Justin Smith Shelton

Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Justin Danger Ryan Smith Shelton graduated high school in Arizona. Shelton earned bachelor degrees from Arizona State University in communications and from Full Sail University in film. During college, Shelton DJ'ed and did play by play for the student radio stations. At Full Sail, Shelton filmed his first short "Jungle", a film about war and racism, on 16 and 8 mm film. Justin moved to Los Angeles in 2004 to pursue his life long dream of working in the film industry. Shelton got his start in the industry working as a segment producer and editor on Jim Rome is Burning on ESPN. Justin transitioned into a new job as production office coordinator on the 8th and 9th seasons of Survivor. Seeing an opportunity to work in film, Shelton took a production assistant job on Spike Jonze's 'Where the Wild Things Are'. Shelton took a job as a Management Trainee position with Steve Papazian, the President of Worldwide Physical Production for Warner Bros. During his time in Papazian's office, Shelton witnessed the productions of films such as 'The Dark Knight', 'The Departed', '300', 'I Am Legend' and several 'Harry Potter' films. Shelton wrote and directed the short film 'Tag' about street art. 'Tag' was well received and played in three film festivals. During this time, Shelton worked as assistant to director Brad Peyton on the film 'Cats and Dogs 2'. After his management trainee position, Justin transitioned into the VFX department for Warner Bros. As an assistant to both Anne Kolbe and Mark Brown, Shelton worked on films such as 'Inception', 'Sucker Punch', 'Sherlock Holmes' and 'Watchmen'. Shelton's short film 'The Do Over' was featured on the front page of Yahoo! where it was viewed more than a million times in a week. Shelton was promoted to VFX production supervisor, reporting directly to Anne Kolbe. During this period, Shelton worked on films such as 'Gravity', 'Argo', 'Dark Knight Rises', 'Man of Steel' and 'Green Lantern'. Additionally, Justin operated witness camera on '300: Rise of an Empire'. During this time, Shelton directed 'Momentary' a short film that played in the Hollyshorts Film Fest. Shelton moved into animation where he worked as an editorial and story supervisor on the film 'Storks'. During that time, Shelton also worked on two animated shorts for Warner Bros. , 'The Master' and 'Contagious'.