Director of Photography / Producer
During graduate school at USC, Clay Westervelt received both the Bush and Kodak Awards for Excellence in Cinematography, earning an apprenticeship courtesy the American Society of Cinematographers. He was honored to apprentice with Francis Kenny (2012 ASC President’s Award), and went on to learn lighting and camera techniques through on-set observation of Vilmos Zsigmond, Emmanuelle Lubezki, and Dante Spinotti.
After graduation, Mr. Westervelt immediately filmed pilots for every major network, establishing the look of such series as Life of Luxury with Robin Leach (ABC), Gene Simmons: Family Jewels (A&E), Rattlesnake Republic (Animal Planet), Junk Gypsies (HGTV), and SkeeTV (Fuse).
His visual experimentation continued while shooting award-winning music videos, including Nutty: Back in Black and Morgan Neville’s Grammy-nominated Johnny Cash’s America, before filming the Emmy-winning documentary The Legend of Pancho Barnes and the Happy Bottom Riding Club.
Mr. Westervelt branched into directing and producing with thursday afternoon, which won writing and directing awards while playing on PBS, The Sundance Channel, and in film festivals internationally.
In 2003, Westervelt launched Imaginaut Entertainment with the award-winning series Storyline Online, starring such talents as Elijah Wood, Betty White, James Earl Jones, Christian Slater, and Annette Bening.
Westervelt moved further into documentary territory by directing the acclaimed Mr. Twister, about a young man with autism, under the tutelage of Academy Award-winning producer Mark Harris.
These productions led to multiple commercial directing opportunities with such talent as Jennifer Lopez, Becky G, Halle Berry, Sharon Lawrence, TJ Miller, and Alan Tudyk.
Clay Westervelt continues producing, direecting, and shooting, and has expanded into Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality work. He resides in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles, is a member of the SOC, and is now in development on two TV series and one feature film.