Partizan Los Angeles Directors

Best friends since the seventh grade, josh melnick and xander charity never imagined they?d be directing together? or alone, for that matter. If their collaboration is a surprise, the increasing buzz surrounding the duo is not. They have been turning heads since their first project together, a music video for dead cab for cutie. What began as a hair-brained idea on a drunken road trip trough mexico evolved into a story about a young couple?s last day together. The vid was selected for inclusion in resfest 2003 and landed them on the roster of partisan.
Soon after joining partisan, josh and xander made a video for the postal service?s break-out hit, ?such great heights?. A love affair set in a microchip factory, the promo was again a resfest winner and mvpa nominee. The duo?s name recognition led to commercial assignments.
And so you know these guys have spent some time apart..
After attending grade school and high school together in New york city, josh and xander temporarily parted ways. Josh went to yale uni where he earned a degree in fine arts with a concentration in sculpture and video art. Xander attended darthmouth college, where he also studied fine arts, receiving a combined major in film and photography. Upon graduation, josh turned his creative attention towards editing, cutting everything from commercials and music videos to network television programs, short films and documentaries. Xander returned to new york, where he became a designer and branding consultant for leading watch and jewelry house David yurman. He made time to nurture his love for filmmaking with more personal documentary and short-form pursuits.

Alex Courtes studied graphic art at one of the best European schools, Penninghen. Very soon, he started to become noticed by the various bands within the French Touch scene in Paris and has worked with Cassius, Daft Punk, Air. This in turn opened the door to the international market, where he has worked with some of the biggest rock and pop artists in the world: U2, White Stripes, Kylie Minogue, Jamiroquai and Franz Ferdinand, and has landed all the most prestigious awards in the music video industry, in the US as well as in the UK and France. Alex is a worthy successor to his Gallic predecessors, who have broken into the select circle of French artists that are famous amongst the Brits for their talent as producers, such as Mondino, Goude and Michel Gondry. As a solo director, Alex has made videos for U2, Kaiser Chiefs, Snow Patrol and The Zutons. Alex's latest video, for U2 'Get On Your Boots', is viewable now on www.u2.com

Michel grew up in Versailles with his family who had a passion for pop music, however Gondry wanted to be a painter or an inventor. In the 1980s he began art school in Paris where he developed his graphic design skills but also created a pop-rock band called Oui-Oui. The band released 2 albums ('Chacun tout le monde' and 'Formidable') and several singles until their separation in 1992. Gondry was the drummer of the band and also directed their music videos in which it was possible to see his strange world, influenced by the 60s and by his childhood. One of his videos was shown on MTV and when Björk saw it, she asked him to make her first solo video for 'Human Behaviour', which won practically every existing music video award. The partnership is famous: Gondry directed eight other Björk videos. This led to collaborations with other artists around the world, including Massive Attack, Kylie, White Stripes, Foo Fighters, Chemical Brothers, Metronomy, Beyonce, Kanye West, Daft Punk and Rolling Stones.

Hollywood became interested in Gondry's success and he directed his first feature movie ‘Human Nature’ in 2001, adapting a Charlie Kaufman scenario, which was shown in the 2001 Cannes Festival. This film allowed him to direct ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ (2004), for which he again collaborated with Charlie Kaufman. The movie became a popular independent film winning him his first Oscar.

After ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’, Michel Gondry kept surprising himself with extraordinary ideas within his films and commercials. ‘Drugstore’ for Levi’s, became the most awarded commercial of all time. Michel directed deeply personal movies including ‘The Science of Sleep’, or a love letter to filmmaking: ‘Be Kind, Rewind’. With recent French productions ‘Moon Indigo’ and ‘Microbe & Gasoline’, Michel Gondry continues to fascinate audiences with his unique craft.

Over the past 10 years Michel has directed commercials for Gap, Smirnoff, Air France, Nike, Coca Cola, Adidas, Polaroid and more recently Fed-ex and Pandora. 

Olivier Gondry has been working as a commercial and video director for the past three decades. Originally known as a visual effects artist, working on numerous projects with his brother, director Michel Gondry, Olivier’s technical ability shines through his work, often using many different mediums in one piece. Some of his latest work includes campaigns for YouTube, Starbucks, Nissan, Canon, Gillette and True Religion. In music videos, Olivier has worked with Daft Punk, Ok Go and The Vines.

Best friends since the seventh grade, josh melnick and xander charity never imagined they?d be directing together? or alone, for that matter. If their collaboration is a surprise, the increasing buzz surrounding the duo is not. They have been turning heads since their first project together, a music video for dead cab for cutie. What began as a hair-brained idea on a drunken road trip trough mexico evolved into a story about a young couple?s last day together. The vid was selected for inclusion in resfest 2003 and landed them on the roster of partisan.
Soon after joining partisan, josh and xander made a video for the postal service?s break-out hit, ?such great heights?. A love affair set in a microchip factory, the promo was again a resfest winner and mvpa nominee. The duo?s name recognition led to commercial assignments.
And so you know these guys have spent some time apart..
After attending grade school and high school together in New york city, josh and xander temporarily parted ways. Josh went to yale uni where he earned a degree in fine arts with a concentration in sculpture and video art. Xander attended darthmouth college, where he also studied fine arts, receiving a combined major in film and photography. Upon graduation, josh turned his creative attention towards editing, cutting everything from commercials and music videos to network television programs, short films and documentaries. Xander returned to new york, where he became a designer and branding consultant for leading watch and jewelry house David yurman. He made time to nurture his love for filmmaking with more personal documentary and short-form pursuits.

Noam Murro is a multi-award winning commercials director. He has been nominated for DGA Director of the Year five times, winning the honor in 2005. His unique style was established in 1994 with a memorable campaign that captured elderly customers in Katz's famous deli on New York City's Lower East Side. This led to documentary-style exposes of tobacco monsters for the California Department of Health as well as lighter work for Fox Sports. The poignant Flatline spot for Toshiba, in which a dying man's life flashes before him, was singled out and applauded by the New York Times.
In 2002, he directed Saturn's Sheet Metal, a conceptually driven spot that was highly critically acclaimed. In 2003, Adcritic.com labeled his Got Milk? commercial as the best spot of the year. It went on to become the winner of a Gold Lion at the 2003 Cannes Lions awards. Murro's campaign for Olympus garnered him a second Gold Lion at the 2005 awards along with a number of Silver and Bronze statues for other commercials. Recently, Creativity Magazine named him as one of the industry's 50 most influential people in the last 20 years. He was also recently named the UK's #1 director by Campaign magazine.
As well as directing, he is also the founder of Biscuit Filmworks. Smart People is his first feature film. 

GREG POPP IS AN AMERICAN FILMMAKER WHO SPECIALIZES IN COMEDY-DIALOGUE COMMERCIALS. GREG HAS HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO WORK WITH MANY HIGH PROFILE, PROFESSIONAL ATHLETES INCLUDING PEYTON MANNING, TROY POLAMALU, ADRIAN PETERSON, HENRIK LUNDQVIST, DANICA PATRICK, ROGER FEDERER AND VENUS AND SERENA WILLIAMS, TO NAME A FEW. GREG’S FORAY INTO FILMMAKING BEGAN AT NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY WHERE ALONG WITH A FILM DEGREE, HE EARNED A STUDENT ACADEMY AWARD FOR HIS NARRATIVE-LENGTH FILM THE LOTTERY ROSE. AFTER A BRIEF STINT WORKING IN FEATURES, GREG EMBARKED ON A CAREER AT DDB CHICAGO WHERE HIS WORK WITH ANHEUSER-BUSCH WON LITERALLY EVERY MAJOR ADVERTISING HONOR. IN 2005, GREG LEFT DDB TO DIRECT, AND HIS EFFORTS HAVE WON HIM NUMEROUS AWARDS INCLUDING GOLD AT CANNES, CLIOS, ANDYS, AND DISTINCTION FOR HUMOR AND TALENT PERFORMANCE AT AICP/MOMA. IN 2014, GREG’S SHORT FILM, THE DRAMATIC THRILLER LAST SHOT, PREMIER ED AT THE NEWPORT BEACH FILM FESTIVAL. LAST SHOT WAS A FINALIST AT THE OSCAR-QUALIFYING USA FILM FESTIVAL AND WILL BE APPEARING IN SEVERAL OTHER FESTIVALS AS AN OFFICIAL SELECTION THROUGHOUT THE YEAR.