P.J. Pesce
Encyclopedia
P.J. Pesce is an American film director and writer. He is also the co-creator of the MTV
-animated cartoon The Adventures of Chico and Guapo
, as well as the voice of Guapo and Mr. Angelo.
in 1961. After completing an undergraduate degree majoring in both English literature and architecture at the Columbia University
. He entered the Graduate Film School and studied directing under Martin Scorsese
(from whom he received honors) and Brian DePalma (from whom he received an "F"). Pesce has worked as a musician, a film editor, a studio recording engineer, a film instructor at Columbia, UCLA, and USC
, as a groom at Calder Racetrack. He studied editing with Ralph Rosenblum, Annie Hall
, (The Pawnbroker), and acting with Brad Dourif
who was part of the One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
cast.
Pesce was named Best Independent Director of the Year at the Hamptons International Film Festival
for his critically acclaimed film The Desperate Trail, which he wrote and directed. Entertainment Weekly called it “The best Western on any size screen since Unforgiven,” and Tom Shales
of The Washington Post
described it as “A new high point in the cable movie.” It was the second highest rated cable movie of 1995, and in addition it sold over 60,000 home video units.
After a long search, Quentin Tarantino
and Robert Rodriguez
tapped Pesce to direct the prequel of their surprise cult hit From Dusk till Dawn
. The hangman’s daughter went on to become the best Direct to Video sale in the history of dimension with over 140,000 units sold.
Pesce received a Special Grand Jury Award for his short film The Afterlife of Grandpa at the Houston International Film Festival (deserving winners of this award included Steven Spielberg
and David Lynch
, and Young Filmmaker of the Year from the Edinburgh Film Festival. He is the recipient of Grey Advertising's
Student Filmmaker Award and a Presidential Fellowship from Columbia University's School of the Arts.
Amongst the films he has directed are From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter
, produced by Quentin Tarantino
and Robert Rodriguez
, which is a prequel
to From Dusk Till Dawn
and From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money
. He also directed Sniper 3
, starring Tom Berenger
who starred in Sniper and Sniper 2
.
He is also a screenwriter of note, having sold Untitled Firestein-Pesce Action Project which was unproduced for a record-setting $2 million dollars.
Pesce often collaborates with fellow screenwriter Tom Abrams, and both of them have completed a sequel
to the 1987 film The Lost Boys
entitled Lost Boys: The Tribe
which was released in 2008 that Pesce also directed, as well as the 2010 art film Smokin' Aces 2: Assassins' Ball
.
In 1994, Pesce and six other young filmmakers, including documentary filmmaker Marco Williams
and Academy Award nominee Bernard Joffa (from the 1990 Best Live Action Short film Senzeni Na?
), were featured in movie journalist Billy Frolick
's book called What I Really Want to Do Is Direct: Seven Film School Graduates Go to Hollywood. The book followed the lives of seven young, would-be directors over three years as they struggled with the ups-and-downs of the Hollywood world.
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
-animated cartoon The Adventures of Chico and Guapo
The Adventures of Chico and Guapo
The Adventures of Chico and Guapo is a show that aired originally on MTV2's Sic 'Em Fridays, but currently it can be found on MTV Overdrive. Set in New York City, the show is about two interns trying to get ahead in the music business. Chico and Guapo work at Mr. Angelo's Recording Studio...
, as well as the voice of Guapo and Mr. Angelo.
Life
Pesce was born and raised in Miami, FloridaFlorida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
in 1961. After completing an undergraduate degree majoring in both English literature and architecture at the Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. He entered the Graduate Film School and studied directing under Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
(from whom he received honors) and Brian DePalma (from whom he received an "F"). Pesce has worked as a musician, a film editor, a studio recording engineer, a film instructor at Columbia, UCLA, and USC
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
, as a groom at Calder Racetrack. He studied editing with Ralph Rosenblum, Annie Hall
Annie Hall
Annie Hall is a 1977 American romantic comedy directed by Woody Allen from a screenplay co-written with Marshall Brickman and co-starring Diane Keaton. One of Allen's most popular and most honored films, it won four Academy Awards including Best Picture...
, (The Pawnbroker), and acting with Brad Dourif
Brad Dourif
Bradford Claude "Brad" Dourif is an American film and television actor who gained early fame for his portrayal of Billy Bibbit in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and has since appeared in a number of memorable roles, including the voice of Chucky in the Child's Play franchise, Younger Brother in...
who was part of the One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (film)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a 1975 American drama film directed by Miloš Forman and based on the 1962 novel of the same name by Ken Kesey....
cast.
Pesce was named Best Independent Director of the Year at the Hamptons International Film Festival
Hamptons International Film Festival
Hamptons International Film Festival was founded to provide a forum for independent filmmakers from around the world to express their vision. The Festival is traditionally held for five days in mid-October in theatre venues from Montauk to Southampton and attracts roughly 15,000 visitors annually...
for his critically acclaimed film The Desperate Trail, which he wrote and directed. Entertainment Weekly called it “The best Western on any size screen since Unforgiven,” and Tom Shales
Tom Shales
Thomas William "Tom" Shales is an American critic of television programming and operations. He is best known as TV critic for The Washington Post; in 1988, Shales received the Pulitzer Prize...
of The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
described it as “A new high point in the cable movie.” It was the second highest rated cable movie of 1995, and in addition it sold over 60,000 home video units.
After a long search, Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
and Robert Rodriguez
Robert Rodriguez
Robert Anthony Rodríguez is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor and musician. He shoots and produces many of his films in his native Texas and Mexico. He has directed such films as Desperado, From Dusk till Dawn, The Faculty, Spy Kids, Sin City, Planet...
tapped Pesce to direct the prequel of their surprise cult hit From Dusk till Dawn
From Dusk Till Dawn
From Dusk till Dawn is a 1996 horror film directed by Robert Rodriguez and written by Quentin Tarantino. The movie stars Harvey Keitel, George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino and Juliette Lewis.-Plot:...
. The hangman’s daughter went on to become the best Direct to Video sale in the history of dimension with over 140,000 units sold.
Pesce received a Special Grand Jury Award for his short film The Afterlife of Grandpa at the Houston International Film Festival (deserving winners of this award included Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
and David Lynch
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
, and Young Filmmaker of the Year from the Edinburgh Film Festival. He is the recipient of Grey Advertising's
Grey EMEA
Grey EMEA is the largest division of Grey Group, a global advertising and marketing agency and member of the WPP network...
Student Filmmaker Award and a Presidential Fellowship from Columbia University's School of the Arts.
Amongst the films he has directed are From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter
From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter
From Dusk till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter is a 2000 American horror film, a prequel to the 1996 film From Dusk till Dawn. It was released straight to video and nominated for the Best Home Video Release Saturn Award.-Plot:...
, produced by Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
and Robert Rodriguez
Robert Rodriguez
Robert Anthony Rodríguez is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor and musician. He shoots and produces many of his films in his native Texas and Mexico. He has directed such films as Desperado, From Dusk till Dawn, The Faculty, Spy Kids, Sin City, Planet...
, which is a prequel
Prequel
A prequel is a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting.The widely recognized term was a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- and sequel...
to From Dusk Till Dawn
From Dusk Till Dawn
From Dusk till Dawn is a 1996 horror film directed by Robert Rodriguez and written by Quentin Tarantino. The movie stars Harvey Keitel, George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino and Juliette Lewis.-Plot:...
and From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money
From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money
From Dusk till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money is a 1999 American horror film and the sequel to From Dusk till Dawn. It was co-written and directed by Scott Spiegel, co-writer of Evil Dead 2 and director of Intruder....
. He also directed Sniper 3
Sniper 3
Sniper 3 is a 2004 action adventure direct-to-video film starring Tom Berenger, Byron Mann, John Doman and Denis Arndt. It was directed by P.J. Pesce and written by Michael Frost Beckner and Crash Leyland....
, starring Tom Berenger
Tom Berenger
Tom Berenger is an American actor known mainly for his roles in action films.-Early life:Berenger was born as Thomas Michael Moore in Chicago to an Irish Catholic family. Berenger's father was a printer for the Chicago Sun-Times. Berenger has a sister, Susan...
who starred in Sniper and Sniper 2
Sniper 2
Sniper 2 is an American film shot in Hungary in November 2002 and released in early 2003. It stars Tom Berenger, Bokeem Woodbine, Erika Marozsán and Tamás Puskás, and was directed by Craig R. Baxley....
.
He is also a screenwriter of note, having sold Untitled Firestein-Pesce Action Project which was unproduced for a record-setting $2 million dollars.
Pesce often collaborates with fellow screenwriter Tom Abrams, and both of them have completed a sequel
Sequel
A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...
to the 1987 film The Lost Boys
The Lost Boys
The Lost Boys is a 1987 American teen comedy horror film directed by Joel Schumacher and starring Jason Patric, Corey Haim, Kiefer Sutherland, Jami Gertz, Corey Feldman, Dianne Wiest, Edward Herrmann, Alex Winter, Jamison Newlander, and Barnard Hughes....
entitled Lost Boys: The Tribe
Lost Boys: The Tribe
Lost Boys: The Tribe is a 2008 sequel to the successful 1987 vampire horror film, The Lost Boys; directed by P. J. Pesce. It stars Autumn Reeser, Tad Hilgenbrink, Angus Sutherland and Corey Feldman...
which was released in 2008 that Pesce also directed, as well as the 2010 art film Smokin' Aces 2: Assassins' Ball
Smokin' Aces 2: Assassins' Ball
Smokin' Aces 2: Assassins' Ball is an action crime film directed by P.J. Pesce and starring Tom Berenger, Vinnie Jones, Tommy Flanagan, Autumn Reeser and Ernie Hudson. The film is a prequel to Joe Carnahan's 2007 film Smokin' Aces. The film centers on an FBI desk jockey who is targeted for murder...
.
In 1994, Pesce and six other young filmmakers, including documentary filmmaker Marco Williams
Marco Williams
Marco Williams is a documentary filmmaker and professor of film production at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. His films have received several awards, including the Gotham Documentary Achievement Award for and he has been nominated three times for the Sundance Film Festival grand...
and Academy Award nominee Bernard Joffa (from the 1990 Best Live Action Short film Senzeni Na?
Senzeni Na?
“Senzeni Na?” is a South African anti‐apartheid folk song. The Xhosa/Zulu language song is commonly sung at funerals, demonstrations and in churches...
), were featured in movie journalist Billy Frolick
Billy Frolick
Billy Frolick is an American writer and film director.Born and raised in Long Island, New York, Frolick graduated from NYU film school, where he studied under the famed professor Haig Manoogian....
's book called What I Really Want to Do Is Direct: Seven Film School Graduates Go to Hollywood. The book followed the lives of seven young, would-be directors over three years as they struggled with the ups-and-downs of the Hollywood world.
External links
- Screenwriter's salary
- http://www.amazon.com/What-Really-Want-Direct-Graduates/dp/0525937706