Sylvain White - Biography

The son of an American pro. basketball player and a French flight attendant, Sylvain White was born in France and grew up mostly in Paris. After attending La Sorbonne University for law, his exceptional creative talent won him a scholarship to Pomona College in California, where he graduated with honors in both Media Studies and Film and Video Production. While still in school, Sylvain wrote for and worked with directors such as Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze at Propaganda Films. Upon graduation a series of sensational award winning short films catapulted him to the forefront of the international market. The 25th Frame and Urban Short Circuit Mind Scrape received numerous awards including The Directors' Guild of America Short Film Awards. Leveraging on his success with the short film format, he went on to direct a series of groundbreaking music videos in the US, Europe and Japan.

Lending his compelling visual style and spectacular use of special effects and camera techniques to a wide spectrum of music genres and artists, Sylvain quickly developed an incredibly multifaceted body of work. His talent won him nominations both at the 2001 MTV Music Video Awards and at the 2001 Music Video Production Association Awards. Debuting in the commercial arena with the Lugz campaign (winner Telly Awards 2003), he envisioned an unprecedented way of employing 3D parallax, and delivered one of the most groundbreaking and talked about commercials of the season. His latest short film _Quiet (2002)-, opened its extensive and successful festival round premiering and winning the Grand Jury Prize at the WorldFest International Film Festival 2002, and closing as a finalist at the HBO Short Film Awards. On top of his music video and commercial work, Sylvain is currently packaging, writing and developing several feature film projects.