also directed the film.*- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Michael Crichton was born in Chicago, Illinois, but grew up in Roslyn, New York. His father was a journalist and encouraged him to write and to type. Michael gave up studying English at Harvard University, having become disillusioned with the teaching standards--the final straw came when he submitted an essay by George Orwell that was given a "B-." After giving up English and spending a year in Europe, Michael returned to Boston, Massachusetts, and attended Havard Medical School to train as a doctor. Several times, he was persuaded not to quit the course but did so after qualifying in 1969.
During his medical-student days, he wrote novels secretly mainly under the pseudonym of John Lange in reference to his almost 6ft 9 height. (Lange in German means long) One novel, "A Case of Need," written under the pseudonym Jeffery Hudson, (Sir Jeffrey Hudson was a famous 17th century dwarf) contained references to people at Harvard Medical School, but he couldn't hide his identity when the novel won an award that had to be collected in person. After giving up medicine, Michael moved to Hollywood, California, in the early 1970s and began directing movies based on his books, his first big break being Westworld (1973).- Actor
- Director
- Writer
David Cronenberg, also known as the King of Venereal Horror or the Baron of Blood, was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1943. His father, Milton Cronenberg, was a journalist and editor, and his mother, Esther (Sumberg), was a piano player. After showing an inclination for literature at an early age (he wrote and published eerie short stories, thus following his father's path) and for music (playing classical guitar until he was 12), Cronenberg graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in Literature after switching from the science department. He reached the cult status of horror-meister with the gore-filled, modern-vampire variations of Shivers (1975) and Rabid (1977), following an experimental apprenticeship in independent film-making and in Canadian television programs.
Cronenberg gained popularity with the head-exploding, telepathy-based Scanners (1981) after the release of the much underrated, controversial, and autobiographical The Brood (1979). Cronenberg become a sort of a mass media guru with Videodrome (1983), a shocking investigation of the hazards of reality-morphing television and a prophetic critique of contemporary aesthetics. The issues of tech-induced mutation of the human body and topics of the prominent dichotomy between body and mind were back again in The Dead Zone (1983) and The Fly (1986), both bright examples of a personal film-making identity, even if both films are based on mass-entertainment materials: the first being a rendition of a Stephen King best-seller, the latter a remake of a famous American horror movie.
With Dead Ringers (1988) and Naked Lunch (1991), the Canadian director, no more a mere genre movie-maker but a fully realized auteur, got the acclaim of international critics. Such profound statements on modern humanity and ever-changing society are prominent in the provocative Crash (1996) and in the virtual reality essay of eXistenZ (1999), both of which well fared at the Cannes and Berlin Film Festivals. In the last two film projects Spider (2002) and A History of Violence (2005), Cronenberg avoids expressing his teratologic and oneiric expressionism in favor of a more psychological exploration of human contradictions and idiosyncrasies.*- Director
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Joe Dante is a graduate of the Philadelphia College of Art. After a stint as a film reviewer, he began his filmmaking apprenticeship in 1974 as trailer editor for Roger Corman's New World Pictures. He made his directorial debut in 1976 with Hollywood Boulevard (1976) (co-directed with Allan Arkush), a thinly disguised spoof of New World exploitation pictures, shot in ten days for $60,000.
In 1977 Dante made his solo debut as a film director with Piranha (1978), which went on to become one of the company's biggest hits and was distributed throughout the rest of the world by United Artists. During his tenure at New World, Dante edited Ron Howard's directorial debut Grand Theft Auto (1977) and co-wrote the original story for Rock 'n' Roll High School (1979).
For Avco-Embassy Dante next directed the highly praised werewolf thriller The Howling (1981), followed by the It's a Good Life segment of the episodic Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983).
Having worked with Steven Spielberg on Twilight Zone, Dante was chosen to helm one of the first Amblin Productions for Warner Bros. Gremlins (1984) became a runaway hit and grossed more than $200 million worldwide.
Dante followed up with Explorers (1985) for Paramount, a sci-fi fantasy about three kids who build their own spaceship, and then Innerspace (1987) for Guber/Peters, Amblin and Warner Bros., an action comedy in which miniaturized test pilot Dennis Quaid is injected into the body of supermarket clerk Martin Short.
Tom Hanks starred in Dante's next film for Imagine/Universal, The 'Burbs (1989), which was followed by Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) for Warner Bros. in 1990. Matinee (1993) featuring John Goodman as a huckster showman premiering his new horror film during the Cuban Missile Crisis, was a production of Dante and partner Michael Finnell's Renfield Productions for Universal in 1993.
Dreamworks/Universal's Small Soldiers was released in 1998, followed in 2003 by Warner Bros. Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003) featuring one of Dante's favorite actors, Bugs Bunny.
Dante's Homecoming (2005), debuted in December 2005 to rave reviews from critics and audiences alike and was named to numerous "Top 10" critics lists. The Sitges and Brussels International Film Festivals both honored Homecoming with Special Jury Recognition Awards, and the New Yorker called it the best political film of 2005. More recent work includes The Screwfly Solution (2006), and Boo (2007). His new 3D thriller, The Hole (2009), for Bold Films recently premiered at the Venice Film Festival where it garnered the first-ever award for Best 3D Feature.
Dante also produces the critically-acclaimed webisode/mobile phone series, Trailers from Hell.
Along the way Dante contributed several comedy segments to the multi-part Amazon Women on the Moon (1987) spoof produced by John Landis, and directed various episodes of the tv series Amazing Stories (1985), The Twilight Zone (1985), Police Squad! (1982), Night Visions (2001) and Picture Windows (1994). He also directed the network pilots for The Osiris Chronicles (1998) and the NBC series Eerie, Indiana (1991), on which he was creative consultant throughout its run.
Dante received Cable Ace nominations for his direction of Showtime's Runaway Daughters (1994) and HBO's The Second Civil War (1997).*- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Guillermo del Toro was born October 9, 1964 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. Raised by his Catholic grandmother, del Toro developed an interest in filmmaking in his early teens. Later, he learned about makeup and effects from the legendary Dick Smith (The Exorcist (1973)) and worked on making his own short films. At the age of 21, del Toro executive produced his first feature, Dona Herlinda and Her Son (1985). Del Toro spent almost 10 years as a makeup supervisor, and formed his own company, Necropia in the early 1980s. He also produced and directed Mexican television programs at this time, and taught film.
Del Toro got his first big break when Cronos (1992) won nine Ariel Awards (the Mexican equivalent of the Oscars), then went on to win the International Critics Week Prize at Cannes. Following this success, del Toro made his first Hollywood film, Mimic (1997), starring Mira Sorvino.
Del Toro had some unfortunate experiences working with a demanding Hollywood studio on Mimic (1997), and returned to Mexico to form his own production company, The Tequila Gang.
Next for del Toro, was The Devil's Backbone (2001), a Spanish Civil War ghost story. The film was hailed by critics and audiences alike, and del Toro decided to give Hollywood another try. In 2002, he directed the Wesley Snipes vampire sequel, Blade II (2002).
On a roll, Del Toro followed up Blade II (2002) with another successful comic-book inspired film, Hellboy (2004), starring one of Del Toro's favorite actors, Ron Perlman.
Del Toro is divorced, has a daughter and a son and lives in Los Angeles and Toronto.*- Additional Crew
- Writer
- Actor
Author Harlan Ellison was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to Serita (Rosenthal) and Louis Laverne Ellison. He had an older sister, Beverly. Harlan was married five times. He lived in Sherman Oaks at "Ellison Wonderland". He had the same address and phone number for decades, was a teetotaler, and never used drugs.- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Roland Emmerich is a German film director and producer of blockbuster films like The Day After Tomorrow (2004), Godzilla (1998), Independence Day (1996) and The Patriot (2000). Before fame, he originally wanted to be a production designer, but decided to be a director, after watching the original Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977). Emmerich began his career in his native Germany. In his youth, he pursued painting and sculpting. While enrolled in the director's program at film school in Munich, his student film The Noah's Ark Principle (1984) went on to open the 1984 Berlin Film Festival. The feature became a huge success and was sold to more than 20 countries. In an amazing trivia, he directed his first feature, The Noah's Ark Principle (1984), in 1984. He is openly gay and a campaigner for the LGBT community.
A director/writer/producer with a flair for special effects-driven action, German Roland Emmerich made himself at home in blockbuster-hungry 1990s Hollywood. Born and educated in West Germany, Emmerich studied production design as well as direction at the Munich Film and Television School. After his student film, The Noah's Ark Principle, debuted at the 1984 Berlin Film Festival, Emmerich formed his production company Centropolis and directed supernatural fantasies Making Contact (1986) and Ghost Chase (1987), and the straight-to-video action film Moon 44 (1990). On the latter, he met actor Dean Devlin who subsequently switched jobs to become Emmerich's writing and producing partner once Emmerich set up shop in Hollywood.
After making his solo Hollywood debut directing Jean-Claude Van Damme in the cyborg action fest Universal Soldier (1992), Emmerich and Devlin revealed a talent for conjuring A-level action spectacles out of B-movie scenarios with their first film together, Stargate (1994). A space odyssey mixing ancient Egyptiana and high-tech wizardry, Stargate became an unexpected hit. Emmerich hit his blockbuster stride with his next film, Independence Day (1996). With its eye-popping destruction of major cities and climactic annihilation of a spacecraft via portable computer, Independence Day blew away its summer movie competition on the strength of its visual flash. Geared to repeat with the endlessly- and creatively-hyped version of Godzilla (1998), Emmerich instead faced the conundrum of directing a $100 million grossing film that did not live up to box office expectations. Emmerich and Devlin next turned their epic visions to the decidedly lower-tech (but still CGI-enhanced) action of the American Revolution in the Mel Gibson summer vehicle The Patriot (2000).*- Director
- Cinematographer
- Editor
After majoring in painting and illustration at the University of Michigan, Ed Emshwiller studied in Paris at the École des Beaux Arts and NYC's Art Students League. An abstract expressionist, he was also a major science fiction illustrator during the 1950s and 1960s, winning Hugo Awards for his imaginative paperback and magazine covers. Active in the New American Cinema movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, he created multimedia performance pieces, cine-dance and experimental films, while also filming documentaries and low-budget features. After a period as artist-in-residence at the Television Laboratory WNET/13 (New York), he moved to California in 1984, serving as Dean of the School of Film and Video at the California Institute of the Arts. Emshwiller's works are in the Museum of Modern Art, while his files, correspondence, notebooks and stills are kept at the American Film Institute Library.- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
Initially an indie film favorite, actor Jon Favreau has progressed to strong mainstream visibility into the millennium and, after nearly two decades in the business, is still enjoying character stardom as well as earning notice as a writer/producer/director.
The amiable, husky-framed actor with the tight, crinkly hair was born in Queens, New York on October 19, 1966, the only child of Madeleine (Balkoff), an elementary school teacher, and Charles Favreau, a special education teacher. His father has French-Canadian, German, and Italian ancestry, and his mother was from a Russian Jewish family. He attended the Bronx High School of Science before furthering his studies at Queens College in 1984. Dropping out just credits away from receiving his degree, Jon moved to Chicago where he focused on comedy and performed at several Chicago improvisational theaters, including the ImprovOlympic and the Improv Institute. He also found a couple of bit parts in films.
While there, he earned another bit role in the film, Rudy (1993), and met fellow cast mate Vince Vaughn. Their enduring personal friendship would play an instrumental role in furthering both their professional careers within just a few years. Jon broke into TV with a role on the classic series, Seinfeld (1989) (as "Eric the Clown"). After filming rudimentary roles in the movies Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994), Notes from Underground (1995) and Batman Forever (1995), he decided to do some risk taking by writing himself and friend Vaughn into what would become their breakthrough film. Swingers (1996), which he also co-produced, centers on Jon as a luckless, struggling actor type who is emotionally shattered after losing his girlfriend, but is pushed back into the L.A. social scene via the help of cool, worldly, outgoing actor/buddy Vaughn. These two blueprint roles went on to define the character types of both actors on film.
In 1997, Jon appeared favorably on several episodes of the popular TV sitcom, Friends (1994), as "Pete Becker", the humdrum but extremely wealthy suitor for Courteney Cox's "Monica" character, and also appeared to fine advantage on the Tracey Takes On... (1996) comedy series. He later took on the biopic mini-movie, Rocky Marciano (1999), portraying the prizefighter himself in a highly challenging dramatic role and received excellent reviews. Other engagingly offbeat "everyman" films roles came Jon's way -- the ex-athlete in the working class film, Dogtown (1997); a soon-to-be groom whose bachelor party goes horribly awry in the comedy thriller Very Bad Things (1998); a newlywed opposite Famke Janssen in Love & Sex (2000); a wild and crazy linebacker in The Replacements (2000); as Ben Affleck's legal partner in Daredevil (2003); and another down-and-out actor in The Big Empty (2003). He wrote and directed himself and Vaughn as two fellow boxers who involve themselves in criminal activity in Made (2001). Both he and Vaughn produced. He also directed the highly popular Will Ferrell comedy Elf (2003), in which he had a small part.
Jon went on to re-team favorably with his friend, Vince Vaughn, who enjoyed a meteoric rise into the comedy star ranks, in such light-weight features as The Break-Up (2006), Four Christmases (2008) and Couples Retreat (2009), the last of which he co-wrote with Vaughn.
Jon has made even greater strides as a writer, producer and/or director in recent years with the exciting mega-box office action-packed Iron Man (2008), starring Robert Downey Jr., and its sequels, Iron Man 2 (2010) and Iron Man 3 (2013). Jon's character of "Happy Hogan" would be featured in a number of Marvel Comic adventures. Other offerings behind the scenes have included the adventure dramedy Chef (2014), in which he also starred in the title role; the revamped film version of The Avengers (2012) also starring Downey Jr., and it's sequels Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019); and the animated Disney features The Jungle Book (2016) and The Lion King (2019) and the TV series The Chef Show (2019).
Favreau's marriage to Joya Tillem on November 24, 2000, produced son Max and two daughters, Madeleine and Brighton Rose. Joya is the niece of KGO (AM) lawyer and talk show host, Len Tillem. On the sly, the actor/writer/producer/director enjoys playing on the World Poker Tour.*- Director
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Born in New York and raised in Queens, John Frankenheimer wanted to become a professional tennis player. He loved movies and his favorite actor was Robert Mitchum. He decided he wanted to be an actor but then he applied for and was accepted in the Motion Picture Squadron of the Air Force where he realized his natural talent to handle a camera. After his military discharge he began a TV career in 1953 convincing CBS to hire him as an assistant director, which consisted mainly working as a cameraman at that time. He eventually started to direct the show he was working on as an assistant director. Frankenheimer still didn't want to direct films. He liked to direct live television, and he would have continued to do it if the profession itself hadn't cease to exist. He first turned to the big screen with The Young Stranger (1957) which he hated to do because he thought he didn't understand movies and wasn't used to work with only one camera. Disappointed his with first feature film experience he returned to his successful television career directing a total of 152 live television shows between 1954 and 1960. He took another chance to move to the cinema industry, working with Burt Lancaster in The Young Savages (1961) ending up becoming a successful filmmaker best known by expressing on films his views on important social and philosophical topics.*- Writer
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Fred Freiberger was born and raised in New York's Bronx. For a while, he worked in advertising. During World War II he joined the 8th Air Force as a navigator, was shot down and spent 22 months as a POW in Germany. Upon his repatriation he briefly studied at the Institute of Film at Pace University and eventually made his way to Hollywood on his Air Force back pay. Hoping to obtain a job as a publicist, Freiberger found himself sidelined by an industry strike, remaining unemployed and without funds. While waiting for the strike to be resolved he began to write. He managed to sell his first story to Comet Productions which was owned by Mary Pickford. This was followed by his first science-fiction effort for an anthology TV series, The Clock (1949). Free-lancing during the next few years, he co-wrote the script for the cult classic The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) and developed the original story for a superior outdoor western, Garden of Evil (1954), which starred Gary Cooper and Susan Hayward. During the next ten years, Freiberger became one of the most prolific writers of western teleplays in the business, working on such popular fare as Cheyenne (1955), Rawhide (1959) and Laramie (1959).
Freiberger's first significant contribution to science fiction was as producer of The Wild Wild West (1965), for which he was brought in to devise ingenious cliffhangers and off-beat futuristic gadgets. This necessitated bigger budgets and brought about creative clashes with CBS executives who failed to grasp the show's concept. Freiberger was sacked after ten episodes. Because of a planned European vacation, he then spurned an offer by Gene Roddenberry to produce Star Trek (1966) from the onset. However, in 1968, he took up the option to produce the show in its final season. By then, severe budgetary cuts (which resulted in many 'bottle show' episodes and lower quality scripts), the exodus of top creative talent and the take-over of Desilu by Paramount all had detrimental effects on a series which (despite its ever-loyal following) had not seen an increase in ratings since season one. Freiberger often butted heads with writers and directors and was criticised for overemphasizing action at the expense of character development. In the end, many people laid blame for the cancellation of "Star Trek" firmly at Freiberger's feet. Not everybody, including William Shatner and Robert H. Justman, agreed. Moreover, NBC's unreasonable re-slotting of "Star Trek" to the Friday 'hour of death' (10 P.M.) was definitely a chief contributing factor to the show's demise.
After "Star Trek", Freiberger managed to get Space: 1999 (1975) to be picked up for a second season. He created new characters (dashing Tony Verdeschi and shape-shifting Maya, played by Catherine Schell) in an effort to boost ratings. He also penned three episodes himself under nom de plume Charles Woodgrove. However, the series did not survive and Freiberger's subsequent unhappy association with the final season of The Six Million Dollar Man (1974) put him again in the public mind as a scapegoat, earning him in some quarters the unkind, and certainly undeserved sobriquet 'the series killer'.
The first interracial kiss on U.S. television (between Kirk and Uhura in the episode "Plato's Stepchildren") took place on his watch, though the praise went to Roddenberry who was not in any way associated with the episode.*- Visual Effects
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Born in Nebraska, John P. Fulton moved with his family to California in 1914. His father, adamant that John NOT become involved with the movie industry, insisted that he study electrical engineering; after graduating from high school, he worked as a surveyor, but frequently took time out to watch D. W. Griffith shooting movies. In the early '20s, Fulton broke into the picture business as a $25-a-week assistant cameraman and worked his way up to operator and finally, at the dawn of the talkie era, to cinematographer. He learned the legerdemain of trick photography while working at the Frank William Laboratory, then moved on to Universal, where he headed the studio's effects department. There Fulton and his team contributed to classics like "Frankenstein", director John Ford's "Air Mail" (a favorite of aviator Fulton) and "The Invisible Man". Fulton and his department also furnished the effects for four Invisible Man sequels, three of which garnered Oscar nominations; so did their work on "The Boys from Syracuse". Loaned out to Sam Goldwyn, Fulton worked on the effects for the Danny Kaye fantasy "Wonder Man, " which won him his first Academy Award. Two more Oscar wins ("The Bridges at Toko-Ri" and "The Ten Commandments") followed during Fulton's Paramount years. When Paramount disbanded their effects department, Fulton continued to work, providing effects (and co-writing the original story) for "The Bamboo Saucer" (released in 1968). Contracting a rare infection while working in Spain on "The Battle of Britain", Fulton died in hospital in England.*- Writer
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Alex Garland is an English novelist, screenwriter, film producer and director. He is best known for the films Ex Machina (2015) and Annihilation (2018).
Garland's others works as a writer includes The Beach (2000), 28 Days Later (2002), Sunshine (2007), Never Let Me Go (2011) and Dredd (2012).
He is also the co-writer on the video game Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.
In 2015, Garland made his directorial debut with Ex Machina and was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Writing, Original Screenplay category.*- Director
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Terry Gilliam was born near Medicine Lake, Minnesota. When he was 12 his family moved to Los Angeles where he became a fan of MAD magazine. In his early twenties he was often stopped by the police who suspected him of being a drug addict and Gilliam had to explain that he worked in advertising. In the political turmoil in the 60's, Gilliam feared he would become a terrorist and decided to leave the USA. He moved to England and landed a job on the children's television show Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967) as an animator. There he met meet his future collaborators in Monty Python: Terry Jones, Eric Idle and Michael Palin. In 2006 he renounced his American citizenship.*- Director
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Bert I. Gordon, affectionately nicknamed "Mr. B.I.G." by Forrest J. Ackerman, produced, directed, and wrote more than twenty-five Sci/Fi and Horror features, such as The Magic Sword (1962), The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), Village of the Giants (1965), The Cyclops (1957), in addition to comedies such as How to Succeed with Sex (1970). His film, The Food of the Gods (1976), was awarded the Grand Prix du Festival International Du Paris Fantastique 1977.*- Writer
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Stuart Gordon started his film directing career in 1985. After graduating from Lane Technical High School, Gordon worked as a commercial artist apprentice prior to enrolling at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Unable to get into the film classes, he enrolled in an acting class and ended up majoring in theater. In 1968, he directed a psychedelic adaptation of Peter Pan as a political satire. He was arrested on obscenity charges and Gordon dropped out of the university. He and his wife Carolyn formed the Organic Theater and moved the group to Chicago.
The Organic performed their work on and off-Broadway, in Los Angeles, and toured Europe. Among their productions were the world premiere of David Mamet's "Sexual Perversity in Chicago," which launched Mamet's playwriting career, the improv-based comedy "Bleacher Bums," which ran for over ten years in Los Angeles, and the hospital comedy E/R (1984), which became a TV series produced by Norman Lear.
He joined with Brian Yuzna and Charles Band's Empire Pictures to create the company's first major hit, Re-Animator (1985), based on the story by H.P. Lovecraft, which won a Critics' Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Gordon then helmed another Lovecraft adaptation From Beyond (1986) and tackled the murderous Dolls (1986) followed by Robot Jox (1989). Gordon co-created the story for Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989) a major hit for Disney. The same year, he directed the remake and more graphic version of The Pit and the Pendulum (1991). Other works include Fortress (1992), and the screenplay for The Dentist (1996) and Body Snatchers (1993), which he co-wrote with long-time writing partner Dennis Paoli.
In 2001, Gordon returned to the H.P. Lovecraft territory with Dagon (2001), and in 2003, directed King of the Ants (2003) about a housepainter-turned-hit man, and brought the David Mamet play Edmond (2005) to the screen.
He contributed to the horror anthology series Masters of Horror (2005) with the episode Dreams in the Witch-House (2005), based on a short story by H.P. Lovecraft. He returned to the series in 2007 with the episode The Black Cat (2007), based on Edgar Allan Poe's story. And in 2008, he directed Eater (2008) for the NBC series Fear Itself (2008).
He is also known for frequently murdering his wife, actress Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, in many of his films.*- Visual Effects
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When it comes to motion-picture special effects, there is only one name that personifies movie magic: Ray Harryhausen. From his debut films with George Pal to his final film, Harryhausen imbued magic and visual strength to motion-picture special effects as no other technician has, before or since.
Born in Los Angeles, the signature event in Harryhausen's life was when he saw King Kong (1933). So awed was the 13-year-old Harryhausen that he began researching the film's effects work, ultimately learning all he could about Willis H. O'Brien and stop-motion photography--he even contacted O'Brien and showed an allosaur short he made, which caused O'Brien to quip to his wife, "You realize you're encouraging my competition, don't you?" Harryhausen tried to make a stop-motion epic titled "Evolution," but the time required to make it resulted in it being cut short. The footage he completed--of a lumbering apatosaurus attacked by a belligerent allosaurus--made excellent use as a demo reel, and as a result, Harryhausen's first film job came with George Pal, working on the Puppetoon shorts for Paramount. A stint in the army utilized Harryhausen's animation skills for training films.
After World War II, Harryhausen acquired over 1,000 feet of unused military film and made a series of Puppetoon-flavored fairy tale shorts, which helped him land a job with Willis H. O'Brien and Marcel Delgado on Mighty Joe Young (1949). Although O'Brien received credit for it, 85% of the actual animation was done by Harryhausen. His real breakthrough, however, came when he was hired to do the special effects for The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953). The film's $200,000 budget meant that Harryhausen was forced to improvise to get the kinds of quality effects he wanted, and to that end, he learned a technique called split-screen (rear projection on overlapping miniature screens) to insert dinosaurs and other fantastic beasts into real-world backgrounds. The result was eventually picked up for release by Warner Bros. and was one of the most influential sci-fi films of the 1950s.
From there, Harryhausen went over to Columbia and teamed with producer Charles H. Schneer, which became synonymous among sci-fi and fantasy film aficionados with top-notch special-effects work during the remainder of their respective careers. After three sci-fi monster films and work with Willis O'Brien on an Irwin Allen documentary, Harryhausen did the effects work for The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), his first split-screen film shot entirely in color, which was highlighted by Harryhausen's mythological monsters interacting with Kathryn Grant, Torin Thatcher's flavorful performance as the villain, and the rousing score of Bernard Herrmann.
Because Harryhausen worked alone on his stop-motion animation sequences, the filming of these could often take as long as two years, the most famous example of the kind of patience required being the exciting skeleton sword fight sequence in Jason and the Argonauts (1963) (his most popular film), in which Harryhausen often shot no more than 13 frames of film (just over one-half second of elapsed time) per day.
The 1960s were Harryhausen's best years, among the highlights being his reunions with dinosaurs in Hammer Films' One Million Years B.C. (1966) and The Valley of Gwangi (1969). His pace slowed in the 1970s, but he produced three of his masterworks during that period: The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973); Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977); and Clash of the Titans (1981). It was not until 1992 that Harryhausen finally achieved film immortality with an honorary Oscar, a long-overdue tribute to the one name that personifies visual magic.- Director
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After graduation from the University of California at Berkeley, Byron Haskin worked for a time as a newspaper cartoonist. He began his career in the film industry in 1920 as a commercial-industrial movie photographer, and then as a cameraman for Pathe and International Newsreel. Later he became an assistant director at Selznick Pictures. He was a cinematographer during the silent era, worked on special effects and helped to develop the technology that eventually brought sound to the film industry. He began directing in the late 1920s at Warner Brothers and journeyed to England in the early 1930s to make films there. Upon his return he was appointed head of the Warner Brothers Special Effects department. He returned to directing, and was responsible for Walt Disney's first live-action film, Treasure Island (1950). In the mid-'50s Haskin began a rewarding association with producer George Pal, for whom he shot what is probably his best-known film, the science-fiction classic The War of the Worlds (1953). Haskin would collaborate with Pal on three other films, The Naked Jungle (1954), Conquest of Space (1955) and The Power (1968). Fans will also remember Haskin for the cult-classic Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964).- Writer
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Writer Cyril Hume was born in New Rochelle, NY, in 1900. As a young man he joined the US Army and was assigned to the 219th Engineers, but left the service after only four months. In 1922 he enrolled at Yale University, but did not complete his studies there. He published his first novel, "Wife of the Centaur", in 1923, to generally positive reviews. He published several more novels over the next few years, to mixed reviews, and by 1930 he had basically given up novel writing to concentrate on screenplays (he wrote many entries in the "Tarzan" series for MGM). He is probably best known for writing the screenplay for the sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet (1956). He was the brother of actress Benita Hume and was at one time married to actress Helen Chandler. He died in Palos Verdes, California, in 1966.*- Producer
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Gale Anne Hurd was born on October 25, 1955 in Los Angeles, California. After graduating from Stanford University, she joined New World Pictures as executive assistant to Roger Corman, the company president. She worked her way up through various administrative positions and eventually became involved in production. She formed her own production company, Pacific Western Productions, in 1982 and went on to produce a number of box-office hits including The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986) and The Abyss (1989). All were directed by James Cameron, whom she later married and divorced. She also later married and divorced Brian De Palma. She is currently the recording secretary for the Producers Guild of America.*- Visual Effects
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Gordon Jennings was born on 25 June 1896 in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. He was a cinematographer, known for The War of the Worlds (1953), Reap the Wild Wind (1942) and Spawn of the North (1938). He was married to Florence Anderson and Mary Genevra McClellan. He died on 11 January 1953 in Hollywood, California, USA.*- Director
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Duncan Jones was born on 30 May 1971 in Bromley, Kent, England, UK. He is a director and writer, known for Moon (2009), Source Code (2011) and Mute (2018). He has been married to Rodene Ronquillo since 6 November 2012. They have two children.*- Writer
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Avid reader Charlie Kaufman wrote plays and made short films as a young student. He moved from Massapequa, New York to West Hartford, Connecticut in 1972 where he attended high school. As a comedic actor, he performed in school plays and, after graduation, he enrolled at Boston University but soon transferred NYU to study film. Charlie worked in the circulation department of the Star Tribune, in Minneapolis, in the late 1980s and moved to Los Angeles in 1991, where he was hired to write for the TV sitcom Get a Life (1990). He went on to write comedy sketches and a variety of TV show episodes. Between writing assignments, he wrote the inventive screenplay Being John Malkovich (1999), which created Hollywood interest and the attention of producer Steve Golin. Charlie works at home in Pasadena, California, where he lives with his wife Denise and children.*- Writer
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James Richard Kelly better known as Richard Kelly, is an American film director and writer, known for writing and directing the cult classic Donnie Darko in 2001. Kelly was born James Richard Kelly in Newport News, Virginia, the son of Lane and Ennis Kelly. He grew up in Midlothian, Virginia, where he attended Midlothian High School and graduated in 1993. When he was a child, his father worked for NASA on the Mars Viking Lander program. He won a scholarship to the University of Southern California to study at the USC School of Cinema-Television where he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. He made two short films at USC, The Goodbye Place and Visceral Matter, before graduating in 1997.*- Writer
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Nigel Kneale was born on 18 April 1922 in Barrow-in-Furness, Lancashire, England, UK. He was a writer and actor, known for The Entertainer (1960), Look Back in Anger (1959) and Quatermass and the Pit (1967). He was married to Judith Kerr. He died on 29 October 2006 in London, England, UK.- Director
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Stanley Kubrick was born in Manhattan, New York City, to Sadie Gertrude (Perveler) and Jacob Leonard Kubrick, a physician. His family were Jewish immigrants (from Austria, Romania, and Russia). Stanley was considered intelligent, despite poor grades at school. Hoping that a change of scenery would produce better academic performance, Kubrick's father sent him in 1940 to Pasadena, California, to stay with his uncle, Martin Perveler. Returning to the Bronx in 1941 for his last year of grammar school, there seemed to be little change in his attitude or his results. Hoping to find something to interest his son, Jack introduced Stanley to chess, with the desired result. Kubrick took to the game passionately, and quickly became a skilled player. Chess would become an important device for Kubrick in later years, often as a tool for dealing with recalcitrant actors, but also as an artistic motif in his films.
Jack Kubrick's decision to give his son a camera for his thirteenth birthday would be an even wiser move: Kubrick became an avid photographer, and would often make trips around New York taking photographs which he would develop in a friend's darkroom. After selling an unsolicited photograph to Look Magazine, Kubrick began to associate with their staff photographers, and at the age of seventeen was offered a job as an apprentice photographer.
In the next few years, Kubrick had regular assignments for "Look", and would become a voracious movie-goer. Together with friend Alexander Singer, Kubrick planned a move into film, and in 1950 sank his savings into making the documentary Day of the Fight (1951). This was followed by several short commissioned documentaries (Flying Padre (1951), and (The Seafarers (1953), but by attracting investors and hustling chess games in Central Park, Kubrick was able to make Fear and Desire (1952) in California.
Filming this movie was not a happy experience; Kubrick's marriage to high school sweetheart Toba Metz did not survive the shooting. Despite mixed reviews for the film itself, Kubrick received good notices for his obvious directorial talents. Kubrick's next two films Killer's Kiss (1955) and The Killing (1956) brought him to the attention of Hollywood, and in 1957 he directed Kirk Douglas in Paths of Glory (1957). Douglas later called upon Kubrick to take over the production of Spartacus (1960), by some accounts hoping that Kubrick would be daunted by the scale of the project and would thus be accommodating. This was not the case, however: Kubrick took charge of the project, imposing his ideas and standards on the film. Many crew members were upset by his style: cinematographer Russell Metty complained to producers that Kubrick was taking over his job. Kubrick's response was to tell him to sit there and do nothing. Metty complied, and ironically was awarded the Academy Award for his cinematography.
Kubrick's next project was to direct Marlon Brando in One-Eyed Jacks (1961), but negotiations broke down and Brando himself ended up directing the film himself. Disenchanted with Hollywood and after another failed marriage, Kubrick moved permanently to England, from where he would make all of his subsequent films. Despite having obtained a pilot's license, Kubrick was rumored to be afraid of flying.
Kubrick's first UK film was Lolita (1962), which was carefully constructed and guided so as to not offend the censorship boards which at the time had the power to severely damage the commercial success of a film. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) was a big risk for Kubrick; before this, "nuclear" was not considered a subject for comedy. Originally written as a drama, Kubrick decided that too many of the ideas he had written were just too funny to be taken seriously. The film's critical and commercial success allowed Kubrick the financial and artistic freedom to work on any project he desired. Around this time, Kubrick's focus diversified and he would always have several projects in various stages of development: "Blue Moon" (a story about Hollywood's first pornographic feature film), "Napoleon" (an epic historical biography, abandoned after studio losses on similar projects), "Wartime Lies" (based on the novel by Louis Begley), and "Rhapsody" (a psycho-sexual thriller).
The next film he completed was a collaboration with sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is hailed by many as the best ever made; an instant cult favorite, it has set the standard and tone for many science fiction films that followed. Kubrick followed this with A Clockwork Orange (1971), which rivaled Lolita (1962) for the controversy it generated - this time not only for its portrayal of sex, but also of violence. Barry Lyndon (1975) would prove a turning point in both his professional and private lives. His unrelenting demands of commitment and perfection of cast and crew had by now become legendary. Actors would be required to perform dozens of takes with no breaks. Filming a story in Ireland involving military, Kubrick received reports that the IRA had declared him a possible target. Production was promptly moved out of the country, and Kubrick's desire for privacy and security resulted in him being considered a recluse ever since.
Having turned down directing a sequel to The Exorcist (1973), Kubrick made his own horror film: The Shining (1980). Again, rumors circulated of demands made upon actors and crew. Stephen King (whose novel the film was based upon) reportedly didn't like Kubrick's adaptation (indeed, he would later write his own screenplay which was filmed as The Shining (1997).)
Kubrick's subsequent work has been well spaced: it was seven years before Full Metal Jacket (1987) was released. By this time, Kubrick was married with children and had extensively remodeled his house. Seen by one critic as the dark side to the humanist story of Platoon (1986), Full Metal Jacket (1987) continued Kubrick's legacy of solid critical acclaim, and profit at the box office.
In the 1990s, Kubrick began an on-again/off-again collaboration with Brian Aldiss on a new science fiction film called "Artificial Intelligence (AI)", but progress was very slow, and was backgrounded until special effects technology was up to the standard the Kubrick wanted.
Kubrick returned to his in-development projects, but encountered a number of problems: "Napoleon" was completely dead, and "Wartime Lies" (now called "The Aryan Papers") was abandoned when Steven Spielberg announced he would direct Schindler's List (1993), which covered much of the same material.
While pre-production work on "AI" crawled along, Kubrick combined "Rhapsody" and "Blue Movie" and officially announced his next project as Eyes Wide Shut (1999), starring the then-married Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. After two years of production under unprecedented security and privacy, the film was released to a typically polarized critical and public reception; Kubrick claimed it was his best film to date.
Special effects technology had matured rapidly in the meantime, and Kubrick immediately began active work on A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), but tragically suffered a fatal heart attack in his sleep on March 7th, 1999.
After Kubrick's death, Spielberg revealed that the two of them were friends that frequently communicated discreetly about the art of filmmaking; both had a large degree of mutual respect for each other's work. "AI" was frequently discussed; Kubrick even suggested that Spielberg should direct it as it was more his type of project. Based on this relationship, Spielberg took over as the film's director and completed the last Kubrick project.
How much of Kubrick's vision remains in the finished project -- and what he would think of the film as eventually released -- will be the final great unanswerable mysteries in the life of this talented and private filmmaker.- Director
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Fritz Lang was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1890. His father managed a construction company. His mother, Pauline Schlesinger, was Jewish but converted to Catholicism when Lang was ten. After high school, he enrolled briefly at the Technische Hochschule Wien and then started to train as a painter. From 1910 to 1914, he traveled in Europe, and he would later claim, also in Asia and North Africa. He studied painting in Paris from 1913-14. At the start of World War I, he returned to Vienna, enlisting in the army in January 1915. Severely wounded in June 1916, he wrote some scenarios for films while convalescing. In early 1918, he was sent home shell-shocked and acted briefly in Viennese theater before accepting a job as a writer at Erich Pommer's production company in Berlin, Decla. In Berlin, Lang worked briefly as a writer and then as a director, at Ufa and then for Nero-Film, owned by the American Seymour Nebenzal. In 1920, he began a relationship with actress and writer Thea von Harbou (1889-1954), who wrote with him the scripts for his most celebrated films: Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1922), Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924), Metropolis (1927) and M (1931) (credited to von Harbou alone). They married in 1922 and divorced in 1933. In that year, Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels offered Lang the job of head of the German Cinema Institute. Lang--who was an anti-Nazi mainly because of his Catholic background--did not accept the position (it was later offered to and accepted by filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl) and, after secretly sending most of his money out of the country, fled Germany to Paris. After about a year in Paris, Lang moved to the United States in mid-1934, initially under contract to MGM. Over the next 20 years, he directed numerous American films. In the 1950s, in part because the film industry was in economic decline and also because of Lang's long-standing reputation for being difficult with, and abusive to, actors, he found it increasingly hard to get work. At the end of the 1950s, he traveled to Germany and made what turned out to be his final three films there, none of which were well received.
In 1964, nearly blind, he was chosen to be president of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival. He was an avid collector of primitive art and habitually wore a monocle, an affectation he picked up during his early days in Vienna. After his divorce from von Harbou, he had relationships with many other women, but from about 1931 to his death in 1976, he was close to Lily Latte, who helped him in many ways.- Writer
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Born on January 3, 1937 in Los Angeles, California, Glen A. Larson was the man behind some of the world's best-known prime-time television series. His highly successful productions (successful both financially and popularly, less often critically) include Knight Rider (1982), The Fall Guy (1981), Magnum, P.I. (1980), Battlestar Galactica (1978), and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979). The hallmark of Larson's style is family entertainment. Always humorous with the firmly tongue-in-cheek, his series are textbook examples of the genre for any would-be prime-time producer: simple storylines, likable, charismatic lead characters combined with very little violence, no bad language and well-crafted "motif"-laced soundtracks. People like Larson's series because they are fun and relaxing and a wonderful escape from the real world. Glen A. Larson died at age 77 from esophageal cancer in his home in Santa Monica, California on November 14, 2014.*- Writer
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George Walton Lucas, Jr. was raised on a walnut ranch in Modesto, California. His father was a stationery store owner and he had three siblings. During his late teen years, he went to Thomas Downey High School and was very much interested in drag racing. He planned to become a professional racecar driver. However, a terrible car accident just after his high school graduation ended that dream permanently. The accident changed his views on life.
He decided to attend Modesto Junior College before enrolling in the University of Southern California film school. As a film student, he made several short films including Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB (1967) which won first prize at the 1967-68 National Student Film Festival. In 1967, he was awarded a scholarship by Warner Brothers to observe the making of Finian's Rainbow (1968) which was being directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Lucas and Coppola became good friends and formed American Zoetrope in 1969. The company's first project was Lucas' full-length version of THX 1138 (1971). In 1971, Coppola went into production for The Godfather (1972), and Lucas formed his own company, Lucasfilm Ltd.
In 1973, he wrote and directed the semiautobiographical American Graffiti (1973) which won the Golden Globe and garnered five Academy Award nominations. This gave him the clout he needed for his next daring venture. From 1973 to 1974, he began writing the screenplay which became Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977). He was inspired to make this movie from Flash Gordon and the Planet of the Apes films. In 1975, he established ILM. (Industrial Light & Magic) to produce the visual effects needed for the movie. Another company called Sprocket Systems was established to edit and mix Star Wars and later becomes known as Skywalker Sound. His movie was turned down by several studios until 20th Century Fox gave him a chance. Lucas agreed to forego his directing salary in exchange for 40% of the film's box-office take and all merchandising rights. The movie went on to break all box office records and earned seven Academy Awards. It redefined the term "blockbuster" and the rest is history.
Lucas made the other Star Wars films and along with Steven Spielberg created the Indiana Jones series which made box office records of their own. From 1980 to 1985, Lucas was busy with the construction of Skywalker Ranch, built to accommodate the creative, technical, and administrative needs of Lucasfilm. Lucas also revolutionized movie theaters with the THX system which was created to maintain the highest quality standards in motion picture viewing.
He went on to produce several more movies that have introduced major innovations in filmmaking technology. He is chairman of the board of the George Lucas Educational Foundation. In 1992, George Lucas was honored with the Irving G. Thalberg Award by the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his lifetime achievement.
He reentered the directing chair with the production of the highly-anticipated Star Wars prequel trilogy beginning with Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) . The films have been polarizing for fans and critics alike, but were commercially successful and have become a part of culture. The animated spin-off series Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) was supervised by Lucas. He sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012, making co-chair Kathleen Kennedy president. He has attended the premieres of new Star Wars films and been generally supportive of them.- Writer
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Barré Lyndon was born on 12 August 1896 in England, UK. Barré was a writer, known for The War of the Worlds (1953), The House on 92nd Street (1945) and The Man in Half Moon Street (1944). Barré was married to Grace Lillian (Cherry) Traveller and Valeria Frances Lake. Barré died on 23 October 1972 in Los Angeles, California, USA.*- Writer
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Chris Marker was born on 29 July 1921 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France. He was a writer and director, known for 12 Monkeys (1995), Sans Soleil (1983) and Third Side of the Coin (1960). He died on 29 July 2012 in Paris, France.*- Writer
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Born in New Jersey and raised in Brooklyn, Richard Burton Matheson first became a published author while still a child, when his stories and poems ran in the "Brooklyn Eagle". A lifelong reader of fantasy tales, he made his professional writing bow in 1950 when his short story "Born of Man and Woman"? appeared in "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction"; Matheson turned out a number of highly regarded horror, fantasy and mystery stories throughout that decade. He broke into films in 1956, adapting his novel "The Shrinking Man" for the big-screen The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957).- Writer
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The son of the Wagnerian tenor and film star Lauritz Melchior, Ib Melchior was born and educated in Denmark. After graduating from the University of Copenhagen, he joined the English Players, a British theatrical company, and toured Europe with the troupe, first as an actor and later as stage manager and co-director. Just prior to the outbreak of World War II, Melchior came to the U.S. with the troupe to do a Broadway show. After 1941's "Day of Infamy", he volunteered his services to the United States Armed Forces, operating with the "cloak-and-dagger" O.S.S. and the United States Military Intelligence Service. He also served in the European Theater of Operations as a military intelligence investigator attached to the Counter Intelligence Corps. For his work in the E.T.O., Melchior was decorated by the United States Army as well as by the King of Denmark. After the war, Melchior became active in television, directing some 500 New York-based TV shows ranging from the musical "Perry Como Show" to the dramatic documentary series "The March of Medicine." Beginning in the late 1950s, he wrote a number of low-budget science-fiction films, among them "The Angry Red Planet", "Journey to the Seventh Planet" and "The Time Travelers". In 1976, he was awarded a Golden Scroll for Best Writing by the Academy of Science-Fiction (for body of work).*- Director
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Georges Méliès was a French illusionist and film director famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema.
Méliès was an especially prolific innovator in the use of special effects, popularizing such techniques as substitution splices, multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted color.
His films include A Trip to the Moon (1902) and An Impossible Voyage (1904), both involving strange, surreal journeys somewhat in the style of Jules Verne, and are considered among the most important early science fiction films.
Méliès died of cancer on 21 January 1938 at the age of 76.
In 2016, a Méliès film long thought lost, A Wager Between Two Magicians, or, Jealous of Myself (1904), was discovered in a Czechoslovak film archive.- Writer
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Nicholas Meyer was born in New York City, the son of a psychoanalyst and a concert pianist. He attended the University of Iowa, home of the famous Writers Workshop.
Meyer's award-winning teleplays for ABC's JUDGE DEE & MONASTERY MURDERS and CBS's NIGHT THAT PANICKED AMERICA launched his screenwriting career, though the WGA strike of 1973 caused him to set aside screenwriting and try his hand at novels. TARGET PRACTICE was published in March 1974 and won an Edgar nomination. It was followed four months later by his Sherlock Holmes pastiche, THE SEVEN-PER-CENT SOLUTION, which remained on the NY Times Bestseller list for 40 weeks and won the British Gold Dagger award for crime fiction.
Meyer's screenplay for The Seven-Per-Cent Solution was nominated for an Academy Award in 1976. The film starred Nicole Williamson, Robert Duvall, Alan Arkin, Laurence Olivier and Vanessa Redgrave.
In 2015 IDW published the graphic novel version of the book in five installments.
Meyer's directing debut - from his own screenplay - occurred in 1979 with TIME AFTER TIME, starring Malcolm MacDowell and David Warner. The film introduced Mary Steenburgen.
This was followed by STAR TREK II - THE WRATH OF KHAN (1982) and THE DAY AFTER, (1983) ABC's nuclear-themed movie, which remains the single most watched television film ever made, nominated for fourteen Emmys. Its controversial telecast drew over one hundred million viewers.
Subsequent Meyer novels include two other Holmes pastiches, THE WEST END HORROR, (1976) and THE CANARY TRAINER (1993); also BLACK ORCHID (co-authored with Barry Jay Kaplan) (1977) and CONFESSIONS OF A HOMING PIGEON (1981).
Other directing credits include VOLUNTEERS, starring Tom Hanks and John Candy (1986), THE DECEIVERS, starring Pierce Brosnan (1988), COMPANY BUSINESS, starring Gene Hackman and Mikhail Baryishnikov (1991), STAR TREK VI, THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY, starring Christopher Plummer (1992) and the HBO film, VENDETTA, (1999), starring Christopher Walken.
Other screenplays include SOMMERSBY, starring Richard Gere and Jody Foster (1993) and contributions to the Dreamworks animated feature, PRINCE OF EGYPT.
His screenplay, THE INFORMANT, based on Gerald Seymour's novel, FIELD OF BLOOD, won the PEN award for Best Teleplay, 1999.
His screenplay for the novel THE HUMAN STAIN by Philip Roth, starring Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman, was released October 31, 2003. His screenplay, ELEGY, (based on Roth's novella, THE DYING ANIMAL), was released in August of 2008. The film stars Ben Kingsley, Penelope Cruz, Dennis Hopper, Patricia Clarkson and Peter Saarsgard.
His Hollywood memoir, THE VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE - Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood, was published by Viking in 2009.
His two part miniseries, HOUDINI, starring Adrien Brody, aired over Labor Day 2014. Meyer's script was nominated for a WGA award and the series was nominated for seven Emmys.
In 2016, He co-created and wrote the first two episodes of the Netflix series, MEDICI - Masters of Florence, starring Dustin Hoffman.
He also worked on the forthcoming Star Trek television series, DISCOVERY, for CBS Access.
Forthcoming projects include a feature adaptation Dan Simmons' novel, THE CROOK FACTORY, for Johnny Depp, and FREUD - THE SECRET CASEBOOK as well as the limited series, RAT LINE - Nazis on the Run.*- Producer
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George Miller is an Australian film director, screenwriter, producer, and former medical doctor. He is best known for his Mad Max franchise, with Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) being hailed as amongst the greatest action films of all time. Aside from the Mad Max films, Miller has been involved in a wide range of projects. These include the Academy Award-winning Babe (1995) and Happy Feet (2006) film series.
Miller is co-founder of the production houses Kennedy Miller Mitchell, formerly known as Kennedy Miller, and Dr. D Studios. His younger brother Bill Miller and Doug Mitchell have been producers on almost all the films in Miller's later career, since the death of his original producing partner Byron Kennedy.
In 2006, Miller won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature for Happy Feet (2006). He has been nominated for five other Academy Awards: Best Original Screenplay in 1992 for Lorenzo's Oil (1992), Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay in 1995 for Babe (1995), and Best Picture and Best Director for Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).*- Animation Department
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Hayao Miyazaki is one of Japan's greatest animation directors. The entertaining plots, compelling characters, and breathtaking visuals in his films have earned him international renown from critics as well as public recognition within Japan.
Miyazaki started his career in 1963 as an animator at the studio Toei Douga studio, and was subsequently involved in many early classics of Japanese animation. From the beginning, he commanded attention with his incredible drawing ability and the seemingly endless stream of movie ideas he proposed.
In 1971, he moved to the A Pro studio with Isao Takahata. In 1973, he moved to Nippon Animation, where he was heavily involved in the World Masterpiece Theater TV animation series for the next 5 years. In 1978, he directed his first TV series, Future Boy Conan (1978). Then, he moved to Tokyo Movie Shinsha in 1979 to direct his first movie, the classic Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979). In 1984, he released Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), which was based on the manga of the same title he had started 2 years before. The success of the film led to the establishment of a new animation studio, Studio Ghibli. Since then, he has since directed, written, and produced many other films with Takahata. More recently, he has produced with Toshio Suzuki. All enjoyed critical and box office success, in particular Princess Mononoke (1997). It received the Japanese equivalent of the Academy Award for Best Film and was the highest-grossing (about USD $150 million) domestic film in Japan's history at the time of its release.
In addition to animation, he also draws manga. His major work was Nausicaä, an epic tale he worked on intermittently from 1982 to 1984 while he was busy making animated films. Another manga Hikotei Jidai, later evolved into Porco Rosso (1992).*- Producer
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Ron Moore was a member of the Kappa Alpha literary society during his time at Cornell University. He dropped out of college during his senior year, after which he moved to Los Angeles, California, with a friend in hopes of becoming a working writer. He was two weeks away from joining the United States Navy when Michael Piller, the co-executive producer of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), called with good news: his first script, "The Bonding," led to an assignment and a spot on the writing staff in 1989. By the end of the series, he was serving as a producer.
The end of TNG saw numerous accolades come Mr. Moore's way. As a member of the production team, he earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Drama Series and, along with writing partner Brannon Braga, a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation for "All Good Things...," the series finale. They would go on to earn Hugo nominations for the first two TNG films, Star Trek: Generations (1994) and Star Trek: First Contact (1996). They also collaborated on the story for Mission: Impossible II (2000).
The end of TNG saw Mr. Moore assume the role of supervising producer on Rick Berman and Michael Piller's character-driven "Trek" spin-off, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993). He began by writing the 3rd-season premiere, "The Search, Part I," which saw the introduction of the U.S.S. "Defiant." He had originally intended to name Captain Sisko's starship "Valiant" after the ship mentioned in the second Star Trek (1966) pilot episode, which was titled "Where No Man Has Gone Before," but because Star Trek: Voyager (1995) was about to premiere, he changed it to "Defiant" in honor of the ship from "The Tholian Web."
As two of the most ardent Star Trek fans on DS9's writing staff, Mr. Moore and 'René Echevarria' were chosen to write the teleplay for "Trials and Tribble-ations" - DS9's tribute to TOS's 30th Anniversary. Besides bringing Captain Kirk and Captain Sisko together on-screen via some seamless Emmy-nominated visual effects, the episode also brought the pair a Hugo nomination. They would go on to write the series penultimate episode, "The Dogs of War," which introduced the new "Defiant," formerly the U.S.S. "Sao Paulo." The name of the ship and Sisko's line "Hello, ship" were a tribute to the Steve McQueen film The Sand Pebbles (1966). By the time DS9 ended, he was a co-executive producer and ready to move on to his third "Star Trek" series.
After a 2-episode stint as a co-executive producer on "Voyager," Mr. Moore said goodbye to the franchise. His first job after "Star Trek" was as a consulting producer on the final season of the Sci-Fi Channel's fantasy series Good vs Evil (1999). Eventually, he made his way to Jason Katims's teen SF-Drama series Roswell (1999). He joined TNG's Jonathan Frakes as a co-executive producer as well.
Thanks to his work on "Roswell," he was able to develop Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonriders of Pern" as a pilot for the WB, but it was canceled before production began. Mr. Moore also served as a co-executive producer on "Roswell" when the series changed networks during the 2001-2002 television season. More recently, he was involved in the remake of _"Battlestar Galactica" (2003) (mini)_ for the sci-fi channel. writing the script for the mini-series and serving as executive producer on the subsequent series.*- Art Department
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Vincenzo Natali was born on 6 January 1969 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He is a director and producer, known for Cube (1997), In the Tall Grass (2019) and Cypher (2002).*- Writer
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Before becoming a film scriptwriter, Terry Nation was a prolific writer of UK television scripts in both the action and science fiction genres. His scripts are noted for their depth, i.e. they usually have many sub-plots as well as the main plot. As a writer on the BBC's Doctor Who (1963) series, he created the Daleks, the mechanical monsters who plan universal domination. On Earth they would constantly be planning to 'exterminate' all humans. Nation also created Survivors (1975) and Blake's 7 (1978) for the BBC.- Writer
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New Zealand-born screenwriter-director Andrew Niccol began his career in London, successfully directing TV commercials before moving to Los Angeles in order to make films "longer than 60 seconds." He interested high-powered producer Scott Rudin in his The Truman Show (1998) script, but Rudin was not willing to gamble on a rookie director, particularly when Jim Carrey came aboard, swelling the budget to about $60 million. Peter Weir helmed instead, bringing a complementary vision which lightened the material somewhat, and the clever satire, which followed a cheerful insurance man (Carrey) as he slowly realizes that all the people in his life are just actors in a TV show, opened to critical raves. Since the deal for "Truman" came together slowly, Niccol actually made his screenwriting and directing debut with Gattaca (1997) (1997), a superb, well-acted sci-fi movie that raised issues of genetic engineering in a totalitarian environment.*- Writer
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Best known for his cerebral, often nonlinear, storytelling, acclaimed Academy Award winner writer/director/producer Sir Christopher Nolan CBE was born in London, England. Over the course of more than 25 years of filmmaking, Nolan has gone from low-budget independent films to working on some of the biggest blockbusters ever made and became one of the most celebrated filmmakers of modern cinema.
At 7 years old, Nolan began making short films with his father's Super-8 camera. While studying English Literature at University College London, he shot 16-millimeter films at U.C.L.'s film society, where he learned the guerrilla techniques he would later use to make his first feature, Following (1998), on a budget of around $6,000. The noir thriller was recognized at a number of international film festivals prior to its theatrical release and gained Nolan enough credibility that he was able to gather substantial financing for his next film.
Nolan's second film was Memento (2000), which he directed from his own screenplay based on a short story by his brother Jonathan Nolan. Starring Guy Pearce, the film brought Nolan numerous honors, including Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay. Nolan went on to direct the critically acclaimed psychological thriller, Insomnia (2002), starring Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hilary Swank.
The turning point in Nolan's career occurred when he was awarded the chance to revive the Batman franchise in 2005. In Batman Begins (2005), Nolan brought a level of gravitas back to the iconic hero, and his gritty, modern interpretation was greeted with praise from fans and critics alike. Before moving on to a Batman sequel, Nolan directed, co-wrote, and produced the mystery thriller The Prestige (2006), starring Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman as magicians whose obsessive rivalry leads to tragedy and murder.
In 2008, Nolan directed, co-wrote, and produced The Dark Knight (2008). Co-written with by his brother Jonathan, the film went on to gross more than a billion dollars at the worldwide box office. Nolan was nominated for a Directors Guild of America (D.G.A.) Award, Writers Guild of America (W.G.A.) Award and Producers Guild of America (P.G.A.) Award, and the film also received eight Academy Award nominations. The film is widely considered one of the best comic book adaptations of all times, with Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker receiving an extremely high acclaim. Ledger posthumously became the first Academy Award winning performance in a Nolan film.
In 2010, Nolan captivated audiences with the Sci-Fi thriller Inception (2010), starring Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role, which he directed and produced from his own original screenplay that he worked on for almost a decade. The thought-provoking drama was a worldwide blockbuster, earning more than $800,000,000 and becoming one of the most discussed and debated films of the year, and of all times. Among its many honors, Inception received four Academy Awards and eight nominations, including Best Picture and Best Screenplay. Nolan was recognized by his peers with a W.G.A. Award accolade, as well as D.G.A. and P.G.A. Awards nominations for his work on the film.
As one of the best-reviewed and highest-grossing movies of 2012, The Dark Knight Rises (2012) concluded Nolan's Batman trilogy. Due to his success rebooting the Batman character, Warner Bros. enlisted Nolan to produce their revamped Superman movie Man of Steel (2013), which opened in the summer of 2013. In 2014, Nolan directed, wrote, and produced the Science-Fiction epic Interstellar (2014), starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain. Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. released the film on November 5, 2014, to positive reviews and strong box-office results, grossing over $670 million dollars worldwide.
In July 2017, Nolan released his acclaimed War epic Dunkirk (2017), that earned him his first Best Director nomination at the Academy Awards, as well as winning an additional 3 Oscars. In 2020 he released his mind-bending Sci-Fi espionage thriller Tenet (2020) starring John David Washington in the lead role. Released during the COVID-19 pandemic, the movie grossed relatively less than Nolan's previous blockbusters, though it did do good numbers compared to other movies in that period of time. Hailed as Nolan's most complex film yet, the film was one of Nolan's less-acclaimed films at the time, yet slowly built a fan-base following in later years.
In July 2023, Nolan released his highly acclaimed biographic drama Oppenheimer (2023) starring Nolan's frequent collaborator Cillian Murphy- in the lead role for the first time in a Nolan film. The movie was a cultural phenomenon that on top of grossing almost 1 billion dollars at the Worldwide Box office, also swept the 2023/2024 award-season and gave Nolan his first Oscars, BAFTAs, Golden Globes, D.G.A. and P.G.A. Awards, as well as a handful of regional critics-circles awards and a W.G.A. nomination. Cillian's performance as quantum physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was highly acclaimed as well, and became the first lead performance in a Nolan film to win the Academy Award.
During 2023, Nolan also received a fellowship from the British Film Institute (BFI). In March 2024, it was announced that Nolan is to be knighted by King Charles III and from now on will go by the title 'Sir Christopher Nolan'.
Nolan resides in Los Angeles, California with his wife, Academy Award winner producer Dame Emma Thomas, and their children. Sir Nolan and Dame Thomas also have their own production company, Syncopy.*- Director
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In 1949, 16 years after his ground-breaking work on the 1933 film "King Kong", Willis O'Brien worked as Chief Technician on another gorilla film for Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Shoedsack titled "Mighty Joe Young". A young Ray Harryhausen would do most of the animation, but O'Brien did come up with the designs for the film. At the 1950 Academy Awards, O'Brien was awarded an Oscar for Best Visual Effects for "Mighty Joe Young". This, along with "King Kong", are often considered his greatest achievements.- Writer
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Arch Oboler was born on 7 December 1909 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was a writer and director, known for Five (1951), The Twonky (1953) and One Plus One (1961). He was married to Eleanor Helfand. He died on 19 March 1987 in Westlake Village, California, USA.*- Director
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George Pal was born on February 1, 1908, in Cegled, Austria-Hungary. Later, when he was still a child, his stage-entertainer parents divorced, and he was raised by his grandparents.
In 1928, Pal graduated from the Budapest Academy of Arts with a degree in Architecture and highly developed drawing skills. There were no opportunities for an Architect when he left the University, so, putting his other talents to work, he found employment at Hunnia Films in Budapest. Later on, through his films, Pal became an architect of worlds, but first...
At Hunnia, Pal drew lobby posters and created embellished titles for silent movies. He also quickly learned the craft of motion picture cartooning.
In 1930, George married Elisabeth Josepha (Zsoka) Grandjean, with whom he later had two sons, David (born, 1937) and Peter (born, 1941). Seeking work with better pay, the young couple moved to Berlin, a center for film innovation. Pal's talents were soon noticed.
From 1931-1932, Pal worked at UFA Studios in Berlin where he became head of the cartoon department. Then, he set up his own film studio elsewhere in Berlin. His credentials attracted orders from companies for animated advertising. Instead of the cartoon approach, he developed his own take on making inanimate objects move, even dance, using the still evolving art of stop-motion photography. Advertisements featuring, for instance, Overstolz cigarettes, outfitted with faces, arms, and legs, were shown on theater screens strutting and singing as if drawn by a cartoonist. These "puppets" without strings would later evolve into animated characters made of wood who would have names and star in their own films.
When the Nazi regime installed itself in Germany, George and Zsoka left for Prague for a short time. Then it was on to Paris where they received an invitation from Sies Neuman, head of Philips Radio's advertising, to move to Eindhoven, Noord-Brabant, Netherlands, and work there. Before long, he had his own studio and made commercials for Dutch, English, and American firms.
It was in Eindhoven that George and American film maker, Dave Bader, invented a name for the three-dimensional cartoons that George was also now producing: "Puppetoons." George made many films in Holland, including "The Ship of the Ether." He changed his last name from Marczincsak to Pal, and, in 1937, George and Zsoka's first son, David, was born.
During the 1930s, George and Zsoka applied for an American emigration visa, only to be told each time that the small Hungarian quota was filled. Then, in 1939, the American consulate granted a visa for them and their young son to leave for New York.
First, Pal made a solo trip to New York. Not long after arriving, Columbia University offered him a lectureship on the process of making stop-motion films. Coincidentally, Barney Baliban, the president of Paramount Pictures' New York office, saw one of Pal's Puppetoon films at a party. He was so impressed by it that he contacted Pal and offered him a contract to make them for Paramount, either in New York or at their animation studio in Florida.
Pal returned to Holland and made arrangements for his family to leave Europe and move to America. Then, Frank Freeman, the President of Paramount Studios in Hollywood offered him a studio of his own and a staff of 25 film makers. The Pals arrived in New York early in 1940 and were soon settled in Beverly Hills, California.
In 1941, George and Zsoka's second son, Peter, was born.
From 1941 to 1947, Pal created more than 40 Puppetoon films, and received a special Academy Award in 1943. His studio staffers included Willis H. O'Brien, Ray Harryhausen, Wah Chang, and Gene Warren. He was also close friends with animation producer, Walter Lantz, as well as film pioneer, Walt Disney.
From 1948 to 1949, he began work on his first full-length motion pictures that combined live action with special photographic and sound effects. In the 1950s and 1960s, six of his films received Academy Awards. He worked with many gifted talents, including: director Byron Haskin; writers Robert A. Heinlein, Barré Lyndon, and David Duncan; cinematographers George Barnes, and Paul Vogel; visual-effects masters Gordon Jennings and his crew at Paramount, plus A. Arnold Gillespie, Wah Chang, and Gene Warren at MGM.
Pal also worked with sound-effects wizards Gene Garvin, Harry Lindgren, Franklin Milton, and Van Allen James; art directors Albert Nozaki, Hal Pereira, Ernst Fegté, and William Ferrari; film editors Everett Douglas and George Tomasini; composers Leith Stevens and Russell Garcia; space artist Chesley Bonestell; many animation craftsmen, including his son, David Pal, (who brought the elves to life in "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm") and Don Sahlin who would later go on to design the original Muppet characters; plus countless actors and actresses, many of whom are remembered to this day.
Throughout the 1970s, Pal worked on several film proposals, but only one was distributed. He passed away on May 2, 1980 while working on "The Voyage of the Berg" for AIP Filmways. It was never finished, but his other films endure.- Make-Up Department
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As we look back on the cinematic pioneers of the 20th century, no individual is more significant in his field than genius makeup artist Jack Pierce, the legendary monster-maker who worked in the 1930s and 1940s at Universal Studios during its classic horror period. Pierce's story is equal parts triumph and tragedy. After emigrating to the US from Greece at the turn of the century, he attempted to play baseball, unsuccessfully trying out for a semi-professional team in California after achieving some notoriety as a shortstop in Chicago. He next worked in the fledgling motion picture industry in the 1910s and 1920s, trying his hand at a variety of jobs from nickelodeon manager to stuntman to assistant cameraman. At this time Universal was a nascent little studio in the San Fernando Valley, referred to as "Universal City" in 1915, after only three years in business. The brainchild of former haberdasher Carl Laemmle, Universal was the home to many silent shorts in the 1910s, several of which featured the talents of an unknown actor named Lon Chaney, who got work by creating his own unique makeups, transforming his entire face and body in the process.
Pierce eventually drifted into acting, then makeup, working at Vitagraph and the original Fox Studios in the 1920s. By 1928, after Chaney had left to freelance stardom, Universal made Pierce head of the makeup department, where he worked on the last of the silent films made at the studio. His fortune was cemented when Carl Laemmle made his son, Carl Laemmle Jr., head of production as a 21st-birthday present. Called "Junior" by his peers and colleagues, Laemmle Jr. decided to produce film versions of classic horror novels, encouraged by Chaney's huge successes with The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925) at Universal in the mid-'20s. Laemmle's personal tastes couldn't have been any more fortuitous for Pierce: from 1930-1947 Pierce created some of cinema history's most distinguishable screen characters.
In 1930 Dracula (1931) was first produced, and though Bela Lugosi refused to let Pierce apply his makeup (the actor had come from the stage where he always did his own work), Pierce came up with the styling for the vampire character and his many female victims. Immediately following the success of "Dracula", Junior wanted a follow-up, which led to the production of Frankenstein (1931) in 1931. Though many have argued as to whether director James Whale, actor Boris Karloff or Junior himself contributed to the makeup, the driving force behind the look of the character unquestionably belonged to Jack Pierce. Every morning Karloff sat for four uncomfortable hours, suffering the makeup's high levels of toxicity, as Pierce and his assistants applied the head, facial buildup and layers of padding and costume modifications that would make him into the movies' most memorable monster. For the 43-year-old Karloff and 42-year-old Pierce it was a remarkable achievement--their legend would have been guaranteed even if they had stopped their unique artist-performer collaboration right then and there. Furthering their reputation, though, Pierce and Karloff teamed the following year to create The Mummy (1932). Though the actual creature is only seen for a matter of seconds, it was another unforgettable achievement in cinema horror when "In-Ho-Tep" came alive and paraded across an unearthed Egyptian tomb. Karloff spent most of the picture as "Ardath Bey", another Pierce incarnation, the doomed prince looking for his lost bride.
The Laemmles also tried to get new cinematic treatments of "Phantom of the Opera" and "Hunchback" off the ground at this time. Lon Chaney had died in 1930, but many of their efforts stalled. A version of "The Wolf Man" with Karloff was even planned, but this, too, would be derailed due to production problems. If you can't initiate wholly original projects, why not try a sequel? Universal did just that, starting a trend that would result in numerous Dracula, Frankenstein and Mummy spin-offs, which became its trademark.
First on the boards was what would be the final horror film in the Laemmle period, Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Revamping his first version of the monster, Pierce also created the famous makeup and designed the electric hairstyle for Elsa Lanchester's bride. Once again, Pierce created an iconic movie character who only appeared on screen very briefly at the end of the film. Then, in an instance of commerce overwhelming art, the Laemmles sold the studio in 1937, ushering in a series of revolving studio heads at Universal for the next 10 years.
In the many comings and goings of Universal executives in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Pierce did manage to retain his level of high-quality character makeups in several cranked-out sequels and B-movies. For Lugosi, with whom Pierce had locked horns several years earlier on "Dracula", Pierce created "Ygor" in 1939's Son of Frankenstein (1939). Conceived as a man who couldn't be hanged, the bearded, gnarled-toothed wretch became Lugosi's most original character in years and put him back on the map. Two years later Pierce pulled out all the stops for The Wolf Man (1941) with Lon Chaney Jr. in the title role. Though the two reportedly did not get along--Chaney did not like wearing the makeup or undergoing the lengthy application and removal period--Pierce excelled again with his werewolf concept, utilizing a design he had created for Karloff a decade earlier. Originally intended as a B-movie, The Wolf Man (1941) was a true horror classic, and Pierce's version of the character has been the model for the numerous werewolves that have since come to the screen.
The final, original Pierce makeup arrived in 1943 with Phantom of the Opera (1943). Starring Claude Rains (it would be the only Jack Pierce monster movie shot in color). Though his treatment of Claude Rains' makeup--revealed only at the end of the film--was cut down at the request of the producers (Pierce's original concept was considered too hideous!), it stands as another horror movie landmark.
Jack Pierce's reign at Universal ended shortly after WWII when the studio merged with International Pictures and replaced many of its department heads. He had been a makeup supervisor for 19 years and worked at the studio for 30 years, but Pierce ended his career working in low-budget independent films and television projects during the final 20 years of his life. His last project was working as makeup department head for the TV show Mister Ed (1961) from 1961-1964. Unthinkably, he died in virtual obscurity in 1968. However, today's artists still view Pierce's work as a relevant force in the annals of cinema crafts, and Pierce has been honored with a tribute DVD, a lifetime achievement award by the makeup union, and a proposed forthcoming star on Hollywood Boulevard.*- Director
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Alex Proyas has moved effortlessly between helming TV commercials and music videos to feature films. Born to Greek parents in Egypt, Proyas relocated to Australia with his family when he was three years old. He began making films at age ten and went on to attend the Australian Film Television and Radio School along with Jane Campion and Jocelyn Moorhouse. Proyas collaborated with Campion on two of her shorts, A Girl's Own Story (1984), for which he wrote and performed a song, and Passionless Moments (1983), which he photographed. Proyas' own short, Groping (1980), had earned him some attention at festival screenings in Sydney and London. Also while still a student, the enterprising novice formed Meaningful Eye Contact, a production company. Spirits of the Air: Gremlins of the Clouds (1987) marked Proyas' feature debut as director and screenwriter. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, the film, with its stylized production design and aural texture, was atypical of standard Australian fare, more closely resembling a longform music video. Critics admired the director's vision, but felt the overall result was lacking. Proyas continued to hone his craft helming TV advertisements for products like Nike, Nissan and Swatch (earning kudos from advertising associations in both Australia and England) and directing videos for such artists as Sting, INXS and Crowded House. In 1993 Proyas was tapped to helm the screen adaptation of James O'Barr's comic strip The Crow (1994). During production, star Brandon Lee died of an accidental gunshot wound (ironically, the film's story revolves around his character's resurrection). His death cast a pall over the remainder of the filming and its subsequent theatrical release, although reviews were generally favorably, most singling out the production values which created a colorless rain-soaked wasteland that invoked comparisons with Ridley Scott's seminal Blade Runner (1982) and Tim Burton's Batman (1989). Made for about $14 million, it grossed close to $50 million domestically. Proyas seemed set to move on to other projects and was announced as the director of Casper (1995), but left the project and was replaced by Brad Silberling. After a four-year absence he returned with another thriller, Dark City (1998), about an amnesiac who may or may not have been a serial killer. Garage Days (2002) marked Proyas' return to his homeland, Australia: the movie tells the story of a young Sydney garage band desperately trying to make it big in the competitive world of rock 'n' roll. In 2004 Proyas returned to Hollywood: he directed I, Robot (2004), a science-fiction film suggested by the 'Isaac Asimov' short story compilation of the same name that starred Will Smith. It was a box office success, but met with mixed reactions by readers and fans of the Asimov stories.*- Writer
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While in junior high school, he became interested in science fiction, and years later while reading a copy of 'Astounding Stories' when he was working as an airline pilot, he decided to give it up and become a writer. He moved West and joined the Los Angeles police force to gain experience that would help him toward a writing career in Hollywood. He began selling scripts for television shows such as 'Dragnet' and 'Naked City'. He was head writer on 'Have Gun Will Travel' for two years, winning the 'Writer's Guild Award' for 'Best Script'. He created and produced 'The Lieutenant' followed by 3 years of the 'Star Trek' television series and produced the films 'Pretty Maids All in a Row', the first 'Star Trek' film and was executive consultant on the following two.- Producer
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Robert Anthony Rodriguez was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, USA, to Rebecca (Villegas), a nurse, and Cecilio G. Rodríguez, a salesman. His family is of Mexican descent.
Of all the people to be amazed by the images of John Carpenter's 1981 sci-fi parable, Escape from New York (1981), none were as captivated as the 12-year-old Rodriguez, who sat with his friends in a crowded cinema. Many people watch films and arrogantly proclaim "I can do that." This young man said something different: "I WILL do that. I'm gonna make movies." That day was the catalyst of his dream career. Born and raised in Texas, Robert was the middle child of a family that would include 10 children. While many a child would easily succumb to a Jan Brady sense of being lost in the shuffle, Robert always stood out as a very creative and very active young man. An artist by nature, he was very rarely seen sans pencil-in-hand doodling some abstract (yet astounding) dramatic feature on a piece of paper. His mother, not a fan of the "dreary" cinema of the 1970s, instills a sense of cinema in her children by taking them on weekly trips to San Antonio's famed Olmos Theatre movie house and treats them to a healthy dose of Hollywood's "Golden Age" wonders, from Sergio Leone to the silent classic of Charles Chaplin and Buster Keaton.
In a short amount of time, young Robert finds the family's old Super-8 film camera and makes his first films. The genres are unlimited: action, sci-fi, horror, drama, stop-motion animation. He uses props from around the house, settings from around town, and makes use of the largest cast and crew at his disposal: his family. At the end of the decade, his father, a salesman, brings home the latest home-made technological wonder: a VCR, and with it (as a gift from the manufacturer) a video camera. With this new equipment at his disposal, he makes movies his entire life. He screens the movies for friends, all of whom desperately want to star in the next one. He gains a reputation in the neighborhood as "the kid who makes movies". Rather than handing in term papers, he is allowed to hand in "term movies" because, as he himself explains, "[the teachers] knew I'd put more effort into a movie than I ever would into an essay." He starts his own comic strip, "Los Hooligans". His movies win every local film competition and festival. When low academic grades threaten to keep him out of UT Austin's renowned film department, he proves his worth the only way he knows how: he makes a movie. Three, in fact: trilogy of short movies called "Austin Stories" starring his siblings. It beats the entries of the school's top students and allows Robert to enter the program. After being accepted into the film department, Robert takes $400 of his own money to make his "biggest" film yet: a 16mm short comedy/fantasy called Bedhead (1991).
Pouring every idea and camera trick he knew into the short, it went on to win multiple awards. After meeting and marrying fellow Austin resident Elizabeth Avellan, Robert comes up with a crazy idea: he will sell his body to science in order to finance his first feature-length picture (a Mexican action adventure about a guitarist with no name looking for work but getting caught up in a shoot-'em-up adventure) that he will sell to the Spanish video market and use as an entry point to a lucrative Hollywood career. With his "guinea pig" money he raises a mere $7,000 and creates El Mariachi (1992). But rather than lingering in obscurity, the film finds its way to the Sundance film festival where it becomes an instant favorite, wins Robert a distribution deal with Columbia Pictures and turns him into an icon among would-be film-makers the world over. Not one to rest on his laurels, he immediately helms the straight-to-cable movie Roadracers (1994) and contributes a segment to the anthology comedy Four Rooms (1995) (his will be the most lauded segment).
His first "genuine" studio effort would soon have people referring to him as "John Woo from south-of-the-border". It is the "Mariachi" remake/sequel Desperado (1995). More lavish and action-packed than its own predecessor, the movie--while not a blockbuster hit--does decent business and launches the American film careers of Antonio Banderas as the guitarist-turned-gunslinger and Salma Hayek as his love interest (the two would star in several of his movies from then on). It also furthers the director's reputation of working on low budgets to create big results. In the year when movies like Batman Forever (1995) and GoldenEye (1995) were pushing budgets past the $100 million mark, Rodriguez brought in "Desperado" for just under $7 million. The film also featured a cameo by fellow indie film wunderkind, Quentin Tarantino. It would be the beginning of a long friendship between the two sprinkled with numerous collaborations. Most notable the Tarantino-penned vampire schlock-fest From Dusk Till Dawn (1996). The kitschy flick (about a pair of criminal brothers on the run from the Texas Rangers, only to find themselves in a vamp-infested Mexican bar) became an instant cult favorite and launched the lucrative film career of ER (1994) star George Clooney.
After a two-year break from directing (primarily to spend with his family, but also developing story ideas and declining Hollywood offers) he returned to "Dusk till Dawn" territory with the teen sci-fi/horror movie The Faculty (1998), written by Scream (1996) writer, Kevin Williamson. Although it's developed a small following of its own, it would prove to be Robert's least-successful film. Critics and fans alike took issue with the pedestrian script, the off-kilter casting and the flick's blatant over-commercialization (due to a marketing deal with clothing designer Tommy Hilfiger). After another three-year break, Rodriguez returned to make his most successful (and most unexpected) movie yet, based on his own segment from Four Rooms (1995). After a string of bloody, adult-oriented action fare, no one anticipated him to write and direct the colorful and creative Spy Kids (2001), a movie about a pair of prepubescent Latino sibs who discover that their lame parents (Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino) are actually two of the world's greatest secret agents. The film was hit among both audiences and critics alike.
After quitting the Writers' Guild of America and being introduced to digital filmmaking by George Lucas, Robert immediately applied the creative, flexible (and cost-effective) technology to every one of his movies from then on, starting with an immediate sequel to his family friendly hit: Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams (2002) which was THEN immediately followed by the trilogy-capper Spy Kids 3: Game Over (2003). The latter would prove to be the most financially-lucrative of the series and employ the long-banished movie gimmick of 3-D with eye-popping results. Later the same year Rodriguez career came full circle when he completed the final entry of the story that made brought him to prominence: "El Mariachi". The last chapter, Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003), would be his most direct homage to the Sergio Leone westerns he grew up on. With a cast boasting Antonio Banderas (returning as the gunslinging guitarist), Johnny Depp (as a corrupt CIA agent attempting to manipulate him), Salma Hayek, Mickey Rourke, Willem Dafoe and Eva Mendes, the film delivered even more of the Mexican shoot-'em-up spectacle than both of the previous films combined.
Now given his choice of movies to do next, Robert sought out famed comic book writer/artist Frank Miller, a man who had been very vocal of never letting his works be adapted for the screen. Even so, he was wholeheartedly convinced and elated when Rodriguez presented him with a plan to turn Miller's signature work into the film Sin City (2005). A collection of noir-ish tales set in a fictional, crime-ridden slum, the movie boasted the largest cast Rodriguez had worked with to that date. Saying he didn't want to mere "adapt" Miller's comics but "translate" them, Rodriguez' insistence that Miller co-direct the movie lead to Robert's resignation from the Director's Guild of America (and his subsequent dismissal from the film John Carter (2012) as a result). Many critics cited that Sin City was created as a pure film noir piece to adapt Miller's comics onto the screen. Co-directing with Frank Miller and bringing in Quentin Tarantino to guest-direct a scene allowed Rodriguez to again shock Hollywood with his talent.
In late 2007, Rodriguez again teamed up with his friend Tarantino to create the double feature Grindhouse (2007). Rodriguez's offering, Planet Terror (2007), was a film made to be "hardcore, extreme, sex-fueled, action-packed." Rodriguez flirts with his passion to make a showy film exploiting all of his experience to make an extremely entertaining thrill ride. The film is encompassed around Cherry (Rose McGowan), a reluctant go-go dancer who is found wanting when she meets her ex-lover El Wray (played by Freddy Rodríguez) who turns up at a local BBQ grill. They then, after a turn of events, find themselves fending off brain-eating zombies whilst trying to flee to Mexico (here we go off to Mexico again). Apart from directing, Rodriguez also involves himself in camera work, editing and composing music for his movies' sound tracks (he composed Planet Terror's main theme). He also shoots a lot of his own action scenes to get a direct idea from his eye as the director into the film. In El Mariachi (1992), Rodriguez spent hours in front of a pay-to-use, computer editing his film. This allowed him to capture the ideal footage exactly as he wanted it. Away from the filming aspect of Hollywood, Rodriguez is an expert chef who cooks gourmet meals for the cast and crew. Rodriguez is also known for his ability to turn a low-budgeted film with a small crew into an example of film mastery. El mariachi was "the movie made on seven grand" and still managed to rank as one of Rodriguez' best films (receiving a rating of 92% on the Rotten Tomatoes film review site).
Because Rodriguez is involved so deeply in his films, he is able to capture what he wants first time, which saves both time and money. Rodriguez's films share some similar threads and ideas, whilst also having differences. In El Mariachi (1992), he uses a hand-held camera. He made this decision for several reasons. First, he couldn't afford a tripod and secondly, he wanted to make the audience more aware of the action. In the action sequences he is given more mobility with a hand-held camera and also allows for distortion of the unprofessional action sequences (because the cost of all special effects in the film totaled $600). However, in Sin City (2005) and Planet Terror (2007), the budget was much greater, and Rodriguez could afford to spend more on special affects (especially since both films were filmed predominately with green screen) and, thus, there was no need to cover for error.
Playing by his own rules or not at all, Robert Rodriguez has redefined what a filmmaker can or cannot do. Shunning Hollywood's ridiculously high budgets, multi-picture deals and the two most powerful unions for the sake of maintaining creative freedom are decisions that would (and have) cost many directors their careers. Rodriguez has turned these into his strengths, creating some of the most imaginative works the big-screen has ever seen.*- Camera and Electrical Department
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When he made his directorial debut in 1970, Nicolas Roeg was already a 23-year veteran of the British film industry, starting out in 1947 as an editing apprentice and working his way up to cinematographer twelve years later. He first came to attention as part of the second unit on David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962), with Roger Corman's The Masque of the Red Death (1964) two years later containing his first really distinctive solo work. He went on to photograph films for such distinguished directors as François Truffaut (Fahrenheit 451 (1966)), John Schlesinger (Far from the Madding Crowd (1967)) and Richard Lester (Petulia (1968)) before his sensational directorial debut in 1968. Co-directed with writer (and painter) Donald Cammell, Performance (1970) was intended to be a simple-minded star vehicle for Mick Jagger and Warner Bros were so horrified when they saw the final multi-layered kaleidoscope of sex, violence, and questions of identity that they delayed its release for two years. Roeg went to Australia for his solo debut as director (Walkabout (1971)), which was also his last film as cinematographer, and throughout the next decade he produced a world-class body of work (Don't Look Now (1973); The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976); Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession (1980)) that revealed his uniquely off-kilter view of the world, expressed through fragmented, dislocated images and a highly original yet strangely accessible approach to narrative. He married the star of Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession (1980), the elegant Theresa Russell who would play the female lead in nearly all his subsequent films, though these have generally found less favor with critics and audiences, and the release of both Eureka (1983) and Cold Heaven (1991) was severely restricted due to problems with the films' distributors.*- Director
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Mark Romanek was born on 18 September 1959 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He is a director and producer, known for One Hour Photo (2002), Never Let Me Go (2010) and Michael Jackson feat. Janet Jackson: Scream (1995). He is married to Brigette Romanek.*- Producer
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George A. Romero never set out to become a Hollywood figure; by all indications, though, he was very successful. The director of the groundbreaking "Living Dead" films was born February 4, 1940 ,in New York City to Ann (Dvorsky) and Jorge Romero. His father was born in Spain and raised in Cuba, and his mother was Lithuanian. He grew up in New York until attending the renowned Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA.
After graduation he began shooting mostly short films and commercials. He and his friends formed Image Ten Productions in the late 1960s and they all chipped in roughly $10,000 apiece to produce what became one of the most celebrated American horror films of all time: Night of the Living Dead (1968). Shot in black-and-white on a budget of just over $100,000, Romero's vision, combined with a solid script written by him and his "Image" co-founder John A. Russo (along with what was then considered an excess of gore), enabled the film to earn back far more than what it cost; it became a cult classic by the early 1970s and was inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress of the United States in 1999. Romero's next films were a little more low-key but less successful, including The Affair (1971), The Crazies (1973), Season of the Witch (1972) (where he met future wife Christine Forrest) and Martin (1977). Though not as acclaimed as "Night of the Living Dead" or some of his later work, these films had his signature social commentary while dealing with issues--usually horror-related--at the microscopic level. Like almost all of his films, they were shot in, or around, Romero's favorite city of Pittsburgh.
In 1978 he returned to the zombie genre with the one film of his that would top the success of "Night of the Living Dead"--Dawn of the Dead (1978). He managed to divorce the franchise from Image Ten, which screwed up the copyright on the original and allowed the film to enter into public domain, with the result that Romero and his original investors were not entitled to any profits from the film's video releases. Shot in the Monroeville (PA) Mall during late-night hours, the film told the tale of four people who escape a zombie outbreak and lock themselves up inside what they think is paradise before the solitude makes them victims of their own, and a biker gang's, greed. Made on a budget of just $1.5 million, the film earned over $40 million worldwide and was named one of the top cult films by Entertainment Weekly magazine in 2003. It also marked Romero's first work with brilliant make-up and effects artist Tom Savini. After 1978, Romero and Savini teamed up many times. The success of "Dawn of the Dead" led to bigger budgets and better casts for the filmmaker. First was Knightriders (1981), where he first worked with an up-and-coming Ed Harris. Then came perhaps his most Hollywood-like film, Creepshow (1982), which marked the first--but not the last--time Romero adapted a work by famed horror novelist Stephen King. With many major stars and big-studio distribution, it was a moderate success and spawned a sequel, which was also written by Romero.
The decline of Romero's career came in the late 1980s. His last widely-released film was the next "Dead" film, Day of the Dead (1985). Derided by critics, it did not take in much at the box office, either. His latest two efforts were The Dark Half (1993) (another Stephen King adaptation) and Bruiser (2000). Even the Romero-penned/Tom Savini-directed remake of Romero's first film, Night of the Living Dead (1990), was a box-office failure. Pigeon-holed solely as a horror director and with his latest films no longer achieving the success of his earlier "Dead" films, Romero has not worked much since, much to the chagrin of his following. In 2005, 19 years after "Day of the Dead", with major-studio distribution he returned to his most famous series and horror sub-genre it created with Land of the Dead (2005), a further exploration of the destruction of modern society by the undead, that received generally positive reviews. He directed two more "Dead" films, Diary of the Dead (2007) and Survival of the Dead (2009).
George died on July 16, 2017, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was 77.*- Director
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Ken Russell tried several professions before choosing to become a film director; he was a still photographer and a dancer and he even served in the Army, but film was his destiny. He began by making several short films which paved the way for his brilliant television films of the 1960s that are acclaimed for his attention to detail and opulent visuals. His third feature film Women in Love (1969) was a triumph that made him known internationally. In the 1970s, his talent truly blossomed. Over the next two decades he would direct a succession of remarkable films, most containing the trademark flamboyance that critics generally dismiss but many find engrossing. He will forever be remembered as a controversial, visionary artist with something of a third eye for oddball dramas with captivating images and themes.*- Writer
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A bright child, John Sayles began reading novels before age 9. A Williams College grad in 1972, he shunned a corporate career to work various blue-collar jobs, moving to east Boston to take a factory job. He wrote stories and submitted them to various magazines, and the Atlantic Monthly gave him the idea of publishing them in a novel--thus "Pride of the Bimbos" (1975) was born.
In the late 1970s he worked for renowned low-budget producer Roger Corman as a screenwriter. He saved much of the money he earned from that job, got some friends together and made Return of the Secaucus Seven (1980) in 25 days. Altough it was a hit, he had trouble obtaining financing for the films he wanted to make because he would not give up his right of final cut. Baby It's You (1983) was Sayles' only film made under studio control.
In 1983 the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship granted him a tax-free income of $32,000 a year for 5 years. That stipend and money he earned for writing such films as The Clan of the Cave Bear (1986), Enormous Changes at the Last Minute (1983) and Breaking In (1989) enabled him to make the kinds of films he wanted to make. Lone Star (1996) placed Sayles in the ranks of top American filmmakers. In it and his other films, a broadly appealing social consciousness emerges, showing Sayles to be concerned with what's going on with regional cultures, national values and what living in the US is like today.
Sayles and Maggie Renzi, whom he met during college, have lived together since the 1970s, splitting their time between a Hoboken, NJ, house and a farm in upstate New York. They have no plans to marry.*- Producer
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Described by film producer Michael Deeley as "the very best eye in the business", director Ridley Scott was born on November 30, 1937 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear. His father was an officer in the Royal Engineers and the family followed him as his career posted him throughout the United Kingdom and Europe before they eventually returned to Teesside. Scott wanted to join the British Army (his elder brother Frank had already joined the Merchant Navy) but his father encouraged him to develop his artistic talents instead and so he went to West Hartlepool College of Art and then London's Royal College of Art where he helped found the film department.
In 1962, he joined the BBC as a trainee set designer working on several high profile series. He attended a trainee director's course while he was there and his first directing job was on an episode of the popular BBC police series Z Cars (1962), Error of Judgement (1965). More TV work followed until, frustrated by the poor financial rewards at the BBC, he went into advertising. With his younger brother, Tony Scott, he formed the advertising production company RSA (Ridley Scott Associates) in 1967 and spent the next 10 years making some of the best known and best loved TV adverts ever shown on British television, including a series of ads for Hovis bread set to the music of Dvorak's New World Symphony which are still talked about today ("'e were a great baker were our dad.")
He began working with producer David Puttnam in the 1970s developing ideas for feature films. Their first joint endeavor, The Duellists (1977) won the Jury Prize for Best First Work at Cannes in 1977 and was nominated for the Palm d'Or, more than successfully launching Scott's feature film career. The success of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) inspired Scott's interest in making science fiction and he accepted the offer to direct Dan O'Bannon's low budget science fiction horror movie Alien (1979), a critical and commercial success that firmly established his worldwide reputation as a movie director.
Blade Runner (1982) followed in 1982 to, at best, a lukewarm reception from public and critics but in the years that followed, its reputation grew - and Scott's with it - as one of the most important sci-fi movies ever made. Scott's next major project was back in the advertising world where he created another of the most talked-about advertising spots in broadcast history when his "1984"-inspired ad for the new Apple Macintosh computer was aired during the Super Bowl on January 22, 1984. Scott's movie career has seen a few flops (notably Legend (1985) and 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)), but with successes like Thelma & Louise (1991), Gladiator (2000) and Black Hawk Down (2001) to offset them, his reputation remains solidly intact.
Ridley Scott was awarded Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire at the 2003 Queen's New Year Honours for his "substantial contribution to the British film industry". On July 3, 2015, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Royal College of Art in a ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall in London. He was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship in 2018. BAFTA described him as "a visionary director, one of the great British film-makers whose work has made an indelible mark on the history of cinema. Forty years since his directorial debut, his films continue to cross the boundaries of style and genre, engaging audiences and inspiring the next generation of film talent."*- Writer
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A former boxer, paratrooper and general all-around angry young man, Rod Serling was one of the radical new voices that made the "Golden Age" of television. Long before The Twilight Zone (1959), he was known for writing such high-quality scripts as "Patterns" and "Requiem for a Heavyweight," both later turned into films (Patterns (1956) and Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962)). The Twilight Zone (1959) featured forays into controversial grounds like racism, Cold War paranoia and the horrors of war. His maverick attitude eventually drove him from regular network television.- Writer
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Born in Dresden, Germany, in 1902, Curt Siodmak worked as an engineer and a newspaper reporter before entering the literary and movie fields. It was as a reporter that he got his first break (of sorts) in films: in 1926 he and his reporter-wife hired on as extras on Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) in order to get a story on the director and his film. One of Siodmak's first film-writing assignments was the screenplay for the German sci-fi picture F.P.1 Doesn't Answer (1932) (US title: "Floating Platform 1 Does Not Answer"), based on his own novel. Compelled to leave Germany after Adolf Hitler and the Nazis took power, Siodmak went to work as a screenwriter in England and then moved to Hollywood in 1937. He got a job at Universal through his director-friend Joe May, helping write the script for May's The Invisible Man Returns (1940). Because the film went over well, Siodmak says, he fell into the horror/science-fiction "groove."- Producer
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One of the most influential personalities in the history of cinema, Steven Spielberg is Hollywood's best known director and one of the wealthiest filmmakers in the world. He has an extraordinary number of commercially successful and critically acclaimed credits to his name, either as a director, producer or writer since launching the summer blockbuster with Jaws (1975), and he has done more to define popular film-making since the mid-1970s than anyone else.
Steven Allan Spielberg was born in 1946 in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Leah Frances (Posner), a concert pianist and restaurateur, and Arnold Spielberg, an electrical engineer who worked in computer development. His parents were both born to Russian Jewish immigrant families. Steven spent his younger years in Haddon Township, New Jersey, Phoenix, Arizona, and later Saratoga, California. He went to California State University Long Beach, but dropped out to pursue his entertainment career. Among his early directing efforts were Battle Squad (1961), which combined World War II footage with footage of an airplane on the ground that he makes you believe is moving. He also directed Escape to Nowhere (1961), which featured children as World War Two soldiers, including his sister Anne Spielberg, and The Last Gun (1959), a western. All of these were short films. The next couple of years, Spielberg directed a couple of movies that would portend his future career in movies. In 1964, he directed Firelight (1964), a movie about aliens invading a small town. In 1967, he directed Slipstream (1967), which was unfinished. However, in 1968, he directed Amblin' (1968), which featured the desert prominently, and not the first of his movies in which the desert would feature. Amblin' also became the name of his production company, which turned out such classics as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Spielberg had a unique and classic early directing project, Duel (1971), with Dennis Weaver. In the early 1970s, Spielberg was working on TV, directing among others such series as Rod Serling's Night Gallery (1969), Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969) and Murder by the Book (1971). All of his work in television and short films, as well as his directing projects, were just a hint of the wellspring of talent that would dazzle audiences all over the world.
Spielberg's first major directorial effort was The Sugarland Express (1974), with Goldie Hawn, a film that marked him as a rising star. It was his next effort, however, that made him an international superstar among directors: Jaws (1975). This classic shark attack tale started the tradition of the summer blockbuster or, at least, he was credited with starting the tradition. His next film was the classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), a unique and original UFO story that remains a classic. In 1978, Spielberg produced his first film, the forgettable I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978), and followed that effort with Used Cars (1980), a critically acclaimed, but mostly forgotten, Kurt Russell/Jack Warden comedy about devious used-car dealers. Spielberg hit gold yet one more time with Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), with Harrison Ford taking the part of Indiana Jones. Spielberg produced and directed two films in 1982. The first was Poltergeist (1982), but the highest-grossing movie of all time up to that point was the alien story E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Spielberg also helped pioneer the practice of product placement. The concept, while not uncommon, was still relatively low-key when Spielberg raised the practice to almost an art form with his famous (or infamous) placement of Reese's Pieces in "E.T." Spielberg was also one of the pioneers of the big-grossing special-effects movies, like "E.T." and "Close Encounters", where a very strong emphasis on special effects was placed for the first time on such a huge scale. In 1984, Spielberg followed up "Raiders" with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), which was a commercial success but did not receive the critical acclaim of its predecessor. As a producer, Spielberg took on many projects in the 1980s, such as The Goonies (1985), and was the brains behind the little monsters in Gremlins (1984). He also produced the cartoon An American Tail (1986), a quaint little animated classic. His biggest effort as producer in 1985, however, was the blockbuster Back to the Future (1985), which made Michael J. Fox an instant superstar. As director, Spielberg took on the book The Color Purple (1985), with Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey, with great success. In the latter half of the 1980s, he also directed Empire of the Sun (1987), a mixed success for the occasionally erratic Spielberg. Success would not escape him for long, though.
The late 1980s found Spielberg's projects at the center of pop-culture yet again. In 1988, he produced the landmark animation/live-action film Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). The next year proved to be another big one for Spielberg, as he produced and directed Always (1989) as well as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), and Back to the Future Part II (1989). All three of the films were box-office and critical successes. Also, in 1989, he produced the little known comedy-drama Dad (1989), with Jack Lemmon and Ted Danson, which got mostly mixed results. Spielberg has also had an affinity for animation and has been a strong voice in animation in the 1990s. Aside from producing the landmark "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", he produced the animated series Tiny Toon Adventures (1990), Animaniacs (1993), Pinky and the Brain (1995), Freakazoid! (1995), Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain (1998), Family Dog (1993) and Toonsylvania (1998). Spielberg also produced other cartoons such as The Land Before Time (1988), We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story (1993), Casper (1995) (the live action version) as well as the live-action version of The Flintstones (1994), where he was credited as "Steven Spielrock". Spielberg also produced many Roger Rabbit short cartoons, and many Pinky and the Brain, Animaniacs and Tiny Toons specials. Spielberg was very active in the early 1990s, as he directed Hook (1991) and produced such films as the cute fantasy Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) and An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991). He also produced the unusual comedy thriller Arachnophobia (1990), Back to the Future Part III (1990) and Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990). While these movies were big successes in their own right, they did not quite bring in the kind of box office or critical acclaim as previous efforts. In 1993, Spielberg directed Jurassic Park (1993), which for a short time held the record as the highest grossing movie of all time, but did not have the universal appeal of his previous efforts. Big box-office spectacles were not his only concern, though. He produced and directed Schindler's List (1993), a stirring film about the Holocaust. He won best director at the Oscars, and also got Best Picture. In the mid-90s, he helped found the production company DreamWorks, which was responsible for many box-office successes.
As a producer, he was very active in the late 90s, responsible for such films as The Mask of Zorro (1998), Men in Black (1997) and Deep Impact (1998). However, it was on the directing front that Spielberg was in top form. He directed and produced the epic Amistad (1997), a spectacular film that was shorted at the Oscars and in release due to the fact that its release date was moved around so much in late 1997. The next year, however, produced what many believe was one of the best films of his career: Saving Private Ryan (1998), a film about World War Two that is spectacular in almost every respect. It was stiffed at the Oscars, losing best picture to Shakespeare in Love (1998).
Spielberg produced a series of films, including Evolution (2001), The Haunting (1999) and Shrek (2001). he also produced two sequels to Jurassic Park (1993), which were financially but not particularly critical successes. In 2001, he produced a mini-series about World War Two that definitely *was* a financial and critical success: Band of Brothers (2001), a tale of an infantry company from its parachuting into France during the invasion to the Battle of the Bulge. Also in that year, Spielberg was back in the director's chair for A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), a movie with a message and a huge budget. It did reasonably at the box office and garnered varied reviews from critics.
Spielberg has been extremely active in films there are many other things he has done as well. He produced the short-lived TV series SeaQuest 2032 (1993), an anthology series entitled Amazing Stories (1985), created the video-game series "Medal of Honor" set during World War Two, and was a starting producer of ER (1994). Spielberg, if you haven't noticed, has a great interest in World War Two. He and Tom Hanks collaborated on Shooting War: World War II Combat Cameramen (2000), a documentary about World War II combat photographers, and he produced a documentary about the Holocaust called Eyes of the Holocaust (2000). With all of this to Spielberg's credit, it's no wonder that he's looked at as one of the greatest ever figures in entertainment.*- Writer
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J. Michael Straczynski was born on 17 July 1954 in Paterson, New Jersey, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for Babylon 5 (1993), Changeling (2008) and Jeremiah (2002). He was previously married to Kathryn M. Drennan.*- Visual Effects
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Greg Strause grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. Greg and his brother Colin Strause began experimenting with visual effects in their early teens. In 1995, Greg moved to Los Angeles and started working on the special effects for The X-Files (1993). From there he moved on to big-budget hits such as The Nutty Professor (1996), Volcano (1997), and the iceberg sequence of the Academy Award-winning Titanic (1997). He then broke into the music video and commercial arena, handling the special effects for artists such as U2, Britney Spears, and Aerosmith as well as spots for Nike, Jeep, and Pepsi. In 2000, Colin won a MTV Video Music Award for Best Art Direction for the Red Hot Chili Peppers' video, "Californication." This led the brothers to start directing under the moniker "The Brothers Strause," and their Linkin Park clip "Crawling" was nominated for Best Direction and Best Rock Video at the 2001 VMAs. Other artists they have directed for include A Perfect Circle, Nickelback, Disturbed, and Staind.
Their visual effects company [Hydraulx] is at the forefront of the Industry delivering ground-breaking work on the blockbusters Fantastic Four (2005), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), and The Day After Tomorrow (2004), for which Greg won a British Academy Award (BAFTA).
The Brothers have recently directed spots for Coca Cola, Ford, The United States Marine Corps, Toyota, Universal Studios and Sony PlayStation's "God of War." Their latest music video for A Perfect Circle's "Passive" marked their second collaboration with the band. The video was shot almost entirely with thermal cameras and featured on the Constantine soundtrack and DVD.*- Additional Crew
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The most famous Soviet film-maker since Sergei Eisenstein, Andrei Tarkovsky (the son of noted poet Arseniy Tarkovsky) studied music and Arabic in Moscow before enrolling in the Soviet film school VGIK. He shot to international attention with his first feature, Ivan's Childhood (1962), which won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival. This resulted in high expectations for his second feature Andrei Rublev (1966), which was banned by the Soviet authorities for two years. It was shown at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival at four o'clock in the morning on the last day, in order to prevent it from winning a prize - but it won one nonetheless, and was eventually distributed abroad partly to enable the authorities to save face. Solaris (1972), had an easier ride, being acclaimed by many in Europe and North America as the Soviet answer to Kubrick's '2001' (though Tarkovsky himself was never too fond of his own film nor Kubrick's), but he ran into official trouble again with Mirror (1975), a dense, personal web of autobiographical memories with a radically innovative plot structure. Stalker (1979) had to be completely reshot on a dramatically reduced budget after an accident in the laboratory destroyed the first version, and after Nostalghia (1983), shot in Italy (with official approval), Tarkovsky defected to Europe. His last film, The Sacrifice (1986) was shot in Sweden with many of Ingmar Bergman's regular collaborators, and won an almost unprecedented four prizes at the Cannes Film Festival. He died of lung cancer at the end of the year. Two years later link=Sergei Parajanov dedicated his film Ashik Kerib to Tarkovsky.*- Producer
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Legendary filmmaker and visual effects pioneer, Douglas Trumbull, was one of the Special Photographic Effects Supervisors for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). He went on to become the Visual Effects Supervisor for such classics as Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), and Blade Runner (1982), each of which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects.
Mr. Trumbull directed Silent Running (1972), Brainstorm (1983), Back to the Future... The Ride (1991) and numerous other special format films.
He is the recipient of an Academy Award in the area of Scientific and Technical Achievement, as well as the International Monitor Award and American Society of Cinematographers' Lifetime Achievement Award for his outstanding contributions in the field of filmmaking. Douglas is currently involved in the evolution of visual effects using virtual digital sets and electronic cinematography.- Writer
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As both writer and director, David Twohy has contributed much to the film world, helping to elevate movies in such a way that Entertainment Weekly was prompted to name him "one of the 100 most creative people in Hollywood." In his career, Twohy has worked with on-screen notables like Harrison Ford, Judi Dench, Kevin Costner, Vin Diesel, Thandie Newton, Tommy Lee Jones, Jeff Daniels, Richard E. Grant, Chris Hemsworth, Demi Moore, Bruce Greenwood, Olivia Williams, Tim Olyphant and Milla Jovovich. To name a few.
Twohy struck gold early with his screenplay for the Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones vehicle "THE FUGITIVE," nominated in 1993 for Best Screenplay Previously Produced or Published. Other writing-only credits include "WATERWORLD," "TERMINAL VELOCITY," and Ridley Scott's "G.I. JANE."
As a director, Twohy made his debut with "THE GRAND TOUR," which he adapted from Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore's haunting novella "Vintage Season." The movie received the Grand Prix at the Festival Du Film Fantastique and a Golden Scroll from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. Twohy was honored again with a Saturn Award for his follow-up directing effort, "THE ARRIVAL."
Twohy's next effort became one of 2000's most unexpected films, "PITCH BLACK." Released by Universal Studios, this modestly budgeted movie shot in the Australian outback startled critics and audiences alike with its chilling mood and unexpectedly deep characters. The success of "PITCH BLACK" would launch a new film franchise for Universal. Its sequels were the sweeping "CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK" and the spartan survival movie "RIDDICK."
Between franchise movies, Twohy found time to write and direct two stand-alone thrillers: "BELOW," co-written with Darren Aronofsky ("REQUIEM FOR A DREAM"), follows a series of eerie occurrences on a claustrophobic submarine during World War II. Twohy then turned to the wide open vistas of Hawaii to film "A PERFECT GETAWAY," a twisted tale that shocked audiences around the world.
Next up for Twohy is "RUNNING WITH LIONS," a contemporary story about the world of Formula One.*- Director
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Paul Verhoeven graduated from the University of Leiden, with a degree in math and physics. He entered the Royal Netherlands Navy, where he began his film career by making documentaries for the Navy and later for TV. In 1969, he directed the popular Dutch TV series, Floris (1969), about a medieval knight. This featured actor Rutger Hauer, who has appeared in many of Verhoeven's later films. Verhoeven's first feature, Wat zien ik (1971) (trans. "What do I See?"), was released in 1971. However, it was his second, Turkish Delight (1973), with its combination of raw sexuality and a poignant story-line, that gained him great popularity in the Netherlands, especially with male audiences. When his films, especially Soldier of Orange (1977) and The 4th Man (1983), received international recognition, Verhoeven moved to the US. His first US film was Flesh+Blood (1985) in 1985, but it was RoboCop (1987) and, especially, Total Recall (1990) that made him a big box office success. Sometimes accused of portraying excessive violence in his films, Verhoeven replies that he is only recording the violence of society. Verhoeven has co-scripted two of his films: Soldier of Orange (1977) and Flesh+Blood (1985). He also directed an episode of the HBO The Hitchhiker (1983) TV series. Several of his films have been photographed by Jost Vacano, including the hit cult film, Starship Troopers (1997), starring Casper Van Dien.*- Writer
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Thea von Harbou was born on 27 December 1888 in Tauperlitz, Döhlau, Bavaria, Germany. She was a writer and director, known for Metropolis (1927), M (1931) and Woman in the Moon (1929). She was married to Fritz Lang and Rudolf Klein-Rogge. She died on 1 July 1954 in Berlin, Germany.- Writer
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Lana Wachowski and her sister Lilly Wachowski, also known as the Wachowskis, are the duo behind such ground-breaking movies as The Matrix (1999) and Cloud Atlas (2012). Born to mother Lynne, a nurse, and father Ron, a businessman of Polish descent, Wachowski grew up in Chicago and formed a tight creative relationship with her sister Lilly. After the siblings dropped out of college, they started a construction business and wrote screenplays. Their 1995 script, Assassins (1995), was made into a movie, leading to a Warner Bros contract. After that time, the Wachowskis devoted themselves to their movie careers. In 2012, during interviews for Cloud Atlas and in her acceptance speech for the Human Rights Campaign's Visibility Award, Lana spoke about her experience of being a transgender woman, sacrificing her much cherished anonymity out of a sense of responsibility. Lana is known to be extremely well-read, loves comic books and exploring ideas of imaginary worlds, and was inspired by Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) in creating Cloud Atlas.*- Director
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Peter Watkins began his career in advertising as an assistant producer and turned to amateur filmmaking in the late 1950s. In the mid-'60s he was commissioned by BBC-TV to make two feature-length docudramas incorporating a quasi-newsreel style and nonprofessional actors. The second of these, The War Game (1966), graphically portrayed the nightmare of nuclear war and was banned from broadcast. It was subsequently released in theaters and earned a best documentary Oscar in 1966. Watkins enjoyed modest success with the commercial feature film Privilege (1967), but has subsequently worked primarily in the documentary genre, based in various Scandinavian countries. One of his more recent films, Resan (1987), is an 873-minute (14-hour) epic that addresses such issues as the arms race and global hunger.- Director
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James Whale was an English film director, theatre director and actor. He is best remembered for his four classic horror films: Frankenstein (1931), The Old Dark House (1932), The Invisible Man (1933) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935). He also directed films in other genres, including what is considered the definitive film version of the musical Show Boat (1936).
In 1931 Universal Pictures signed him to a five-year contract and his first project was Waterloo Bridge (1931). Based on the Broadway play by Robert E. Sherwood, the film starred Mae Clarke. That same year Universal chief Carl Laemmle Jr. offered Whale his choice of any property the studio owned. Whale chose Frankenstein (1931), mostly because none of Universal's other properties particularly interested him and he wanted to make something other than a war picture.
In 1933 Whale directed The Invisible Man (1933), based on the book by H.G. Wells. Shot from a script approved by Wells, the film blended horror with humor and confounding visual effects. It was critically acclaimed, with "The New York Times" listing it as one of the ten best films of the year, and it broke box-office records in cities across America. So highly regarded was the film that France, which restricted the number of theaters in which undubbed American films could play, granted it a special waiver because of its "extraordinary artistic merit". Also in 1933 Whale directed the romantic comedy By Candlelight (1933). He directed Bride of Frankenstein (1935), a sequel of sorts to "Frankenstein", which Whale was somewhat apprehensive about making because he feared being pigeonholed as a horror director. "Bride" hearkened back to an episode from Mary Shelley's original novel in which the Monster promises to leave Frankenstein and humanity alone if Frankenstein makes him a mate. He does, but the mate is repelled by the monster who then, setting Frankenstein and his wife free to live, chooses to destroy himself and his "bride." The film was a critical and box office success. However, his next major project, The Road Back (1937), was a critical and financial disaster, and contributed to his retiring from the film industry in 1941.
Beset by personal, health and professional problems, James Whale committed suicide by drowning himself in the swimming pool of his Pacific Palisades (CA) home on 29 May 1957 at the age of 67. He left a suicide note, which his longtime companion David Lewis withheld until shortly before his own death decades later. Because the note was suppressed, the death was initially ruled accidental.*- Producer
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Joss Whedon is the middle of five brothers - his younger brothers are Jed Whedon and Zack Whedon. Both his father, Tom Whedon and his grandfather, John Whedon were successful television writers. Joss' mother, Lee Stearns, was a history teacher and she also wrote novels as Lee Whedon. Whedon was raised in New York and was educated at Riverdale Country School, where his mother also taught. He also attended Winchester College in England for two years, before graduating with a film degree from Wesleyan University.
After relocating to Los Angeles, Whedon landed his first TV writing job on "Roseanne", and moved on to script a season of "Parenthood". He then developed a film script which went on to become Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992). Whedon was very unhappy with the final film - his original script was extensively re-written and made lighter in tone. After this he earned screenwriting credits on such high profile productions as Alien: Resurrection (1997) and Toy Story (1995), for which he was Oscar nominated. He also worked as a 'script doctor' on various features, notably Speed (1994).
In 1997, Whedon had the opportunity to resurrect his character Buffy in a television series on The WB Network. This time, as showrunner and executive producer, he retained full artistic control. The series, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was a popular and critical hit, which ran for several seasons, the last two on UPN. Whedon also produced a spin-off series, "Angel", which was also successful. A foray in to sci-fi television followed with "Firefly", which developed a cult following, but did not stay on air long. It did find an audience on DVD and through re-runs, and a spin-off feature film Serenity (2005) was released in 2005.
Other projects have included comic book writing, the sci-fi drama "Dollhouse" and the screenplay for Marvel blockbuster The Avengers (2012).*- Director
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Robert Earl Wise was born on September 10, 1914 in Winchester, Indiana, the youngest of three sons of Olive R. (Longenecker) and Earl Waldo Wise, a meat packer. His parents were both of Pennsylvania Dutch (German) descent. At age nineteen, the avid moviegoer came into the film business through an odd job at RKO Radio Pictures. A head sound effects editor at the studio recognized Wise's talent, and made Wise his protégé. Around 1941, Orson Welles was in need of an editor for Citizen Kane (1941), and Wise did a splendid job. Welles really liked his work and ideas. Wise started as a director with some B-movies, and his career went on quickly, and he made many classic movies. His last theatrical film, Rooftops (1989), proved that he was a filmmaker still in full command of his craft in his 80s. The carefully composed images, tight editing, and unflagging pace make one wish that Wise had not stayed away from the camera for very long. Robert Wise died of heart failure on September, 14, 2005, just four days after his 91st birthday.- Writer
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Hacks are nothing new in Hollywood. Since the beginning of the film industry at the turn of the 20th century, thousands of untalented people have come to Los Angeles from all over America and abroad to try to make it big (as writers, producers, directors, actors, talent agents, singers, composers, musicians, artists, etc.) but who end up using, scamming and exploiting other people for money as well as using their creative ability (either self-taught or professional training), leading to the production of dull, bland, mediocre, unimaginative, inferior, trite work in the forlorn hope of attaining commercial success. Had Edward D. Wood, Jr. been born a decade or two earlier, it's easy to imagine him working for some Poverty Row outfit in Gower Gulch, competing with the likes of no-talent and no-taste producers and directors--such as Victor Adamson, Robert J. Horner and Dwain Esper--for the title of all-time hack. He would have fit in nicely working at Weiss Brothers-Artclass Pictures in the early 1930s in directing low budget Western-themed serials, or directing low budget film noir crime drama features at PRC (Producers Releasing Corporation) in the following decade from 1940 to 1946. Ed Wood is the probably the most well known of all the Hollywood hacks because he is imprisoned in his own time, and in the 1950s, Ed Wood simply had no competition. He was ignored throughout his spectacularly unsuccessful film making career and died a penniless alcoholic, only to be "rediscovered" when promoters in the early 1980s tagged him "The Worst Director of All Time" (mostly thanks to the Medveds' hilarious book, "Golden Turkey Awards") and he was given the singular honor of a full-length biopic by Tim Burton (Ed Wood (1994)). This post-mortem celebrity has made him infinitely more famous today than he ever was during his lifetime.
Wood was an exceedingly complex person. He was born on October 10, 1924, in Poughkeepsie, NY, where he lived most of his childhood. He joined the US Marine Corps in 1943 at the height of World War II and was, by all accounts, an exemplary marine, wounded in ferocious combat in the Pacific theater (a transgender, he claimed to have been wearing a bra and panties under his uniform while storming ashore during the bloody beachhead landing at Tarawa in November 1943). He was habitually optimistic, even in the face of the bleak realities that would later consume him. His personality bonded him with a small clique of outcasts who eked out life on the far edges of the Hollywood fringe.
After settling in Los Angeles in the late 1940s, Wood attempted to break into the film industry, initially without success, but in 1952 he landed the chance to direct a film based on the real-life Christine Jorgensen sex-change story, then a hot topic. The result, Glen or Glenda (1953), gave a fascinating insight into Wood's own personality and shed light on his transgender identity (an almost unthinkable subject for an early 1950s mainstream feature). Although devoutly heterosexual, Wood was an enthusiastic cross-dresser, with a particular fondness for angora. On the debit side, though, the film revealed the almost complete lack of talent that would mar all his subsequent films, his tendency to resort to stock footage of lightning during dramatic moments, laughable set design and a near-incomprehensible performance by Bela Lugosi as a mad doctor whose presence is never adequately explained. The film deservedly flopped miserably but Wood, always upbeat, pressed ahead.
Wood's main problem was that he saw himself as a producer-writer-director, when in fact he was spectacularly incompetent in all three capacities. Friends who knew Wood have described him as an eccentric, oddball hack who was far more interested in the work required in cobbling a film project together than in ever learning the craft of film making itself or in any type of realism. In an alternate universe, Wood might have been a competent producer if he had better industry connections and an even remotely competent director. Wood, however, likened himself to his idol, Orson Welles, and became a triple threat: bad producer, poor screenwriter and God-awful director. All of his films exhibit illogical continuity, bizarre narratives and give the distinct impression that a director's job was simply to expose the least amount of film possible due to crushing budget constraints. His magnum opus, Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), features visible wires connected to pie-pan UFOs, actors knocking over cardboard "headstones", cars changing models and years during chase sequences, scenes exhibiting a disturbing lack of handgun safety and the ingenious use of shower curtains in airplane cockpits that have virtually no equipment are just a few of the trademarks of that Edward D. Wood Jr. production. When criticized for their innumerable flaws, Wood would cheerfully explain his interpretation of the suspension of disbelief. It's not so much that he made movies so badly without regard to realism--the amazing part is that he managed to get them made at all.
His previous film with Lugosi, Bride of the Monster (1955), was no better (unbelievably, it somehow managed to earn a small profit during its original release, undoubtedly more of a testament to how cheaply it was produced than its value as entertainment), and Wood only shot a few seconds of silent footage of Lugosi (doped and dazed, wandering around the front yard of his house) for "Plan 9" before the actor died in August 1956. What few reviews the film received were brutal. Typically undaunted, Wood soldiered on despite incoherent material and a microscopic budget, peopling it with his regular band of mostly inept actors. Given the level of dialog, budget and Wood's dismal directorial abilities, it's unlikely that better actors would have made much of a difference (lead actor Gregory Walcott made his debut in this film and went on to have a very respectable career as a character actor, but was always embarrassed by his participation in this film)--in fact, it's the film's semi-official status as arguably the Worst Film Ever Made that gives it its substantial cult following. The film, financed by a local Baptist congregation led by Wood's landlord, reaches a plateau of ineptitude that tends to leave viewers open-mouthed, wondering what is it they just saw. "Plan 9" became, whether Wood realized it or not, his singular enduring legacy. Ironically, the rights to the film were retained by the church and it is unlikely that Wood ever received a dime from it; his epic bombed upon release in 1959 and remained largely forgotten for years to come.
After this career "peak," Wood went into, relatively speaking, a decline. Always an "enthusiastic"--for lack of a better word--drinker, his alcohol addiction worsened in the 1960s due to his depression of not achieving the worldwide fame he had always sought. He began to draw away from film directing and focused most of his time on another profession: writing. Beginning in the early 1960s up until his death, Wood wrote at least 80 lurid crime and sex paperback novels in addition to hundreds of short stories and non-fiction pieces for magazines and daily newspapers. Thirty-two stories known to be written by Wood (he sometimes wrote under pseudonyms such as "Ann Gora" and "Dr. T.K. Peters") are collected in 'Blood Splatters Quickly', published by OR Books in 2014. Novels include Black Lace Drag (1963) (reissued in 1965 as Killer in Drag), Orgy of the Dead (1965), Devil Girls (1967), Death of a Transvestite (1967), The Sexecutives (1968), The Photographer (1969), Take It Out in Trade (1970), The Only House in Town (1970), Necromania (1971), The Undergraduate (1972), A Study of Fetishes and Fantasies (1973) and Fugitive Girls (1974).
In 1965, Wood wrote the quasi-memoir 'Hollywood Rat Race', which was eventually published in 1998. In it, Wood advises new writers to "just keep on writing. Even if your story gets worse, you'll get better", and also recounts tales of dubious authenticity, such as how he and Bela Lugosi entered the world of nightclub cabaret.
In the 1970s, Wood directed a number of undistinguished softcore and later hardcore adult porno films under various aliases, one of which is the name "Akdov Telmig" ("vodka gimlet" spelled backwards; it helps to imagine that you're a boozy dyslexic, as Ed Wood was). His final years were spent largely drunk in his apartment and occasionally being rolled stumbling out of a local liquor store. Three days before his death, Wood and his wife Kathy were evicted from their Hollywood apartment due to failure to pay the rent and moved into a friend's apartment shortly before his death on the afternoon of December 10, 1978, at age 54. He had a heart attack and died while drinking in bed.
Due to his recent resurgence in popularity, many of his equally interesting transgender - themed sex novels have been republished. The gravitational pull of Planet Angora remains quite strong.*- Producer
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A whiz-kid with special effects, Robert is from the Spielberg camp of film-making (Steven Spielberg produced many of his films). Usually working with writing partner Bob Gale, Robert's earlier films show he has a talent for zany comedy (Romancing the Stone (1984), 1941 (1979)) and special effect vehicles (Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Back to the Future (1985)). His later films have become more serious, with the hugely successful Tom Hanks vehicle Forrest Gump (1994) and the Jodie Foster film Contact (1997), both critically acclaimed movies. Again, these films incorporate stunning effects. Robert has proved he can work a serious story around great effects.*