[ bio ]

 

MISCHA

Born and raised in a wee town just outside of Seattle, Washington, Mischa received his undergraduate degree in film directing from NYU's prestigious Tisch School of the Arts. Minoring in psychology and graduating with honors at the age of 20, he then moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in music videos - back when MTV still played them. Securing his first job as the executive assistant to accounting & human resources at Propaganda Films, home of such visionary directors (and idols) as Mark Romanek, David Fincher, Spike Jonze, and Michel Gondry, Mischa stayed with the company until it closed its doors shortly after 9/11. After a brief stint as a director's rep at Oil Factory Films, helping to manage the careers of A-List music video directors such as Sophie Mueller, Jonas Akerlund, and Dom & Nic, Mischa said farewell to the "office side" of entertainment to continue his work as a freelance, published photographer.

Always looking for his next creative outlet, he soon found himself booking more and more directing jobs, both in music videos and in live theater. He developed an original rock-opera, entitled Bare, taking it from a one-page synopsis to a full-length, 33-song staged event that was eventually optioned for an off-off-Broadway run. Since then, Mischa has gone on to direct numerous live productions, and coincidentally, makes the majority of his living as a voice-over artist represented by ICM's voice department, DPN. Fluent and bilingual in German, Mischa has been heard in various feature films (MILLION DOLLAR BABY, THE BOURNE SUPREMACY, 21, MI:3, VAN HELSING, and more recently, VALKYRIE,) commercials (TRESemme/Project Runway, Bowflex) documentaries (the making of THE 5 th ELEMENT,) video games (Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, and Saboteur, in which he plays the main villain,) and perhaps most obnoxiously, as the voice of Disneyland's Matterhorn ride. Zat's right, kids, buckle up or zey'll come get you!

With a wide array of connections and contacts within the film industry, Mischa decided to focus his attention on learning what they didn't teach him in undergrad - namely, "how to make a multi-million dollar film and then pay yourself for doing it," and thus found himself applying for UCLA's Producers Program in 2007. Now, with a solid grasp on marketing, financing, international sales, budgeting, distribution, entertainment law, and selling projects that don't actually exist yet, Mischa is excited to be a graduate of the program - and ready to move on to the next episode of life.

With three new projects currently in development, including STEAMTOWN (a graphic novel and original cable television series documenting the lives of eight brothel workers and their elegantly gruesome madame as they attempt to survive each other in a "steampunk" world,) FUEL (the feature film version of Steamtown,) and THE SHOW (a dramatic pseudo-documentary chronicling the lives of a modern day vaudevillian performance troupe in Eastern Europe,) Mischa's days are never boring.

But when all is said and done, all he asks is to be remembered by two simple words...

... any two, as long as they're simple.

 

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