Mark Travis

Director & Author

Mark Travis, a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and a former creative consultant to film director Mark Rydell, his highly praised work on A Bronx Tale, Survival of the Heart, Undressing New Jersey, Once A Man Twice A Boy, Wings, The Coming of Stork, Equus, the improvisational Linke vs. Redfield, and Verdigris have garnered a total of twenty-eight Drama-Logue, L.A. Weekly and Drama Critics’ Circle awards.

Mark’s television directing credits include The Facts of Life, Family Ties, Capitol and the Emmy Award-winning PBS dramatic special, Blind Tom: The Thomas Bethune Story. In 1990 he completed his first film, Going Under, for Warner Bros., starring Bill Pullman and Ned Beatty. In 1999 he directed the documentary, Earlet and in 2001 he wrote and directed The Baritones (a parody of The Sopranos). He is scheduled to direct Jeremy and the Aunties (based on his own script) in the summer of 2007 for Kevin Lee Filmproduktions in Munich.

Since 1992 Mark has been sharing his techniques on writing, acting and directing worldwide including Germany, England, France, Netherlands, Poland, Ukraine, Brazil and Japan.

With his partner, Frederick Johntz, Mark has served as a Creative Consultant on several feature films including: Men of Honor; Barbershop; Barbershop 2; The Day Reagan Was Shot; Norma Jean, Jack and Me; The Last Run; Tournament of Dreams, Del Rio and television episodes of: Lois and Clark; The Pretender; Picket Fences, 90210, Melrose Place; Strong Medicine; NYPD Blue; The Practice and Ally MacBeal.

Mark is the author of the Number-One Best Seller (L.A. Times), THE DIRECTOR’S JOURNEY: the Creative Collaboration between Directors, Writers and Actors. His second book on directing, DIRECTING FEATURE FILMS (published in April of 2002) is currently used as required text in film schools worldwide. He is currently writing his third book LifeStories: the Art and Craft of Autobiographical Storytelling.