Brian Clement film director biography

Brian Clement was born in Kelowna, BC, Canada, a small town on lake Okanagan, in 1977. This was a fortuitous year as it saw the release of the unavoidable pop-cultural phenomenon of Star Wars, which Brian's parents took him to see during a re-release when he was barely three years old. He became entranced by science-fiction and the idea of presenting ideas and imagination on screen for others to view.

During high school in Victoria, BC he experimented with deranged short films generally consisting of war, crime and action stories, much to the chagrin of his parents but to the apparent delight of his art teacher. Studying the influences of his childhood favourites, he delved into 1940's film noir, old Kurosawa films, and 1950's sci-fi, and probably watched too much Star Trek The Next Generation and X-Files on TV.

Wanting to experience more of his heritage (with a British-born father and Japanese-Canadian mother) he lived in Japan for a year at the age of 19, exploring Tokyo and learning the language before returning to Canada in 1997. With a new camera bought in the electronics district of Akihabara, he set out to continue making crazy short films, now with the use of what was at the time one of the newly available non-linear editing programs for video.

In 1999, he made "El Corazon de la Memoria," a 1 hour feature with scenes taking place in historical periods ranging from 1919 Winnipeg, to 1930's Spain, and into the 21st century, cementing Brian's fascination with recreating past eras in movies.

In 2000, his good friend Nick encouraged him to make a horror movie, which ended up being "Meat Market ". This first feature, filling a void of zombie movies at the time, went on to receive distribution from New York-based SRS Cinema. This was followed shortly after by the even crazier "Meat Market 2" in 2001 and "Binge & Purge " in 2002. 2003 was a turning point, marking the making of Exhumed, on which far more attention was paid to technical aspects. Exhumed went on to screenings at several film festivals as well as receiving a Best Feature award at the 2004 Fangoria Weekend of Horrors event in Los Angeles. 2005 saw the creation of The Dead Inside, an HP Lovecraft-influenced sci-fi ghost story, which also screened at several fests from Buenos Aires to Portland, Oregon.

In 2006, Cryptkeeper Films of the UK contacted Brian with the intent of having him produce a third Meat Market film. After some brief arm-twisting (Brian having sworn off zombies the previous year), Meat Market 3 was begun and became a nightmarish psychological thriller with hordes of zombies, rather than the standard "survival horror" style more popular at the time. Cryptkeeper followed this up in 2007 by acting as executive producers on Dark Paradox, another HP Lovecraft-influenced sci-fi/horror film, though this time with more expected horror tropes such as 1940's burlesque beauties imperilled by tentacled monsters. Dark Paradox again went on to screen at the Rio de Janeiro International Festival of Fantastic Film ("RioFan") as well as the Guelph SharpCuts Film Fest and the HP Lovecraft Film Fest in Portland, Oregon (part of the reason Dark Paradox was made in the first place!).

2008 was a year of big changes: first, an attempt at a short film, Frontline Films Coming Attractions and then a cross-country move to Toronto! 2008 had 4 short films made in Toronto, with the aim of creating hype in his new home of the GTA by scoring film fest screenings and trying to build a base of support amongst all the amazing people he's met.

As of 2011, currently busy at work on two documentary projects as well as the science-fiction conspiracy thriller Project Breakwater through Handsome Robot Pictures, with a recently kicked-off IndieGoGo campaign to get the crazy visual effects in the can!

Frontline Films print media gallery, interviews with director Brian Clement

Brian Clement film costumes

     

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