ScottBillups - Bio 2001

Scott's first paycheck in the film industry came from ski movie mogul Warren Miller.

Scott put himself through college with his camera, shooting for documentary legends such as MacGillivray/Freeman, Wolper Productions and National Geographic Explorer. As a junior stringer with WNET he covered Woodstock, until the acid kicked in.

The draft ended for Scott in 1973 when his lottery number came up 352, interestingly enough his college carrier ended that same day. So...with a substantial body of work under his belt Scott moved to Los Angeles and knocked on the door of the best cinematographer he knew of.

James Wong Howe hired him on the spot, not because of his impressive body of work (which Mr. Howe never did look at) but rather because he could lift and carry a massive Mitchell BNC camera from the garage up to the second floor of Mr. Howe's home without breaking anything.

His arduous internship with the Oscar winning Cinematographer lasted until Mr. Howe's death in 1975. Scott continued to work with several of Mr. Howe's commercial accounts and subsequently formed a small production company, which rapidly grew to an 85-person advertising and production company with offices in three states.

In 1983 Scott Billups sold his business and retired. It lasted almost four months.

Since then (still officially retired), Scott has written, produced, directed and shot more than 40 broadcast shows, 200 television commercials, 20 music videos, 75 industrial films, 18 feature documentaries and more than a thousand visual effect sequences for a diverse client roster. Scott also personally creates numerous on-air promos for ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX, as well as many television show openings and bumpers.

Scott's award winning work has secured him a reputation in both the entertainment and technology communities as a knowledgeable and leading innovator. Along with his friend Michael Backes he co-founded the AFI Media Lab in Los Angeles and is a sought-after consultant for companies such as Kodak, Apple, Sony, Mattel, MCA-Universal, The Artist's Rights Foundation and The National Science Highway to the White House.

Scott has designed dozens of venues and visualizations for theme parks as well as the initial design of four parks from the ground up. His clients include Universal Studios, Landmark Entertainment Group, Disney Imagineering, Iwerks Entertainment and Namco.

Scott's work with synthetic characters (more than 200 to date including Marilyn Monroe and Marlon Brando) and virtual sets has gained him international regard as a leader in the field of advanced digital film making. Scott has created hundreds of award-winning motion picture and broadcast visual effects as well as the original visualizations for Jurassic Park.

Scott was in development on a twenty million dollar motion picture project at Phoenix Pictures (which he was slated to direct) when he suffered a severe ice climbing accident. In true Hollywood form, Phoenix took advantage of the situation and seized control of the project while Scott was still in intensive care.

"The Inability to Perform Duties clause has caught more than a few moviemakers with their pants down" says Billups with a wry smirk. "You swim with the sharks, you've got to expect to get nipped now and then."

While recuperating, Scott wrote three screenplays, four episodes of a television series and two books. The scripts are in development and one of the books (Digital Moviemaking) has been released. The second book is slated for a mid summer release.

Scott is now fully recovered and back at work - at least when he's not ice climbing. Since his recovery, Scott has shot six commercials (including the international roll-out for the Sony PlayStation2 which David Lynch directed), served as Visual Effects Supervisor on three motion pictures, created the entire new season graphics package for the hit television show Ripley's Believe it or Not! and built the PixelMonger.com website.

Electric Sandbox Production (ESP) is the oldest independent digital production company in Hollywood. "When I opened my doors, George Lucas was still working out of a garage in the San Fernando Valley." Unlike George, Scott intentionally stayed small and independent. While he may not be able to boast the enormous capital worth of his more famous cohort, he is renowned as one of the most casual and low key, movers and shakers in the industry. "It's a lot more rewarding to live a comfortable lifestyle than it is to live an extravagant one" he muses as he rocks back in his patio chair. Paula Parisi for the Hollywood Reporter '99