Ace Norton | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 24, 1982 Venice, California |
| Occupation | Film & Video Director |
| Years active | 2001-present |
| Website | acenorton.com |
Ace Norton (born May 24, 1982, in Venice, Los Angeles, California) is a Japanese American filmmaker and artist born and raised in Venice, California. Norton creates music videos, commercials, fashion films, and movies.
Norton grew up in Venice, and is the son of writer/director Bill Norton Junior and grandson of motion picture screenwriter William Norton Senior.
Norton spent most of high school shooting short films. One of which, "Cherry Coke Rage", won the highest award at the Los Angeles Film Festival. By the end of his high school career Norton had produced over 200 short films. Following graduation Norton attended the University of Southern California (USC) School of Cinema.
At USC Norton began to direct music videos for local Los Angeles bands. While in college Norton and friends (Toben Seymour, Hiro Murai, Charles Spano, Asiel Norton) created Commondeer Films. Using Norton's bedroom as office space, they would spend weekends emailing bands and animating low budget music videos. Commondeer produced over 40 music videos. In 2007, Norton signed to Partizan, then shortly thereafter to Prettybird (London) & Solab (France), & REPRESENT (Germany). Since then, Ace has directed over eighty music videos, television commercials, fashion shorts, and short films.
Norton’s work has appeared in the L.A. Times, The Huffington Post, Nowness, Nylon, Interview, Anthem, Boards, and Promo magazine. Highsnobiety listed him as one of the "Best 10 Directors Working Today". He won Best Film and Best Director at the Milan Fashion Film Festival and awards at Berlin and La Jolla. He was nominated for “Director of the Year” at the MVPA for his video “Hustler,” by Simian Mobile Disco. This also won “Video of the Year” at the ViMus Music Video Awards and is listed as one of the “Top 100 Music Videos of All Time” by NME. His work for Death Cab for Cutie was nominated for a Grammy. His films and videos have also been shown at the Los Angeles Film Festival, SXSW, and festivals in Berlin, Venice, Japan, and England. Norton has served as the president of the jury at the Off Film Festival in Venice, Italy and was a keynote speaker at both LAMVF and in Berlin.