John Singleton - the youngest director-African American, nominee for the Oscar

Growing up in the troubled area of Los Angeles, John Singleton - film director, producer and screenwriter - in his projects consciously focuses on the crime situation and disorder prevailing in the so-called slums. His creative career developed quite rapidly. The first works - "Poetic Justis", "Guys from the street" and "Kid" - were quite cool and were skeptical met by world film critics. But after the release of the blockbuster "Double Fast and the Furious" and "Blood for Blood" no one doubted the talent that John Singleton had generously endowed.

From clipmakers to filmmakers

John Singleton, whose biography shows the beginning of the creative way of the director, was born in the middle of the winter of 1968. His parents were not representatives of creative bohemia - Father Danny Singleton was a mortgage broker, a successful real estate agent, Sheila Ward-Johnson's mother, the executive director of a pharmaceutical company. Young John without much effort and quite successfully graduated not only high school, but also the College of Pasadena City, enrolled in the Higher School of Cinematographic Art.

Further, the future director continued his education at the University of Southern California, where he became a course student Margaret Mehring, who specialized in training professionals in the field of scenario art and direction. Her course gave the world film industry a lot of young talents. John Singleton, whose films are known to fans of action in the world, studied with Helen Childress, Stephen Chbosky and Carlos Brooks. While honing his skills in writing scripts, Singleton still preferred directing. His debut in the world of show business was video clips. Promising clipmaker at a fairly young age managed to shoot a video for Michael Jackson Remember The Time with the direct participation of Eddie Murphy.

In a big movie

In 1991, the first full-length youth social drama "Guys from the street" was released. This film was collected at the box office 9 times more than the cost of its production. He started with a dry statistical report stating the naked facts and stating that every 21st African American would soon be killed, and ended with an appeal to preserve peace. Being a talented and exciting description of the manners of the neighborhoods of black Americans, the picture not only convincingly demonstrated the almost stalemate of everyone who was born and raised there. The movie tells about what John Singleton experienced on himself. Age (all films released by a more mature director, did not repeat the success of the debut) the director at the time of the tape was 24 years old. So Singleton became the youngest of the directors of African-American, whose project was nominated for an Oscar in the categories "Best Director" and "Best Screenplay" and highly appreciated by the jury of the American Film Academy.

Crime-adventure comedy thriller

Producers of the successful action film "Fast and the Furious" decided in 2003 to arrange a dashing race for the second time, expecting to break a decent jackpot at the box office, so appeared "The Double Fast and the Furious". John Singleton was pleased to take the director's chair. Strange as it may seem, an independent director without any fitting immediately blended into the Hollywood multi-budget cinema scheme. His agreement to work on the continuation of "Fast and Furious" the director explained by the feeling of deja vu, which John often had when watching the first part.

Criminal blood thriller

In 2005, John Singleton presents a criminal thriller "Blood for Blood" to the audience. Here the director did without excessive Hollywood pathos and disastrous dramatizations. The focus of the narrative is focused on the relationship of the main characters. Professionally and qualitatively delivered action-component and gloomy soundtrack, John perfectly fit into the canvas of criminal drama, not allowing the viewer to be bored. This pace, he retains and in the action movie "Pursuit" (2011).

The role of the main character is played by Taylor Lautner - the star of the "twilight" saga, which has a hard time. The director does not focus on suspense, but on action, continually plunging the hero Lonter into an inexorable swirling of fights, chasing and shooting. In 2014, the director tried to return to the genre of social drama, having removed the film "Thulium". The plot narrates the story of the lawyer of the American Civil Liberties Union, who does not give up attempts to uphold the constitutional rights of a group of black guys, against whom false accusations of selling drugs were made.

Biographical picture

The last project of the "Oscar" nominee is a biographical picture of the life and work of Tupac Shakur. John Singleton is going to not only shoot it, be a co-author of the script, but also produce. The choice of the director was not an accident. The fact is that Singleton in 1991 filmed Shakur in the movie with Janet Jackson. The romantic drama "Poetic Justice" became the starting point of Tupac's and John's friendly relations. A biographical film about a scandalous rapper will tell about his childhood, adolescence, ascent to glory and death.

Personal life

The director was married to a real princess - actress Akosua Busia. But, despite the appearance of her daughter Khadar, the marriage soon disintegrated. After that, Singleton had lengthy novels with Westlie Barlow and Tyra Banks. As a result, John has five children. In 2007, the director became the culprit of a car crash. While driving, he knocked down a pedestrian who died in the hospital from his injuries. The investigation showed that Singleton's blood did not contain alcohol and other psychotropic drugs, as a result of which all charges were dropped.