Dror Soref

Award-winning Hollywood director and social reformer, Dror Soref, began his career directing music videos for "Weird Al" Yankovic, helping to establish the rock parodist as a major star. Following his success in music videos, Soref directed the Gold Hugo Award-nominated short film Platinum Blonde. Upon watching the film, Paramount Studio's President retained Soref under contract to develop projects at Paramount beginning with his feature directorial debut, The Seventh Coin starring Peter O'Toole, which won festival awards including Best Picture. During his 25-year relationship with Paramount, Soref founded Orbit Productions, a company focusing on TV commercials. Clients included Ford, Coca Cola, Toyota, McDonald's, Goodyear, Proctor & Gamble, Honda, GM, Toshiba, and Fujifilm, with ads broadcasted on the Super Bowl and Academy Award shows. While serving as the creative and marketing chief of Orbit, Soref collaborated with the marketing divisions of the top 100 worldwide companies of practically all-major industries. Soref was instrumental in developing the marketing strategies and advertising campaigns of many of these brands and oversaw the execution of all TV commercials produced at the company, specializing in copywriting and visualization. Soref utilized these marketing and advertising strategies to lead Orbit itself to become Hollywood's fastest-growing TV commercial production company at the time. Soref also parlayed a successful career in commercials into feature films and network television, signing a multiple-picture deal with Mike Medavoy's Phoenix Pictures (Black Swan, Shutter Island) where he co-produced Basic starring John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson, released by Columbia Pictures. Soref then wrote and directed the critically acclaimed thriller Not Forgotten, starring Simon Baker, Paz Vega, and Chloe Grace Moretz, which was nominated for the Saturn Award by the Academy of Science Fiction in 2010. In network television, Soref directed a number of episodes for Power Rangers, the hit children's TV series. Alongside his extensive work endeavors, Soref has been active in a number of undertakings from caring and feeding people on skid row locally, to support causes in the third world, while fighting injustice anywhere. His activity with non-profit organizations includes the Aleph Institute (a Jewish-based association providing crucial assistance to families whose loved ones are in prison or serve in the US Armed Forces), Equal Justice Under the Law (dedicated to ending inequality in the justice system), and the Greater Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce (where he served as a Director of the institute's Board, promoting job opportunities and internships for Los Angeles youth.) Soref received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of Haifa, Israel, graduating with Honors. While a student, he wrote frequently on Israeli Palestinian relations and was nominated by his party, at the age of 23, to run for Parliament. Soref served in the Israeli Defense Force as a combat officer in the elite Golani Brigade, where the unit under his command was cited for excellence by the IDF's former Chief of Staff. Soref studied film production for Master of Fine Arts at the Cinema Arts School of the University of Southern California (USC).