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Director

Robert Zemeckis

Bio

ROBERT ZEMECKIS won an Academy Award®, a Golden Globe® and a Director’s Guild of America Award for Best Director for the hugely successful “Forrest Gump.” The film’s numerous honors also included Oscars® for Best Actor (Tom Hanks) and Best Picture. Zemeckis re-teamed with Hanks on the contemporary drama “Cast Away,” the filming of which was split into two sections, book-ending production on “What Lies Beneath.” Zemeckis and Hanks served as producers on “Cast Away,” along with Steve Starkey and Jack Rapke.

ImageMovers partners Zemeckis, Starkey and Rapke recently formed ImageMovers Digital to focus on performance-capture films for The Walt Disney Studios. The initiative furthers the technology they pioneered in the Zemeckis-directed films “The Polar Express” and “Beowulf,” and the Gil Kenan-directed film “Monster House.”

Earlier in his career, Zemeckis co-wrote (with Bob Gale) and directed “Back to the Future,” which was the top-grossing release of 1985, and for which Zemeckis shared Oscar® and Golden Globe® nominations for Best Original Screenplay. He then went on to helm “Back to the Future” Part II and Part III, completing one of the most successful film franchises ever.

In addition, he directed and produced “Contact,” starring Jodie Foster, based on the best-selling novel by Carl Sagan; and the macabre comedy hit “Death Becomes Her,” starring Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn and Bruce Willis. He also wrote and directed the box-office smash “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?,” cleverly blending live action and animation; directed the romantic-adventure hit “Romancing the Stone,” pairing Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner; and co-wrote (with Bob Gale) and directed the comedies “Used Cars” and “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.”

Zemeckis also produced “House on Haunted Hill,” and executive produced such films as “The Frighteners,” “The Public Eye” and “Trespass,” which he also co-wrote with Bob Gale. He and Gale previously wrote “1914,” which began Zemeckis’ association with Steven Spielberg.

For the small screen, Zemeckis has directed several projects, including the Showtime feature-length documentary “The Pursuit of Happiness,” which explored the effect of drugs and alcohol on 20th-century society. His additional television credits include episodes of Spielberg’s “Amazing Stories” and HBO’s “Tales from the Crypt.”

In 1998, Zemeckis, Steve Starkey and Jack Rapke partnered to form the film and television production company ImageMovers. “What Lies Beneath” was the first film to be released under the ImageMovers banner, followed by “Cast Away,” which opened to critical and audience acclaim in the fall of 2000, and “Matchstick Men.”

In March 2001, the USC School of Cinema-Television celebrated the opening of the Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts. This state-of-the-art center is the country’s first and only fully digital training center and houses the latest in non-linear production and post-production equipment as well as stages, a 50-seat screening room and USC student-run television station, Trojan Vision.

In 2004, Zemeckis produced and directed the motion capture film “The Polar Express,” starring Tom Hanks. Most recently, he brought the true life story of “The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio” starring Julianne Moore and Woody Harrelson to the big screen. In addition, he served as executive producer on both “Monster House” and the Queen Latifah comedy “Last Holiday.”

Zemeckis produced and directed his second motion-capture film “Beowulf,” which was also produced by Rapke and Starkey. The feature, which stars Anthony Hopkins, Angelina Jolie and Ray Winstone, is based on one of the oldest surviving pieces of Anglo-Saxon literature, written sometime before the 10th Century A.D. STEVE STARKEY (Producer) earned an Academy Award® as one of the producers of Best Picture winner “Forrest Gump.” The film, directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Tom Hanks, became one of the highest grossing movies of all time and collected six Oscars®, including Best Director and Best Actor, as well as a Golden Globe Award®, the National Board of Review’s highest honor in 1994, two People’s Choice Awards, the Producers Guild Golden Laurel Award and Best Picture BAFTA nomination.

Starkey, along with Zemeckis and Jack Rapke, recently formed ImageMovers Digital, an extension of their 1998-established ImageMovers. The new effort allows the partners to focus on performance-capture films for The Walt Disney Studios, building on the technology they pioneered in the Zemeckis-directed films “The Polar Express” and “Beowulf,” and the Gil Kenan-directed film “Monster House”—all films on which Starkey served as producer.

Starkey’s ImageMovers’ producer credits with director Robert Zemeckis include the epic drama “Cast Away,” which re-teamed them with Tom Hanks, and the psychological thriller “What Lies Beneath” with Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer. Starkey produced “The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio,” directed by Jane Anderson and starring Julianne Moore, and was also a producer on “Matchstick Men,” directed by Ridley Scott and starring Nicolas Cage.

Starkey’s professional association with Zemeckis began in 1986 when he was associate producer on the innovative feature “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” and went on to serve as associate producer on the second and third installments of the “Back to the Future” trilogy. Their collaboration continued as Starkey and Zemeckis produced the black comedy “Death Becomes Her,” followed by “Forrest Gump” and “Contact.” Starkey also co-produced the feature comedy farce “Noises Off” and produced the Showtime feature-length documentary “The Pursuit of Happiness,” exploring drug and alcohol addiction, which was directed and executive produced by Robert Zemeckis.

Early in his career, Starkey worked with George Lucas at Lucasfilm, Ltd., where he became an assistant film editor on “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi.” He later edited documentary films for Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment, was associate producer of Spielberg’s “Amazing Stories” television anthology series, and was executive producer on the 1993 CBS series “Johnny Bago.” Starkey served as executive producer on the 2006 film “Last Holiday,” starring Queen Latifah and directed by Wayne Wang.

Director- Job Description

The principal creative artist on a movie set. A director is usually (but not always) the driving artistic source behind the filming process, and communicates to actors the way that he/she would like a particular scene played. A director's duties might also include casting, script editing, shot selection, shot composition, and editing. Typically, a director has complete artistic control over all aspects of the movie, but it is not uncommon for the director to be bound by agreements with either a producer or a studio. In some large productions, a director will delegate less important scenes to a second unit director 2UD.