Christopher Coppola - Biography

Christopher began his filmmaking at an early age by creating super 8 films that starred his brother, Nicolas Cage. He both scripted and scored these very early films. As a teenager, Christopher apprenticed to composer, Carmine Coppola on the film, Apocalypse Now (1979). He went on to study music composition at Redlands University, where he received the prestigious California Arts Council Award for his opera, "Plato's Cave", and for his clarinet quintet, "Reverie". He then began his film studies at The San Francisco Art Institute. While there, he completed four student films and graduated in 1987. As a Producer/Writer/Director, Christopher has completed seven feature length motion pictures. Christopher's first feature, Dracula's Widow (1988), was produced for De Laurentiis Entertainment Group. Christopher's next feature, Deadfall (1993), was a film noir-style thriller starring Michael Biehn, 'Nicolas Cage' and 'James Coburn'. It was distributed by Trimark Pictures. His third feature, a children's fantasy film entitled Clockmaker (1998), was shot in Romania for Kuschner-Locke. Christopher next completed the Western, Gunfighter, with Martin Sheen, Robert Carradine and Clu Gulager. It was produced by his own company, Plaster City Productions. Also completed in 1998 was _"Palmer's Pick-Up: An American Roadshow Odyssey" (1980)_, a black comedy about the end of the world, starring Robert Carradine, Richard Hillman, Patrick Kilpatrick and featuring Rosanna Arquette, Soupy Sales, Piper Laurie, Morton Downey Jr., Garrett Morris and Talia Shire for Plaster City Productions and Winchester Films. Palmer's Pick-Up (1999) had its world premiere at the 1999 Berlin Film Festival. Christopher completed principal photography on G-Men from Hell (2000) in the Fall of 1999. This film, based on Michael Allred's comic "Grafik Musik", stars William Forsythe, Tate Donovan and Gary Busey. Since then, Plaster City Productions has embarked on an ambitious slate of feature-length digital films. Its first production, entitled "Bel-Air", starring Barbara Bain and directed by Christopher, had its world premiere at the Cinequest San Jose Film Festival (March 2000). Christopher's television work includes writing and directing numerous America's Most Wanted (1988) segments for Fox Television, directing the premiere episode of Bone Chillers (1996) for ABC, directing the two Nickelodeon children's shows, Les aventures fantastiques d'Allen Strange (1997) and La double vie d'Eddie Mac Dowd (1999) and directing Disney's hit show, The Jersey (1999).