Career
His last short film was the experimental computer animation Lenny Minute One which was selected for the 1993 short film competition at Cannes Film Festival. He also directed the music video Gimme Gimme by the influential band Shihad.
His first feature film as writer/director was the low-budget success The Irrefutable Truth about Demons (2000), which was nominated for best film awards at fantasy film festivals in Portugal and Spain. The movie was retitled simply The Truth about Demons in many countries. Set largely after dark, Demons follows a rationalist university lecturer (played by New Zealand actor Karl Urban) as he attempts to escape the attentions of a satanic cult.
Standring's second film remains one of the most expensive New Zealand films set on its home turf (as opposed to being filmed there, but set in another locale, a la The Lord of the Rings). Perfect Creature, released in 2007, is an ambitious horror/thriller set in an alternative universe New Zealand that incorporates elements of history and fantasy. In this world vampires are protectors of mankind, rather than the enemy. Though many New Zealand actors appear in the cast, most of Perfect Creature's lead actors are from Great Britain, including Dougray Scott and Saffron Burrows. In 2005 key theatrical rights to the film sold to distributors 20th Century Fox at a reportedly record price for a New Zealand film, creating expectations it might join the relatively small list of Kiwi movies to get wide release in North American cinemas. Perfect Creature later saw a theatrical release in some countries, but in the United States was ultimately released direct to video in 2007.
Read more about this topic: Glenn Standring
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)