Brett Simon (born November 28, 1973 in

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was es ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

) is an American commercial,

music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing devi ...

and

film director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, ...

Career

Simon graduated from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the n ...

''summa cum laude'' in 1997 with a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

degree in

Comparative Literature Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...

and

Creative Writing Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literar ...

, and later graduated from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

in 2002 with a

Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts a ...

degree in Art Practice. He is a PhD candidate in Film Studies at UC Berkeley. In 2001, he wrote, directed, edited and produced the

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

''Counterfeit Film'', which showed at the

Telluride Film Festival The Telluride Film Festival (TFF) is a film festival held annually in Telluride, Colorado during Labor Day weekend (the first Monday in September). The 49th edition took place on September 2 -6, 2022. History First held on 30 August 1974, t ...

South by Southwest South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, ...

and RESFest and has been archived at the Pacific Film Archive at UC Berkeley, as well as winning numerous awards. In 2005, he wrote, directed, edited and produced the short film ''The Sailor's Girl'', which screened at the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,6 ...

and

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a perman ...

. After making a number of short films, he became an accomplished

director, working on the videos for Marion Raven's " Break You" and "Here I Am",

The Killers The Killers are an American Rock music, rock band formed in Las Vegas in 2001 by Brandon Flowers (lead vocals, keyboards, bass) and Dave Keuning (lead guitar, backing vocals). After going through a number of short-term bass players and drum ...

' " Somebody Told Me", Polar Bear's " Belly", The Joggers' " Hot Autism", Unwritten Law's "

Save Me Save Me may refer to: Film and television * ''Save Me'', a 1994 film starring Lysette Anthony * ''Sauve-moi'' (''Save Me''), a 2000 French film directed by Christian Vincent * ''Save Me'' (film), a 2007 American film directed by Robert Cary * ' ...

Good Charlotte Good Charlotte is an American rock band from Waldorf, Maryland that formed in 1996. Since 2005, the band's lineup has consisted of twin brothers Joel Madden (lead vocals) and Benji Madden (guitar and vocals), Paul Thomas (bass), Billy Martin ...

's " The Chronicles of Life and Death",

New Found Glory New Found Glory (formerly A New Found Glory) is an American rock band from Coral Springs, Florida, formed in 1997. The band currently consists of Jordan Pundik (lead vocals), Ian Grushka (bass guitar), Chad Gilbert (lead guitar, backing vo ...

's "

It's Not Your Fault "It's Not Your Fault" is a song by American rock band New Found Glory, serving as the lead single from their fifth studio album '' Coming Home'' (2006). The track was first announced in July 2006, before the music video debuted on ''TRL'' on 1 Au ...

", Lostprophets' " A Town Called Hypocrisy", Sugarcult's "

Do It Alone ''Lights Out'' is the fifth studio album from Sugarcult, which was released on September 12, 2006 by V2 Records. Background Within the album booklet, there is a piece of writing entitled ''Lights Out And Recurrent Love Themes''. This piece of wri ...

Queens of the Stone Age Queens of the Stone Age (commonly abbreviated QOTSA) is an American rock band formed in 1996 in Palm Desert, California. The band was founded by vocalist and guitarist Josh Homme, who has been the only constant member throughout multiple line ...

's "

Sick, Sick, Sick "Sick, Sick, Sick" is a song by American rock band Queens of the Stone Age from their 2007 album '' Era Vulgaris''. It was released as a digital download from the U.S. iTunes Store on May 8, 2007. The song features Julian Casablancas of The Str ...

Hoobastank Hoobastank (sometimes stylized as h∞bastank, and originally known as Hoobustank) is an American rock band formed in 1994 in Agoura Hills, California, by lead vocalist Doug Robb, guitarist Dan Estrin, drummer Chris Hesse, and original bassis ...

's The Reason, and

Rise Against Rise Against is an American punk rock band from Chicago, formed in 1999. The group's current line-up comprises vocalist/rhythm guitarist Tim McIlrath, lead guitarist Zach Blair, bassist Joe Principe and drummer Brandon Barnes. Rooted in ha ...

's " Audience of One". In 2008, Simon directed his first feature film, the

Catholic school Catholic schools are pre-primary, primary and secondary educational institutions administered under the aegis or in association with the Catholic Church. , the Catholic Church operates the world's largest religious, non-governmental school syst ...

noir '' Assassination of a High School President'', from

Tim Calpin Timothy Calpin, Jr. (born 1979) is an American screenwriter best known for writing the 2009 in film, 2009 film ''Assassination of a High School President''. Biography Calpin was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and first became interested in writ ...

and Kevin Jakubowski's script. ''Assassination of a High School President'' has premiered at the

and

s. Between 1998 and 2003, Simon taught

film history The history of film chronicles the development of a visual art form created using film technologies that began in the late 19th century. The advent of film as an artistic medium is not clearly defined. However, the commercial, public scr ...

film theory Film theory is a set of scholarly approaches within the academic discipline of film or cinema studies that began in the 1920s by questioning the formal essential attributes of motion pictures; and that now provides conceptual frameworks for unde ...

and

video production Video production is the process of producing video content for video. It is the equivalent of filmmaking, but with video recorded either as analog signals on videotape, digitally in video tape or as computer files stored on optical discs, hard dri ...

at UC Berkeley. He has also had

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (pro ...

stints at the '' Kitchen Sink'', '' Speak'' and '' Fabula'' magazines. Simon worked with Rob Nilsson and David Herrera on the feature film ''Security'' at the Pacific Film Archive.

Personal life

Simon graduated from Gunn High School in 1992. His mother is Joan Simon and his father is Jack Simon, a

Los Altos, California Los Altos (; Spanish for "The Heights") is a city in Santa Clara County, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. The population was 31,625 according to the 2020 census. Most of the city's growth occurred between 1950 and 1980. Originally ...

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their ...

and street photographer. He currently lives in

Venice, Los Angeles Venice is a neighborhood of the city of Los Angeles within the Westside (Los Angeles County), Westside region of Los Angeles County, California. Venice was founded by Abbot Kinney in 1905 as a seaside resort town. It was an independent city unti ...

References

External links

*
Brett Simon official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Simon, Brett 1973 births Living people American music video directors University of California, Berkeley faculty University of California, Berkeley alumni Princeton University alumni People from Palo Alto, California Television commercial directors Film directors from California Gunn High School alumni