Samuel Bayer

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Samuel Bayer
Samuel Bayer.jpg
Born Samuel David Bayer
(1965-02-17) February 17, 1965 (age 48)
Syracuse, New York, U.S.
Occupation Director
Website
http://samuelbayer.com/

Samuel David Bayer (born February 17, 1965) is an American visual artist, cinematographer, commercial, music video and film director. Bayer was born in Syracuse, New York. He graduated from New York City’s School of Visual Arts in 1987 with a degree in Fine Arts. He later moved to Los Angeles in 1991, where he continues to live and work.

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Career [edit]

A prolific music video and commercial director, Bayer has been responsible for some of the most memorable images of the last 20 years: Nirvana's music video for Smells Like Teen Spirit, Blind Melon's No Rain video as well as award winning commercials for brands like; Chrysler, Nike, and Coca-Cola.[1] In addition to Nirvana and Blind Melon, Bayer has shot and directed videos for The Rolling Stones, Green Day, David Bowie, Garbage, The Strokes, Marilyn Manson, Smashing Pumpkins and Justin Timberlake, among others. Bayer has won five MTV Video Music Awards including Best Video in 1991 and 2005 as well as Best Direction in 2005 and 2007.[2]

With a successful music video career under his belt, Bayer has received equal acclaim within the commercial world. Well into his second decade of advertising, Bayer's work continues to be recognized. In 1996, his Nike commercial, If You Let Me Play, won an Association of Independent Commercial Producers Award for Best Direction. In 2011, his Super Bowl spot for Chrysler's, Born of Fire, received multiple awards, including an Emmy and a Cannes Gold Lion.[3]

New Line Cinema and Platinum Dunes selected Bayer to helm their remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street.[4] Bayer finally agreed to direct the film after a personal plea from Michael Bay, who also was the producer.[5] With a production budget of $30 million the film held the number one spot at the US box office in its first week in April 2010. Nightmare on Elm Street starred Academy Award nominee Jackie Earle Haley and introduced The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s Rooney Mara in her first major studio role.

Music videography [edit]

Filmography [edit]

Photography [edit]

In March of 2013, Bayer had his first major solo exhibition entitled, "Diptychs & Triptychs." Covering all four walls of the main room at ACE Gallery Beverly Hills, Bayer presented sixteen twelve foot tall female nude triptychs which he spent five years preparing. In an Interview Magazine article, Bayer commented that "the initial effect of the portraits are overwhelming, and almost a little bit spooky." His intentional stripping of the women of any artifice provides an alternative view of womanhood. In Hollywood, where Bayer recognizes that women are constantly, “dissected and scrutinized” based on superficial qualifications, the presentation made a bold statement. The exhibition was inspired by a conversation Bayer had with his late father during which he expressed his intense desire to display his viewpoint of the nude form. [6]

Bayer treated "Diptychs & Triptychs" like a film project, holding open castings for hundreds of models. The women held poses against a simple white backdrop for up to four hours during marathon fourteen hour shoot days. Bayer then transformed the black-and-white images, shot with a 4" x 5" camera, into the series of 10 -foot-tall diptychs and 12 foot-tall triptychs in what was a deeply personal process, one that afforded him the benefit of complete creative control. [7]

As contemporary studies of the female form, these women would not have existed in the mid-twentieth century prior to the sexual revolution of the 1960s when artists began to reconsider the body as a politicized terrain and explored issues of gender, identity, and sexuality manifest in photographers such as, Diane Arbus, Robert Mapplethorpe, Larry Clark, Hannah Wilke, Nan Goldin and Cynthia MacAdams. In Bayer's series, there is an ongoing biological and sociological evolution. Posed frontally and exposed, these women might have been perceived as vulnerable on a smaller scale, however the straight gaze and the enlarged scale created an intimation of a, "new race of superwomen."


Awards [edit]

Music videos [edit]

Commercials [edit]

Film [edit]

References [edit]

  1. ^ Sameul Bayer: From Nirvana to 'Nightmare on Elm Street', LA Times
  2. ^ Classic Albums, Nirvana - Nevermind (DVD)
  3. ^ Chrysler's 'Born of Fire' Wins Emmy for Best Commercial, AdWeek.com
  4. ^ A director moves onto (Nightmare on) Elm Street
  5. ^ "Samuel Bayer: From Nirvana To Nightmare on Elm Street", LA Times
  6. ^ Samuel Bayer's American Image
  7. ^ Samuel Bayer's American Image
  8. ^ Samuel Bayer- Director, Cinematographer, Artist, Madman

External links [edit]

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