Mark Romanek

Romanek then directed "Filthy" by Justin Timberlake and "Rescue Me" by Thirty Seconds to Mars, which both premiered in 2018.

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 directed Jay-Z's performance art video for the song "Picasso Baby", which aired on HBO on August 2, 2013. The video was shot inside the Pace Gallery in New York and featured a group of personalities from the world of art, including Marina Abramović, whose 2010 performance art work "The Artist is Present" inspired the video. This marked Romanek's first music video in eight years, his last being Coldplay's video for "Speed of Sound" in 2005.

Romanek's third feature was the 2010 British dystopian drama Never Let Me Go. In October 2011, he was planning on taking over from director Ron Howard on the film adaptation of Dan Brown's bestselling novel The Lost Symbol. However, the film was eventually scrapped in favor of making Brown's fourth novel, Inferno, into a feature film instead.

In 2005, Romanek was scheduled to direct a film adaptation of the book A Cold Case, but the project languished in development hell. In December 2005, it was announced that he would direct A Million Little Pieces, the film adaptation of the book of the same name, but due to events regarding the authenticity of the book's content, the film was not made. On February 8, 2007, he signed on to direct The Wolfman, but dropped out. He also signed on to direct The Strangers, but also dropped out due to not receiving a bigger budget.

Romanek's 2002 music video for Johnny Cash's cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" has been hailed by many critics and fans alike as the most personal and moving music video ever made. The song expresses self-loathing and the futility of worldly accomplishments; this content took on a new poignancy when sung by Cash near the end of his life, quietly performing in his memorabilia-filled home, with shots of the flood-ravaged "House of Cash" museum and archival shots of a younger, cockier Cash edited in. The video was nominated for seven VMAs, winning one for cinematography, and also won Romanek his third Grammy.

In 2002, Romanek wrote and directed his second feature film, One Hour Photo, about a department store photo processor (performed by Robin Williams) who becomes obsessed with a family through their snapshots. The film proved to be only a moderate hit, but still established Romanek as a respected film director. Rumors spread that the studio, Fox Searchlight, had forced changes on Romanek that seriously altered the film from how he had intended it. He has dismissed this story, however, stating that there never was a "director's cut" of One Hour Photo and that the studio did not exercise any editorial control.

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 Romanek videos that have received accolades and awards include the VMA winners "Free Your Mind" (En Vogue), "Are You Gonna Go My Way" (Lenny Kravitz), "Rain" (Madonna), "Devil's Haircut" (Beck), "99 Problems" (Jay-Z), and "Criminal" (Fiona Apple). Many others have also received nominations. In 1997, Romanek received the VMA Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award for his contribution to the medium. Two of his music videos, "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails and "Bedtime Story" by Madonna, have been made part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Romanek was given his first Grammy Award for Best Short Form Video in 1996 for "Scream", a collaboration between the pop superstar siblings Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson. The video, which cost $7 million to make, is cited as one of the most expensive ever made. Romanek won his second Grammy two years later, again with Janet Jackson, for her video "Got 'Til It's Gone". In 2002, Romanek shot a video for Audioslave's "Cochise" in which the band performed in the midst of a prolonged pyrotechnic display of the intensity usually seen only during fireworks finales. The explosions were so loud during the night shoot in the San Fernando Valley that local police and fire departments received hundreds of calls from residents who feared that a terrorist attack was under way.

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 (/r oʊ ˈ m æ n ɪ k / ; born September 18, 1959) is an American filmmaker whose directing work includes feature films, television, music videos and commercials. Romanek wrote and directed the 2002 film One Hour Photo and directed the 2010 film Never Let Me Go. His most notable music videos include "Hurt" (Johnny Cash), "Closer" (Nine Inch Nails), "Can't Stop" (Red Hot Chili Peppers), "Rain" (Madonna), "Bedtime Story" (Madonna), "Scream" (Michael & Janet Jackson), "Criminal" (Fiona Apple), and "Shake It Off" (Taylor Swift). He also co-directed "Sandcastles" from Beyoncé’s Lemonade album. Romanek's music videos have won 20 MTV Video Music Awards, including Best Direction for Jay-Z's "99 Problems", and he has won three Grammy Awards for Best Short Form Music Video - more than any other director.