Brett Leonard | |
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Born | |
Occupation(s) | Director, writer, producer |
Brett Leonard (born May 14, 1959) is an American film director, producer and music video director specializing in the science fiction and horror genres. A few of his films such as The Lawnmower Man (1992) and Virtuosity (1995) feature groundbreaking computer animation and visual effects. [1] The Lawnmower Man is considered the first, seminal film to feature "virtual reality" as a cautionary tale becoming the number one commercially successful independent film of 1992, budgeted at just under $6 million and eventually earning over $150 million worldwide. [2]
Leonard's work with the IMAX 3D process set him apart from most directors having gained early experience with this cutting-edge presentation medium directing T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous in IMAX 3D. The film became the first number-one hit 3D movie to gross over $100 million worldwide (on IMAX screens alone). [3] [4]
He created a sensation when he took his Swarm Cam-Fusion Station onto The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and, with guest Billy Idol, implemented one of the first live web-casts ever from the House of Blues in Los Angeles.
Creative Artists Agency and Intel Corporation hired him to direct a state-of-the-art "interactive show" for CAA/Intel Media Lab to introduce the Hollywood community to the "future of entertainment", digitizing actor Danny DeVito, and using live performance animation to create the interactive animated character "Mr. Head", who guided the audience/participants through the experience.
In the music video genre, Brett directed Peter Gabriel's: "Kiss That Frog", the first all-computer graphic (CGI) music video/motion simulator ride film to tour the world, becoming the wildly popular themed entertainment attraction to win him a 1994 MTV Music Video Award.
In 2009, Brett directed the documentary Hole in the Head: A Life Revealed. This feature-length documentary tells the story of Vertus Hardiman and nine other young children, attending the same elementary school in Lyles Station, Indiana who, in 1927 were severely irradiated during a medical experiment conducted at the local county hospital. The experiment was misrepresented as a newly developed cure for the scalp fungus known as ringworm. In reality the ringworm fungus was merely the lure used to gain access to innocent children whose unsuspecting parents blindly signed permission slips for the treatment. Vertus was five years old and the youngest; after 20 years of friendship with writer/producer Wilbert Smith through their church choir, Vertus tells Wilbert his story, exposing the severe physical complications caused by the experiments. This crime had severe physical complications for Vertus—namely a harshly irradiated and malformed head, with an actual hole in his skull.
In 2012, Brett formed a new concept in musical cinema, called PopFictionLife. Seeing the proliferation of small high-definition screens on smart phones, tablets, and laptops, PopfictionLife "FragFilms" are full-length feature movies with existing artists, that have multiple free "Frags" (fragments) of the movie which are watchable, shareable, and embeddable in social media, blogs, and webpages. Brett's latest film is a PopFictionLife FragFilm called The Other Country – Starring Burlap to Cashmere. The film also stars Samantha Lockwood and America's Next Top Model winner Nicole Fox.
In 2017, he called for a use of the term "virtual experience" instead of "virtual reality". [5]
Year | Title | Director | Writer | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
1989 | The Dead Pit | Yes | Yes | Also editor |
1992 | The Lawnmower Man | Yes | Yes | |
1995 | Hideaway | Yes | No | |
Virtuosity | Yes | No | ||
1998 | T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous | Yes | No | |
2005 | Man-Thing | Yes | No | |
Feed | Yes | No | ||
2007 | Highlander: The Source | Yes | No | TV movie |
2009 | Truth? | Yes | Yes | |
2012 | The Other Country – Starring Burlap to Cashmere | Yes | Yes | Also producer |
2021 | Triumph | Yes | No |
Year | Title | Director | Writer |
---|---|---|---|
1999 | Siegfried & Roy: The Magic Box | Yes | Yes |
2009 | Hole in the Head: A Life Revealed | Yes | Yes |
Producer
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1988 | Killer Klowns from Outer Space | Klown Performer (Jumbo) | Uncredited |
1989 | The Dead Pit | Bearded Mental Patient | |
2005 | Man-Thing | Val Mayerick |
Year | Title | Artist |
---|---|---|
1990 | "Step Off" | MC Twist |
1993 | "Kiss That Frog" | Peter Gabriel |
1993 | "Shock to the System" | Billy Idol |
"Heroin" | ||
2003 | "If U Want Me" | Michael Woods feat. Imogen Bailey |
2004 | "Play" | Peter Gabriel |
Night Shift is Stephen King's first collection of short stories, first published in 1978. In 1980, Night Shift won the Balrog Award for Best Collection, and in 1979 it was nominated as best collection for the Locus Award and the World Fantasy Award.
IMAX is a proprietary system of high-resolution cameras, film formats, film projectors, and theaters known for having very large screens with a tall aspect ratio and steep stadium seating, with the 1.43:1 ratio format being available only in few selected locations.
3D films are motion pictures made to give an illusion of three-dimensional solidity, usually with the help of special glasses worn by viewers. They have existed in some form since 1915, but had been largely relegated to a niche in the motion picture industry because of the costly hardware and processes required to produce and display a 3D film, and the lack of a standardized format for all segments of the entertainment business. Nonetheless, 3D films were prominently featured in the 1950s in American cinema, and later experienced a worldwide resurgence in the 1980s and 1990s driven by IMAX high-end theaters and Disney-themed venues. 3D films became increasingly successful throughout the 2000s, peaking with the success of 3D presentations of Avatar in December 2009, after which 3D films again decreased in popularity. Certain directors have also taken more experimental approaches to 3D filmmaking, most notably celebrated auteur Jean-Luc Godard in his film Goodbye to Language.
The Lawnmower Man is a 1992 science fiction horror film directed by Brett Leonard, written by Leonard and Gimel Everett, and starring Jeff Fahey as Jobe Smith, an intellectually disabled gardener, and Pierce Brosnan as Dr. Lawrence "Larry" Angelo, a scientist who decides to experiment on him in an effort to give him greater intelligence. The experiments give Jobe superhuman abilities, but also increase his aggression, turning him into a man obsessed with evolving into a digital being.
Alex McDowell is a British narrative designer and creative director working in narrative media. He is a strong advocate of world building and immersive design and integrates digital technology and traditional design technique in his work. He has created a holistic design process that incorporates ideation, inception, prototyping, and production for tangible story worlds.
Chris Milk is an American entrepreneur, innovator, director, photographer, and immersive artist. He is co-founder and CEO of Within, a virtual reality technology company, and co-founder of Here Be Dragons, a virtual reality production company. Milk began his career directing music videos and commercials for leading artists and brands, and in subsequent years became best known for bridging the gap between emerging technologies and new mediums for storytelling.
"The Lawnmower Man" is a short story by American writer Stephen King, first published in the May 1975 issue of Cavalier and later included in King's 1978 collection Night Shift.
The Lawnmower Man is a video game based on the 1992 film of the same name. The game was published in Japan by Coconuts Japan (ココナッツジャパンエンターテイメント) under the title Virtual Wars.
Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace is a 1996 American science fiction action film written and directed by Farhad Mann, and starring Matt Frewer, Patrick Bergin, Austin O'Brien, and Ely Pouget. It is a sequel to the 1992 film The Lawnmower Man. The film was negatively reviewed by both critics and fans of the original film.
Cyberwar is a DOS game based on the film The Lawnmower Man and a direct sequel to the video game adaptation of the film, which itself takes place after the film. It was released in 1994 by SCi. Ports were announced for the Sega CD, 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, and in Japan only for the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation, but only the PlayStation version was released.
Arcade is a 1993 B-movie science fiction film directed by Albert Pyun, written by David S. Goyer and produced by Full Moon Entertainment. It stars Megan Ward, Peter Billingsley, John de Lancie, Sharon Farrell, Seth Green, A. J. Langer, and Bryan Dattilo.
U2 3D is a 2008 American-produced 3D concert film featuring rock band U2 performing during the Vertigo Tour in 2006. Directed by Catherine Owens and Mark Pellington, the film contains performances of 14 songs, including tracks from How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (2004), the album that the tour supported. The concert footage includes political and social statements made during the shows. It is the band's second feature film, following their 1988 rockumentary Rattle and Hum. Among several cinematic firsts, U2 3D was the first live-action digital 3D film.
Gregory Peter Panos is an American writer, futurist, educator, strategic planning consultant, conference / event producer, and technology evangelist in augmented reality, virtual reality, human simulation, motion capture, performance animation, 3D character animation, human-computer interaction, and user experience design.
Gimel Everett is an American producer specializing in the science-fiction and horror genres. Her films The Lawnmower Man and Virtuosity (1995) feature groundbreaking computer animation and visual effects.
Kieran Galvin is an Irish-born Australian film director and screenwriter. He wrote and directed four award-winning short films, before he made his debut feature film, Puppy in 2005. Also in 2005 he was commissioned to write the thriller Feed for American film director Brett Leonard. In 2017, his first novel, "Nadia Wants To Be A Man. Again," a darkly funny political satire, was published.
Vertus Wellborn Hardiman was a victim of a US government human radiation experiment at the age of five that left him with a painful skull deformity that forced him to cover his head for 80 years.
Festival of International Virtual & Augmented Reality Stories (FIVARS) is a media festival that showcases stories or narrative forms from around the world using immersive technology that includes virtual reality, augmented reality, live VR performance theater and dance, projection mapping and spatialized audio. It is considered to be Canada's first dedicated virtual or augmented reality stories festival, and was the world's first virtual reality festival dedicated completely and exclusively to narrative pieces. FIVARS is operated by Constant Change Media Group, Inc. and VRTO.
VRTO was founded in 2015 by Keram Malicki-Sánchez as a Meetup group dedicated to virtual reality in Toronto. In June 2016, VRTO launched the VRTO Virtual & Augmented Reality World Conference & Expo, a professional event focused on exploring arts, culture, and science through immersive technologies.
Virtual reality in fiction describes fictional representations of the technological concept of virtual reality.
Volumetric capture or volumetric video is a technique that captures a three-dimensional space, such as a location or performance. This type of volumography acquires data that can be viewed on flat screens as well as using 3D displays and VR goggles. Consumer-facing formats are numerous and the required motion capture techniques lean on computer graphics, photogrammetry, and other computation-based methods. The viewer generally experiences the result in a real-time engine and has direct input in exploring the generated volume.