Mark Romanek Biography

Mark Romanek is an American filmmaker whose directing work includes feature films, television, music videos and commercials. He was born September 18, 1959  in Chicago, Illinois. The 2002 film One Hour Photo was written and directed by Romanek and directed the 2010 film Never Let Me Go. There are “Hurt” (Johnny Cash), “Closer” (Nine Inch Nails), “Can’t Stop” (Red Hot Chili Peppers), “Bedtime Story” (Madonna), “Scream” (Michael & Janet Jackson), “Criminal” (Fiona Apple), and “Shake It Off” (Taylor Swift). He also co-directed Beyoncé’s Lemonade album “Sandcastles.” Romanek’s music videos have won 20 MTV Video Music Awards, including “99 Problems” from Best Direction for Jay-Z, and he has won three Grammy Awards for Best Short Form Music Video-more than any other director.

Romanek was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Shirlee and Marvin Romanek. He is Jewish. He credits seeing Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey at the age of nine with inspiring him to become a film director. He experimented with Super 8 and 16mm film as a teenager while attending New Trier High School. There, he studied first with Kevin Dole, a local filmmaker who was already creating a form of music video on his own in the mid-1970s, and then with Peter Kingsbury, a filmmaker who had studied with experimentalists Owen Land, John Luther Schofill, and Stan Brakhage at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Both teachers exposed students to works by significant figures of the American avant-garde cinema, such as Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger, and Paul Sharits.

Other Personalities: Wade Barnes

Romanek subsequently attended Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York, and graduated from its Roy H. Park School of Communications with a degree in cinema and photography. He served as second assistant director for Brian De Palma on Home Movies, an autobiographical film De Palma conceived as an exercise for his students at Sarah Lawrence College (having returned to his alma mater as an instructor of film production). On set, Romanek met Keith Gordon, playing De Palma’s alter ego. Gordon remembers Romanek’s entrance into film production:

“ I actually met a lot of people who became important in my life, but Mark being one of the people who was really huge. Mark wasn’t even officially one of the students in the class. Mark was kind of like me – he was a film geek. He was from Chicago. And he had followed Brian around on the set of The Fury and gotten a job as a production assistant on that movie. And when he heard that Brian was doing this project, he basically contacted him and said, ‘Listen, can I come to New York and basically be like one of the students, even though I’m not technically in the class?’ And Brian said, ‘Fine.’ So Mark became the second assistant director on the film. And he and I just hit it off pretty quickly. We had a similar passion for Stanley Kubrick. He showed me his short films, which I thought were really good and showed a lot of visual flair. ”
Romanek released his first film, Static, in 1985. It was co-written with Gordon and starred Gordon as a man who claimed he had invented a television set capable of showing a live picture of Heaven. The film achieved something of a cult following in London and led to Romanek’s first job at the helm of a music video for the British new wave group The The, who featured on the soundtrack for Static, in 1986.

Mark Romanek Age

Mark Romanek  Family

Mark is the son of Shirlee and Marvin Romanek. He is of Jewish ancestry.

Mark Romanek Children

Mark has no children.

Mark Romanek Wife

Mark is married to Brigette McWilliams Whom he has dated for a long time.

Mark Romanek Net Worth

Mark Romanek Career

Romanek decided to focus on music videos after a few years of writing screenplays and signed on with Satellite Films, a Propaganda Films division. His later work has become one of the best of the medium. He has worked with many top-selling recording artists from various genres of popular music, and credit has been given to his videos to make some stars.

One of his outstanding videos was “Closer” for the Nine Inch Nails song Only his controversy matched his critical acclaim, with many accusing the video as disturbing and demonic (a major reason why the video was so popular among fans). Romanek would again work for the song “The Perfect Drug” with Nine Inch Nails.

For the song “Picasso Baby,” which was aired on HBO on August 2, 2013, Romanek directed Jay-Z’s performance art video. The video was shot inside New York’s Pace Gallery and featured a group of art world personalities including Marina Abramović, whose “The Artist is Present” performance artwork inspired the video in 2010. This marked the first music video of Romanek in eight years, his last being the “Speed of Sound” video of Coldplay in 2005. Then Romanek directed Justin Timberlake’s “Filthy” and Thirty Seconds’ “Rescue Me” to Mars, both of which premiered in 2018.

In 2002, Romanek wrote and directed his second feature film One Hour Photo about a department store photo processor who, through their snapshots, becomes obsessed with a family. The film proved to be only a moderate hit, but as a respected film director, Romanek was still established. Rumors spread that Romanek’s studio, Fox Searchlight, had forced changes that seriously altered the movie from the way it was intended. However, he dismissed this story, claiming that there was never a One Hour Photo “director’s cut” and that the studio had no editorial control.

Mark Romanek Music Videos

“Rescue Me” – Thirty Seconds to Mars
“Filthy”-Justin Timberlake
“The Story of O.J.” – Jay-Z Co-directed with Jay-Z
“Adnis” – Jay-Z
“Sandcastles” – Beyoncé Additional director
“Can’t Stop the Feeling!” – Justin Timberlake
“Shake It Off” – Taylor Swift
“Invisible” – U2
“Picasso Baby” – Jay-Z Short film
“Speed of Sound” – Coldplay
“99 Problems” – Jay-Z
“Hurt” – Johnny Cash
“Faint” – Linkin Park
“Can’t Stop” – Red Hot Chili Peppers
“Hella Good” – No Doubt
“Cochise” – Audioslave
“God Gave Me Everything” – Mick Jagger
“Sleepwalker” – The Wallflowers
“I Try” – Macy Gray
“Do Something” – Macy Gray
“If You Can’t Say No” – Lenny Kravitz

Mark Romanek Commercials

Company / Brand     Year Title Ref(s)
Budweiser                  2017 “Dream. On.”
Nike                            2016 “The Conductor”
Nike                            2016 “Come Out of Nowhere”
Nike                            2016 “Make Space”
Bud Light                  2016 “Your Can’s Year”
Yoplait                       2015 “A Man of Yogurt – Hunger”
Yoplait                      2015 “A Man of Yogurt – Texture”
Yoplait                      2015 “A Man of Yogurt – Satiety”
Sonos                        2014 “Faces Off”
Miller                       2014 “Central Park”
Samsung & Jay-Z  2013 “Inside Magna Carta Holy Grail”
Gillette                     2013 “Clay Matthews Conditions”
NASCAR                 2013 “Twist”
Call of Duty            2013 “Ghosts Masked Warrior”
Budweiser              2013 “Rihanna”
Budweiser               2013 “Jay Z”
Nike                         2012 “Fast is Faster”
Nike                         2012 “Voices”
Motorola                2012 “Projections”
iPhone                    2012 “Rock God”
iPhone                   2012 “Road Trip”
Samsung               2012 “LeBron’s Day”

Mark Romanek Taylor Swift

In the most recent video of outtakes revealing the process behind Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” video, Swift focuses her attention on the video’s director, Mark Romanek. Romanek has a star-studded resume, directing for Madonna, David Bowie, Janet Jackson, Jay Z and more. Perhaps most notably, he helped put together the video for Michael Jackson’s “Scream.” Watch the latest behind-the-scenes glimpse below:

Swift wanted Romanek for a very specific reason. “In doing a lot of research of videos I really loved,” she says, “the thing I thought we hadn’t accomplished yet was we hadn’t had a video that was striking and minimal. You have those very inconic videos where you can just picture one setup and it sticks out in your mind, and almost all of my favorite vidoes like that were mostly all directed by Mark. I knew he hadn’t done a video in a long time because he moved on to movies and films, so I knew it would be a very slim chance we’d get him.”

It is true that Romanek has been more active in film lately — in 2010, he directed Never Let Me Go, which starred Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield. But what director wouldn’t want to helm a Taylor Swift video? Swift “flew someone out with this locked iPod to play [Romanek] the song before anyone else heard it,” and he was hooked.

Mark Romanek Static

Static is Mark Romanek’s American comedy – drama film. The movie stars Keith Gordon, Amanda Plummer, and Bob Gunton, and NFI Productions released it in 1985. It’s been shot in Page, Arizona, and Arizona’s Lake Powell.

Never Let Me Go Mark Romanek

Mark Romanek Scream

Mark Romanek Movies & TV Shows

Mark Romanek Closer | Mark Romanek Nine Inch Nails

“Closer” is a song from their second studio album, The Downward Spiral (1994), by American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails. It was released as the second single of the album on May 30th, 1994. Most of the single’s versions are called “Closer to God,” a rare example of a single’s title in music that differs from its A-side title. (“Closer to God” is also the title of the “Closer” alternative version featured on the single.) “Halo 9,” the ninth official release of Nine Inch Nails.