Samuel Bayer

Samuel Bayer
File:Samuel Bayer shot by John Clark.jpg Bayer in 2013
Born	Samuel David Bayer (1965-02-17) February 17, 1965 Syracuse, New York, U.S.
Residence	Los Angeles, California
Occupation	Visual artist, cinematographer, music video, director
Website	http://samuelbayer.com/

Samuel David Bayer (born February 17, 1965) is an American visual artist, cinematographer, commercial, music video and film director. Bayer was born in Syracuse, New York. He graduated from New York City’s School of Visual Arts in 1987 with a degree in Fine Arts. He later moved to Los Angeles in 1991, where he continues to live and work.

Career

A prolific music video and commercial director, Bayer's resume includes Nirvana's music video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit", Blind Melon's "No Rain" video as well as award-winning commercials for brands like Chrysler, Nike, and Coca-Cola. In addition to Nirvana and Blind Melon, Bayer has shot and directed videos for Michael Jackson, The Rolling Stones, Green Day, David Bowie, Garbage, The Strokes, Metallica, Smashing Pumpkins and Justin Timberlake, among others, in his trademark style. Bayer has won five MTV Video Music Awards including Best Video in 1991 and 2005 as well as Best Direction in 2005 and 2007.

With a successful music video career under his belt, Bayer has received equal acclaim within the commercial world. Well into his second decade of advertising, Bayer's work continues to be recognized. In 1996, his Nike commercial, "If You Let Me Play", won an Association of Independent Commercial Producers Award for Best Direction. In 2011, his Super Bowl spot for Chrysler, "Born of Fire", received multiple awards, including an Emmy and a Cannes Gold Lion.

New Line Cinema and Platinum Dunes selected Bayer to helm their remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Bayer finally agreed to direct the film after a personal plea from Michael Bay, who also was the producer. With a production budget of $30 million, the film held the number one spot at the US box office in its first week in April 2010. The film starred Academy Award-nominee Jackie Earle Haley and introduced Rooney Mara in her first major studio role.

Music videography

• Nirvana – "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (1991)
• Ozzy Osbourne – "Mama, I'm Coming Home" (1991)
• Iron Maiden – "Wasting Love" (1992)
• The Ramones – "Poison Heart" (1992)
• Suicidal Tendencies – "Nobody Hears" (1992)
• Public Image Ltd. – "Covered" (1992)
• The Wonderstuff – "On the Ropes" (1992)
• John Lee Hooker – "This Is Hip" (1992)
• The Jesus and Mary Chain – "Far Out & Gone" (1992)
• The Jesus and Mary Chain – "Almost Gold" (1992)
• Robbie Robertson – "Go Back to Your Woods" (1992)
• Grayson Hugh – "Soul Cat Girl" (1992)
• Pat Benatar – "Somebody's Baby" (1993)
• Blind Melon – "No Rain" (1993)
• Blind Melon – "Tones of Home" (version 2) (1993)
• Melissa Etheridge – "Come to My Window" (1993)
• Candlebox – "You" (1993)
• Rush – "Stick It Out" (1993)
• Buffalo Tom – "I'm Allowed" (1993)
• The Charlatans – "I Don't Want to See the Sights" (1993)
• The Charlatans – "Weirdo" (1993)
• NOFX – "Bob" (1993)
• Sybil Vane – "Pixy" (1994)
• Corrosion of Conformity – "Albatross" (1994)
• Cracker – "Nothing to Believe In" (1994)
• The Devlins – "Someone to Talk To" (1994)
• Melissa Etheridge – "If I Wanted To" (1994)
• Fishbone – "Unyielding Conditioning" (1994)
• Fishbone – "Servitude" (1994)
• Tears for Fears – "Elemental" (1994)
• Blind Melon – "Change" (1994)
• Toad the Wet Sprocket – "Fall Down" (1994)
• Collective Soul – "Breathe" (1994)
• The Cranberries – "Zombie" (1994)
• Hole – "Doll Parts" (1994)
• Eve's Plum – "Die Like Someone" (1994)
• The Offspring – "Gotta Get Away" (1994)
• All – "Million Bucks" (1995)
• The Cult – "Star" (1995)
• The Cranberries – "Ode to My Family" (1995)
• The Cranberries – "I Can't Be with You" (1995)
• The The – "I Saw the Light" (1995)
• Garbage – "Vow" (1995)
• The Smashing Pumpkins – "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" (1995)
• David Bowie – "The Hearts Filthy Lesson" (1995)
• David Bowie – "Strangers When We Meet" (1995)

• Garbage – "Only Happy When It Rains" (1996)
• Garbage – "Stupid Girl" (1996)
• Metallica – "Until It Sleeps" (1996)
• The Afghan Whigs – "Honky's Ladder" (1996)
• John Mellencamp – "Just Another Day" (1996)
• Cracker – "I Hate My Generation" (1996)
• The Rolling Stones – "Anybody Seen My Baby?" (1997)
• Sheryl Crow – "Home" (1997)
• LL Cool J – "Father" (1997)
• The Rolling Stones – "Saint of Me" (1998)
• Sheryl Crow – "My Favorite Mistake" (1998)
• John Mellencamp – "Your Life Is Now" (1998)
• Everlast – "Ends" (1999)
• Marilyn Manson – "Coma White" (1999)
• Marilyn Manson – "Rock Is Dead" (1999)
• Natalie Imbruglia – "Identify" (1999)
• Robbie Williams – "Angels" (1999)
• Lenny Kravitz – "Black Velveteen" (2000)
• Marilyn Manson – "Disposable Teens" (2000)
• Blink-182 – "Stay Together for the Kids" (2001)
• Aerosmith – "Sunshine" (2001)
• Lenny Kravitz – "Dig In" (2001)
• Papa Roach – "Time and Time Again" (2002)
• Good Charlotte – "Hold On" (uncredited) (2003)
• Green Day – "American Idiot" (2004)
• Green Day – "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" (2004)
• Green Day – "Holiday" (2005)
• Green Day – "Wake Me Up When September Ends" (2005)
• Green Day – "Jesus of Suburbia" (2005)
• Green Day – Bullet in a Bible (live concert DVD) (2005)
• The Strokes – "Heart in a Cage" (2006)
• The Strokes – "You Only Live Once" (2006)
• My Chemical Romance – "Welcome to the Black Parade" (2006)
• My Chemical Romance – "Famous Last Words" (2006)
• Justin Timberlake – "What Goes Around... Comes Around" (2007)
• Good Charlotte – "Keep Your Hands off My Girl" (2007)
• Green Day – "Working Class Hero" (2007)
• Maroon 5 – Wiz Khalifa – "Payphone" (2012)
• Green Day – "Oh Love" (2012)
• Green Day – "Kill the DJ" (2012)
• Michael Jackson – "A Place with No Name" (2014)
• Maroon 5 – "Animals" (2014)
• Jesse & Joy – "Ecos de amor" (2015)

Filmography

• A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) (director)

Photography

On March 3, 2013, Bayer opened his first major solo exhibition at ACE Gallery Beverly Hills entitled, "Diptychs & Triptychs". Bayer presented a series of sixteen, twelve foot-tall, female nude triptychs as well as four, ten-foot tall diptych portraits. In an Interview Magazine article, Bayer commented that "the initial effect of the portraits are overwhelming, and a bit spooky." Bayer's understanding of Hollywood's constant superficial dissection and scrutinization of women, lead him to strip his subjects of all artifice in order to provide an alternative view of womanhood in contemporary culture. Exposed full frontally, these women might have been perceived as vulnerable on a smaller scale, however the straight gaze and the enlarged scale creates an intimation of a "new race of superwomen."

Bayer's series discussed the ongoing biological and sociological evolution. For studies of the female form, these women would not have existed in the mid-twentieth century prior to the sexual revolution of the 1960s when artists began to reconsider the body as a politicized terrain and explored issues of gender, identity, and sexuality which manifest in the work of photographers Diane Arbus, Robert Mapplethorpe, Larry Clark, Hannah Wilke, Nan Goldin and Cynthia MacAdams.

Bayer treated "Diptychs & Triptychs" like a film project, holding open castings for hundreds of women. Bayer's subjects held poses against a simple white backdrop for up to four hours during marathon fourteen hour shoot days. Bayer enlarged the 4" x 5" film negatives into the series of twelve-foot-tall triptychs and ten-foot-tall diptychs in what was a deeply personal process, one that afforded him the benefit of complete creative control.

The series of work was inspired by a conversation Bayer had with his late father during which he expressed his intense desire to display his viewpoint of the nude form.

Awards

Music videos

• 1992 MTV Video Music Awards – Best Alternative Video – Nirvana: "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
• 1996 MTV Video Music Awards – Best Rock Video – Metallica: "Until It Sleeps"
• 2005 MTV Video Music Awards – Video of the Year – Green Day: "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"
• 2005 MTV Video Music Awards – Best Direction in a Video – Green Day: "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"
• 2005 MTV Video Music Awards – Best Cinematography – Green Day: "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"
• 2005 MVPA Awards – Best Rock Video of the Year – Green Day: "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"
• 2005 Kodak – Salute to Music Video Cinematography – Green Day: "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"
• 2005 Kodak Lifetime Achievement Award – Excellence in Cinematography – Music Video
• 2006 MVPA Awards – Lifetime Achievement Award
• 2006 MuchMusic Video Award – Best International Video Group – Green Day: "Wake Me Up When September Ends"
• 2007 MuchMusic Video Award – Best International Video Group – My Chemical Romance: "Welcome to the Black Parade"
• 2007 MTV Music Video Awards – Best Direction – Justin Timberlake: "What Goes Around... Comes Around"
• 2013 Camerimage — Lifetime Achievement in Music Videos

Commercials

• 1996 AICP Show – Direction & Dialogue or Monologue – Nike: "If You Let Me Play"
• 1996 International Andy Awards – Nike: "If You Let Me Play"
• 1997 AICP Show – Cinematography, Direction and Production Design – Packard Bell: "Home"
• 2001 Clio Television & Cinema – Direction – Mountain Dew: "Showstopper"
• 2011 Emmy Award – Outstanding Commercial – Chrysler: "Born of Fire"
• 2011 Cannes Gold Lion, Film Craft – Direction – Chrysler: "Born of Fire"
• 2011 International Andy Awards – TV: Spot Over 30s – Chrysler: "Born of Fire"

Film

• 2011 People's Choice Awards – Favorite Horror Movie – A Nightmare on Elm Street

External links

• Samuel Bayer at the Internet Movie Database
• Bayer's commercial work and biography at the site of the production company HSI Productions
• Bayer's work at the site of the SFX company Method Studio
• Biography and picture at geekstinkbreath.net