Sarah Shapiro | |
|---|---|
 Shapiro at the 75th Annual Peabody Awards | |
| Born | |
| Alma mater | Sarah Lawrence College |
| Occupation | Writer-Director |
| Years active | 2005- |
| Known for | UnREAL |
Sarah Gertrude Shapiro is an American filmmaker and television writer best known for co-creating the Lifetime television series UnREAL with Marti Noxon. [1]
Shapiro was born in Santa Barbara, California, to mother Diane Wolf (née Wallace) and father Perry Shapiro, [2] a professor. [3] She has a sister, Elizabeth Shapiro-Garza, who is an academic. Shapiro is Jewish and grew up celebrating the High Holidays and Passover. [4]
Shapiro said she started writing when she was five years old, a book called Ergant Cries Ignored. [5] [6] At the age of 16, after attending a film class at Santa Barbara City College, Shapiro decided she wanted to be a director. [1]
Shapiro graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in with a BA in Fiction Writing and Filmmaking. [7]
After college, Shapiro interned at Christine Vachon's production company, Killer Films, and then worked for photographer David LaChapelle as a studio manager. [8] In 2002, affected by the events of September 11 attacks and wanting to be closer to family, Shapiro moved to Los Angeles, California. [1]
In Los Angeles, Shapiro found work on the reality TV show High School Reunion, unknowingly signing a contract with the production company that allowed them to move her to different shows at their discretion, and which committed Shapiro to "unlimited renewable options for perpetuity." [9] Shapiro would eventually become a producer on The Bachelor TV franchise, a role she strongly disliked, but which would play an influential part in her later career. [1] She worked on the show for four seasons over the course of two years, going from associate producer to field producer. [9]
In 2005, seeking to leave reality television and end her restrictive non-compete employment contract (which was only effective in California), Shapiro moved to Portland, Oregon, [10] where she worked at the advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy. [8] Shapiro was familiar with Portland from having interned at Portland's Northwest Film Center during college, where she met filmmakers Miranda July and other local artists and filmmakers. [10] Initially she planned to be a kale farmer. [1]
At Wieden + Kennedy, Shapiro worked as a director, creating content in the form of short forms and documentaries. [1] Wieden + Kennedy was an early supporter of her creative endeavors, allowing Shapiro to take leave and providing funding for a Kickstarter campaign for Sequin Raze. [10] Shapiro worked on Sequin Raze, which she called a passion project, for four years while working at Wieden + Kennedy. [11] [12]
In 2012, she was one of eight women selected for the American Film Institute's Directing Workshop for Women (DWW), [13] where she wrote and directed the short film Sequin Raze, starring Anna Camp, Ashley Williams, and Frances Conroy. [14] The film went on to win Honorable Mention at South by Southwest Film Festival's Short Film Jury Awards as well as screenings at the New Directors/New Films Festival in New York (MoMA/Lincoln Center) and Palm Springs International film festival. [8] [11]
A mentor at the ad agency in Portland, Sally DeSipio, connected Shapiro with Lifetime, where she pitched the show without an agent, and was paired with writer Marti Noxon. [10]
On July 30, 2013, Lifetime placed a pilot order on UnREAL , inspired by Sequin Raze. The pilot was written by Shapiro and Marti Noxon and was produced by A+E Studios. On February 6, 2014, UnREAL was green-lit, with a 10-episode series order, [15] and premiered in June 2015. [9]
Shapiro is credited as co-creator, writer, and supervising producer on the show. On July 6, 2015, the series was renewed for a second season of 10 episodes, to premiere in 2016. [16] She spoke about the creation of the series in a lengthy 2016 profile with The New Yorker writer D.T. Max. [17]
Shapiro's previous job working as a field producer on the American reality dating series The Bachelor was the inspiration behind both the short film as well as the Lifetime series. [18] She talked about her journey navigating the world of Hollywood in an independent Tedx TED Conference. [5]
While attending Sarah Lawrence College, Shapiro formed the band The New England Roses with Brendan Fowler and JD Samson of indie band Le Tigre. [19] During her time while working on The Bachelor, Shapiro was in a band called Mean Streak. [5]
Shapiro is also a visual artist who created and wrote the music for a hand-animated film called I Wish I was an Animal, [8] [20] which was released on Doggpony Records. [21]
The Bachelor is an American dating and relationship reality television series that debuted on March 25, 2002, on ABC. For its first 25 seasons, the show was hosted by Chris Harrison. As the essence of the original The Bachelor franchise, its success resulted in several spin-offs including The Bachelorette, Bachelor Pad, Bachelor in Paradise, Bachelor in Paradise: After Paradise, The Bachelor Winter Games, The Bachelor Presents: Listen to Your Heart, The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons – Ever!, The Golden Bachelor, and The Golden Bachelorette, as well as spawning many international editions of the shows.
Martha Mills Noxon is an American television and film writer, director, and producer. She is best known for her work as a screenwriter and executive producer on the supernatural drama series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003). She was also executive producer, writer, and creator of the Bravo comedy-drama series Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce (2014–18) and the Lifetime drama series UnREAL (2015–18), and an executive producer of the CBS medical drama series Code Black (2015–17).
Shiri Freda Appleby is an American actress and television director. She is best known for her leading roles as Liz Parker in the WB/UPN science fiction drama series Roswell (1999–2002) and Rachel Goldberg in the Lifetime/Hulu drama series Unreal (2015–2018).
Megyn Samantha Price is an American actress, best known for her roles on television as Claudia Finnerty in the Fox/WB sitcom Grounded for Life (2001–05), Audrey Bingham on the CBS sitcom Rules of Engagement (2007–13), and Mary Roth on the Netflix sitcom The Ranch (2016–2020). Also in 2020, she had a small role as Eline Harris in The Resident.
Elizabeth Tulloch, also known as Bitsie Tulloch, is an American actress. She is known for her roles as Juliette Silverton/Eve in the NBC television series Grimm and as Lois Lane in the DC Comics superhero television series Superman & Lois, for which she has been nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Actress on Television twice.
David Franklin Kennedy was an American advertising executive who co-founded Wieden+Kennedy (W+K). Some of his most popular campaigns included the "Just Do It", "Bo Knows", and the "Mars and Mike" campaigns for Nike, Inc. He and his creative partner Dan Wieden were listed as number 22 on the Advertising Age 100 ad people of the 20th century.
Lily Jane Collins is an English and American actress. Born in Guildford and raised in Los Angeles, she began performing on screen at the age of two in the BBC sitcom Growing Pains. In the late 2000s, she began acting and modelling more regularly, and gained recognition for her supporting role in the sports drama film The Blind Side (2009). She went on to star in several films, including the horror film Priest (2011), the thriller Abduction (2011), and the fantasy films Mirror Mirror (2012) and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013).
Frederic Wilhelm C. J. Sjöström, known professionally as Freddie Stroma, is a British actor. He is known for his work in roles including Cormac McLaggen in the Harry Potter film series, Adam Cromwell on the Lifetime series Unreal, Brit Vayner in 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2016), H. G. Wells in the ABC series Time After Time, and Adrian Chase / Vigilante in the DC Extended Universe series Peacemaker.
WKE is an independently owned American production company and arts and culture delivery channel, a subsidiary of the advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy. The site contains material from a number of contributors, as well as original materials created by W+K under the creative direction of filmmaker Aaron Rose.
Janice Grube is an American singer-songwriter based in Portland, Oregon. She was the voice and main songwriter for the Los Angeles band, Watsonville Patio.
Kater Gordon is an American television writer and philanthropist. She worked on the AMC drama Mad Men, and won a Writers Guild of America (WGA) Award and an Emmy Award.
Women's Image Network (WIN) is a charity that produces The Women's Image Awards, which claims to be "advancing a gender-balanced world and increasing the value of women and girls by celebrating outstanding film and television."
Kirk Iverson is an American inventor, writer, producer, media executive, investor and financier who invented the Veterans Media Center Free Enterprise Zone (VMC2) and VMC2 Banking Consortium architecture, the world’s first integrated, media-specific free enterprise zone and media-specific free enterprise zone financing model.
Clay Weiner is an American director and writer of commercials, film and television.
Unreal is an American drama television series that premiered on Lifetime on June 1, 2015. It stars Shiri Appleby as a young reality television producer pushed by her unscrupulous boss to swallow her integrity and do anything it takes to drum up salacious content for their dating reality show Everlasting. The show was created by Marti Noxon and Sarah Gertrude Shapiro, and was inspired by Shapiro's award-winning independent short film Sequin Raze.
Nathan Ross is an American film and television producer.
Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman is a Canadian actor, model, and television personality. He is known for appearances in films and television, most notably as Jay in the Lifetime dark comedy-drama series Unreal (2015–2018) and as one of the main judges on the first season of Canada's Drag Race (2020).
Sharp Objects is an American psychological thriller television miniseries based on Gillian Flynn's 2006 debut novel of the same name that premiered on July 8, 2018, on HBO. The series was created by Marti Noxon, directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, and stars Amy Adams, Patricia Clarkson, Chris Messina, Eliza Scanlen, Matt Craven, Henry Czerny, Taylor John Smith, Madison Davenport, Miguel Sandoval, Will Chase, Jackson Hurst, Sophia Lillis, Lulu Wilson, and Elizabeth Perkins. It follows Camille Preaker, an emotionally troubled reporter who returns to her hometown to cover the murders of two young girls.
Stacy Rukeyser is an American television writer and producer. Rukeyser landed her first job writing for CBS drama Without A Trace. She was a writer and an executive producer on the ABC Family series Greek, and worked on the series, October Road, Gigantic, One Tree Hill,The Lying Game and Twisted. Rukeyser is the executive producer of the third season of the Lifetime Series Unreal. She also produced the Netflix drama series Sex/Life.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
