Lee Shapiro

Lee hails from Dallas, Texas. His love for animation, motion pictures, and story combine to give him a great appreciation and talent for the media arts. As a film student at the University of Central Florida, he specialized in animation, but his first production, a documentary entitled "On Art and Inspiration," won third place at the Alamo Film Festival. Consequently, it also starred classmate Daniel Myrick of The Blair Witch Project (1999) fame. He has lent his talents to a number of motion pictures, from the independent thriller Jack-O (1995) to Born on the Fourth of July (1989). His other production work includes production design on "Ice Blue" and "A Twist in the Tale", assistant direction on "The Hunt for EPCOT Ed-Ventures", producing several student shorts, and art direction on in-house projects for Citibank, Bell Atlantic, and the US Air Force. Lee's gifts not only lie with visuals, but also with the written word. These two talents merged when he wrote episodes of the animated series, The Tick (1994). He also wrote and produced his thesis film, "Parental Advisory" (winner of a Crystal Reel Award) and a PSA about breast cancer awareness starring Michael Winslow, which Lee also directed. He co-wrote and stared in the comedy short Crooks (2004) which won five awards at a 2004 video competition (including best actor) and was broadcast on the CBS show, Comedy Night School (TV Series); it was also accepted into the Melbourne Film Festival. Lee's studio features include a screenplay adaptation of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, as well as his original works From the Ashes (2004), "Sinkhole", and "Batman: DarKnight", all written in cooperation with _Stephen Wise_. Both "Sinkhole" and From the Ashes (2004) have won several writing accolades, including the BlueCat National Screenwriting Competition, the Writer's Digest National Writing Competition, the Austin Film Festival's Screenplay Contest, and Scriptapalooza. His other writing credits include some Orlando Predators commercials; the pilot episode of an animated children's series entitled "Remnant"; and a couple of episodes of the syndicated series "SciFi Wasabi". In addition to his creative abilities, Lee tries to define the dichotomy between maturity and youthful exuberance. He is a big kid who is involved with his local church and men's group, and he enjoys travel, cooking, reading, swimming, drawing, movies, theater, and gaming.