Paul Miller

About Me

I was born in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, but was raised in Sparta, Michigan, a quiet farming community where the most exciting thing that happened daily was that corn grew. As a young man, I often escaped boredom by imagining grand stories in far away places like outer space or Chicago. In my early teens, I discovered a movie camera and my passion for filmmaking was born. I would work in my father's gravel quarry during the week and film on weekends, making such cinematic masterpieces as "No Where to Run", and "A Day in a Life". There were many lessons learned, the most important being as follows:

- Never tape a bag of fake blood with an attached fire cracker on your actor, light the fuse, and film the event.

- Don't ever peform a fist fight no a speeding truck unless you are a trained stuntman.

- Never, every use rubber cement to glue cotton and tissue paper onto your high school girlfriend/actress to create that "post
nuclear radiation exposure" look.

Regardless of lessons learned, I found my true calling. And promptly ignored that calling to study art at a Michigan college. Realizing that illustrations of bowls of fruit and figure drawings of heroine addicts weren't kinetic enough for me, I transferred to the University of Southern California's School of Cinema. Four years later, I earned a Bachelor of ARts Degree in Cinema and Televison Production.

After graduation, I found myself working as an Art Director and Production Designer, working on children's toy commercials one week, then Playboy Playmate Home Videos on the other. I also had the good fortune of working in the art departments of such features as the hardly seen film "The Public Eye", and the award winning "Dances with Wolves" (which I was uncredited for, thanks a lot...). In the late '90's, I entered the realm of television, art directing a trio of Movie of the Week projects, along with the television series "Team Knight Rider" and "Son of the Beach".

As satisfying as the Art Department was, I knew my real passions were writing and directing. In 2001, I wrote and directed an action packed short titled "The Taste of Victory". Involving crashing cars and gore, it was a short film that thought it was a feature! That project led me to write and direct an import car racing film called "Thrust" for Indigo Entertainment (kind of a Fast and the Furious meets Playboy kind of film). After selling an action script titled "Roadkill" (in preproduction), I directed six episodes of a cable television comedy called "Black Tie Nights II". After directing 2nd unit action sequences for the horror film, "The Harvest", I went on to directed La Llorona, Day of the Dead, a horror film shot almost entirely in Mexico (speaking limited espanol, it was a challenge!).

Currently, I am in preproduction of another action film, this one called "Cinco de Mayo", about a kid who becomes a street fighter, much to his family's dismay.

Goal

To continue writing and/or directing feature films leading to theatrical release projects.

Professional Experience

Director
Freelance
January 2000 - Present

Groups

Contacts (2)