Scott Crary

Scott Crary (also known as S.A. Crary*) is a film director and writer based in New York City.

Born on the island of Oahu, Hawaii in 1978, he moved to New York at the age of 11. At the age of 14, he became a graffiti artist and hip-hop performance d.j. (taking the moniker 'S.T.R.E.S.S.') releasing a number of "mix tapes" over the following years that heralded the newly forming independent hip-hop scene in the city. By 17, he was indoctrinated into Afrika Bambaataa's famed hip-hop collective "Zulu Nation." A year later, he was opening concerts for such groups as De La Soul, Smif N' Wessun, Jungle Brothers, and Brand Nubian. During this time, he also helmed the popular radio show "STRESS' Underground Rail" on WPLT, and later WQKE. The show was highly regarded as a source to discover new, unsigned hip-hop bands and guests were frequently invited on to perform live.

During this time, while earning a degree in psychology, he began painting, writing regularly and began studying film. In 2001, he made his first short 16mm films ("Left", "Change", "How Advertising Works", and "Kiss"). Overtly experimental and abrasive, these films often centered on outsiders, urban subcultures, and alternative lifestyles. In 2002, Crary is rumored to have destroyed these early films and began his filmmaking career over again by planning a documentary on the crop of New York bands that were gaining attention as part of the revival of the downtown art and music scene in the press that Spring and Summer. Recognizing an echo of the original downtown NY scene of the late 70's/early 80's in this embryonic art-rock scene, Crary decided to seek out the original innovators that were influencing the young bands to include their opinions on their progeny. Filmed, produced, edited, and directed solely by Crary himself on a purported 3 figure budget, the film "KILL YOUR iDOLS" features the bands: Suicide, Teenage Jesus & The Jerks (Lydia Lunch/Jim Sclavunous), Theoretical Girls (Glenn Branca), DNA (Arto Lindsay), Sonic Youth, Swans (Michael Gira), Foetus (J.G. Thirwell), Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Liars, Black Dice, A.R.E. Weapons, Flux Information Sciences, and Gogol Bordello.

The film premiered in May of 2004 at the Tribeca Film Festival where it took top honors as Best Feature Documentary in the NY, NY section. The film screened at over 20 international film festivals the following year before being acquired by Palm Pictures in early 2006 with a domestic theatrical release planned for July 7th, followed by an international opening.

Crary has continued working as a feature film editor (the recent "Huldufólk 102", "A Girl and A Gun") and began raising funding for his fiction feature film debut (a 10-part collection of modern existential parables colored in equal parts by Kafka and Edward Gorey titled "Children Remember") in 2006. Each individual part is planned to be shot in a different international city and scored by a different band.

Crary is a also a recognized visual artist. His work has been exhibited at London's Institute of Contemporary Art and Barcelona's Centre de Cultura Contemporánia.

• S.A. Crary has said in interviews that he began crediting himself as "S.A." supposedly as a nod to creative anonymity and a play on the French acroynym "sans auteur", which means "without author".