Bill Breithaupt

Inspired by Star Wars at a young age (as many were), Bill had the realization that filmmaking was what he wanted to do in life. By age 10 he was enrolled in classes, and made his first film "Trick or Treat", a disturbing portrait of one child's hallucinogenic-induced homicidal rage on Halloween night. Shot in Super eight, The film was screened at the Mill Valley Film Festival. With a competitive streak ever-present in his character, as well as a high level of energy, Bill was involved in many sports including swim team, soccer and skateboarding. Skateboarding became his passion. As his skills grew, followed by his trophy collection, he decided to attract the attention of sponsors by renting a home camcorder and filming his incredible tricks, which no one was doing at the time. His brilliant idea worked, and under the sponsorship of such companies as Independent Trucks, Skate Rags Clothing Co. , Stylized Sun Glasses and Walker Skateboards, Bill went on to win more skate competitions, bigger trophies and even more sponsors. One fateful day in the summer of '91 at a skate competition in Pompano Beach, Florida, Bill attempted an ollie over a 12' box. His back foot slipped off, resulting in a painful wrenching of his knee, which had suffered previous injuries. Although he placed third in the competition, his career as a professional skateboarder was over, and that was the end of a very beautiful thing. He then returned to his earlier passion of filmmaking. Apprenticing under the photographer Mike Voorhees in Newport Beach, California he improved his framing techniques. He studied graphic arts at the Art Institute of So. California, film/audio techniques at theArt Institute of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, computer animation under Jimmy Hayward at the Academy of Art in San Francisco, and 16mm filmmaking at San Francisco State. He has an Associate's Degree in Film and Audio Recording, and is working toward a B. A. in Computer Animation. He began his career making videos: music, modeling, wedding, corporate and extreme sports, you name it, he has probably caught it on film. None of that compared to the footage he began capturing in 1999 when he was invited to by a friend to attend and film the annual Burning Man Festival held in Black Rock City, Nevada. What started off as fulfilling a friend's request for a souvenir video of the event became a passion for Bill. He passed out the edited footage to friends, who passed it to friends, who gave it to their friends, etc. Stoked by the floods of compliments, Bill began his own tradition.