Growing up in a troubled area of ​​Los Angeles, John Singleton - film director, producer and screenwriter - consciously focuses on the crime situation and disorder in the so-called slums. His creative career developed quite rapidly. The first works - “Poetic Justice”, “Guys from the Street” and “Toddler” - were rather cool and skeptical received by world film critics. But after the release of the blockbusters “Double Fast and the Furious” and “Blood for Blood”, no one doubted the talent that John Singleton was generously endowed with.
From clip makers to directors
John Singleton, whose biography shows the beginning of the director’s career, was born in the middle of winter 1968. His parents were not representatives of creative bohemia - father Danny Singleton was a mortgage broker, a successful real estate agent, mother Sheila Ward-Johnson - executive director of a pharmaceutical company. Young John without much effort and quite successfully graduated not only from high school, but also from Pasadena City College, enrolling in high school of cinematic art.
Further, the future director continued his education at the University of Southern California, where he became a student of the Margaret Mehring course, specializing in training professionals in the field of screenwriting and directing. Her course gave the world film industry a lot of young talents. John Singleton, whose films are known to action lovers around the world, studied with Helen Childress, Stephen Chboschi and Carlos Brooks. While perfecting his scripting skills, Singleton still preferred directing. His debut in the world of show business were video clips. A promising clip maker at a fairly young age managed to shoot a movie for Michael Jackson Remember The Time with the direct participation of Eddie Murphy.
In the big movie
In 1991, the first full-length youth social drama “Street Guys” was released. This film collected at the box office 9 times more than the cost of its production. It began with a dry statistical summary stating bare facts and stating that every 21st African-American would soon be killed, and ended with a call to keep the peace. Being a talented and exciting description of the morals of black American neighborhoods, the picture not only convincingly demonstrated the almost deadlock position of everyone who was born and raised there. The movie tells the story of what John Singleton felt on himself. Age (all films released by a more mature director did not repeat the success of the debut) of the director at the time of the release of the tape was 24 years old. So Singleton became the youngest of the directors, African-American, whose project was nominated for an Oscar in the categories of "Best Director" and "Best Screenplay" and was highly praised by the jury of the Academy of Motion Picture Academy.
Criminal adventure adventure comedy
The producers of the successful action-tape “Fast and Furious” decided in 2003 to arrange a dashing race for the second time, hoping to break a decent jackpot at the box office, so “Double Fast and the Furious” appeared. John Singleton gladly took the director's chair. Oddly enough, but an independent director without lapping immediately fit into the Hollywood multi-budget movie scheme. The director explained his consent to work on the continuation of “Fast and Furious” with a sense of deja vu that John had more than once seen while watching the first part.
Crime Bloody Thriller
In 2005, John Singleton presents the blood thirst crime thriller to the audience. Here, the director dispensed with excessive Hollywood pathos and fatal dramatization. The emphasis of the narrative is focused on the relationship of the main characters. Professionally and efficiently set the action component and gloomy soundtrack, John perfectly fit into the outline of the criminal drama, not allowing the viewer to get bored. He maintains this pace in the action movie Chase (2011).
The role of the main character is played by Taylor Lautner - the star of the "Twilight" saga, which has a hard time. The director does not focus on suspense, but on action, now and then plunging the hero of Lonter into the inexorable cycle of fights, chases and shootings. In 2014, the director tried to return to the genre of social drama by shooting the film "Tulia". The plot tells the story of an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union who has not abandoned attempts to defend the constitutional rights of a group of black guys against whom false allegations of drug trafficking have been brought forward.
Biographical picture
The latest project of the Oscar nominee is a biographical picture about the life and work of Tupac Shakur. John Singleton is going to not only shoot it, to be a co-author of the script, but also to produce it. The choice of director was not an accident. The fact is that in 1991, Singleton shot Shakur in films with Janet Jackson. The romantic drama Poetic Justice became the starting point of the friendly relationship between Tupac and John. A biographical film about the scandalous rapper will tell about his childhood, adolescence, ascension to fame and death.
Personal life
The director was married to a real princess - actress Akosua Busia. But, despite the appearance of the daughter of Khadar, the marriage soon broke up. After that, Singleton had lengthy novels with Vestria Barlow and Tyra Banks. As a result, John has five children. In 2007, the director was responsible for the car accident. While driving, he hit a pedestrian who died in hospital from injuries. The investigation showed that Singleton’s blood did not contain alcohol or other psychotropic drugs, as a result of which all charges were dropped.