Neill Blomkamp

Neill Blomkamp is a young director from South Africa born September 17, 1979. Blomkamp began his career in film with a first person, hand held camera style. He has credits in several areas of filmography: visual effects, director, writer, short films and advertisement. He is highly skilled in being able to blend regular film, with computer generated effects.http://www.allmovie.com/artist/neill-blomkamp-484717/bio

Neill Blomkamp began working in the film industry at the age of 16 as a professional animator. His early work revolved around 3D animation in films and TV series including Dark Angel and Smallville. He was nominated for an Emmy in 2001 for is 3D animation on Dark Angel and won a Monitor. He began combining some directing with his visual effects work in 1995 on a short film, Alive in Joburg.http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0088955/

Blomkamp had been selected to direct Halo, which would entail taking the game of the same name and transitioning it from the gaming world into the movie theaters, but the project fell through. Later he was selected to direct his first feature film District 9, which was actually based on his earlier short film Alive in Joburg.http://blogs.amctv.com/scifi-scanner/2009/08/neill-blomkamp-interview.php

Neill Blomkamp has received an Oscar nomination from the 2010 Academy Awards. The 2010 Academy Awards are being aired on March 7, 2010. He has received the following nomination:

• Writing (Adapted Screenplay) - District 9 Written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell

Question: "But there are some elements of the movie that feel very much like a video game." —Clayton Neuman

Answer: "Again, I think a lot of that is subconscious. For me, it's a case of one side of my brain that's filled with video games and science fiction and all of the pure geekery of it; the weaponry and the ships and all of that stuff. Somehow it works its way into what you're doing; it's sort of inescapable. And then the other side of my brain is like wanting to include South Africa and wanting to include metaphors and allegories, and then they meet. So there's definitely no one movie or one video game that I can look at and point to and go that's directly this. But I can definitely say that it's meant to be a blended amount of all the science fiction I like."http://blogs.amctv.com/scifi-scanner/2009/08/neill-blomkamp-interview.php</ref>

Question: " Setting the movie in segregated South Africa is bound to draw apartheid metaphors. But the movie itself seems much less blatant about that point." —Clayton Neuman

Answer: "What I knew right away at the beginning, after going a little bit in the wrong direction, was that I needed to make a Hollywood film. I'm not a mature enough filmmaker to go off and make some really serious film. I could do that, but it may fail. And I don't even want to be doing that -- I want to be doing Hollywood films. But I want the Hollywood films that I'm doing to have topics, the serious topics that interest me woven into the DNA of the film. And District 9 I think is a very good example of that. In the foreground is the story that I wanted to tell, and then in the background, the story can only exist within the segregated apartheid South Africa." http://blogs.amctv.com/scifi-scanner/2009/08/neill-blomkamp-interview.php

• 1999: employed by Deadtime, under Sharlto Copley and Simon Hansern (South Africa)

• 1999: Aftershock Earthquake in New York (3D animator, uncredited)(visual effects)

• 2000: Dark Angel (lead animator)

• 2001: Blomkamp's family moved to Vancouver, Canada

• 2001: Entered the Vancouver Film School

• 2001: Smallville 3D animator

• 2001: 3000 Miles to Graceland

• 2001: (Emmy)Nominated for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series "Dark Angel: Pilot (#1.0)"

• 2001: Monitor (Won); Film Originated Television Series - Best Visual Effects "Dark Angel"

• 2005: Alive in Joburg; (sci-fi, short, documentary)(visual effects,Director)

• 2005: VES Award (Won); Outstanding Visual Effects in a Commercial

• 2006: Tempbot; (short, sci-fi, drama)(Director)

• 2006: Best Ever Ads (TV) (Himself)

• 2008: Crossing the Line; short film; co-directors Neill Blomkamp and Peter Jackson

• 2009: District 9 (director and writer)