Grady Hall
American screenwriter

Grady Hall

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American screenwriter
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Male
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Biography

Introduction

Grady Hall is an American director of commercials and music videos, as well as a screenwriter, producer, and director of one-hour television series.

Hall's high-profile commercial work has earned numerous industry awards, and landed him at #34 on Filestage's "50 Best Commercial Directors in World."

His music video work with artists such as Beck, Katy Perry, and Capital Cities have drawn more than 4 billion hits collectively on YouTube, earned him a Grammy nomination, and won an MTV Video Music Award.  

Career

Grady Hall began his career working at Warner Bros. in syndicated television. He later became a development executive for television producer Douglas S. Cramer and was also a staff writer on The Outer Limits for SyFy, which filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Hall was a founding director of the production company Motion Theory, which he helped build from a pure animation and design company into an award-winning live-action and visual effects studio. The company’s unique hybrid model and creative results later caught the eye of filmmakers Guillermo del Toro and Guillermo Navarro, who co-founded Mirada as Motion Theory’s feature-film visual effects arm, with Hall taking a creative leadership role in the new company and simultaneously continuing to write and direct projects.

In 2010, Hall returned to TV, serving as a consulting producer and director for the debut season of Sam Raimi's Spartacus: Blood and Sand starring Lucy Lawless and Andy Whitfield.

In 2013, Hall's video for Capital Cities' “Safe and Sound” was nominated for two MTV Video Music Awards, winning for Best Visual Effects.  That same year, he also co-directed Katy Perry’s “Roar,” the most-watched video of the year and People’s Choice Award winner.

Hall left Motion Theory and Mirada in 2014 to join Partizan Entertainment, home to directors such as Michel Gondry, Antoine Bardou-Jacquet, and Michael Gracey. There, he worked on high-profile campaigns for companies such as Amazon, Pepsi, and Microsoft – directing the global launch video for the HoloLens augmented-reality viewer.

By 2016, Hall transitioned into the role of independent director, taking on a wider variety of creative projects through different production companies, agencies, and direct clients such as Intel, Honda, and Netflix.


Select music video credits

  • “The Science of Selling Yourself Short” by Less Than Jake (2003)
  • “Animal” by R.E.M. (2004)
  • “Take It Away” by The Used (2004)
  • “Getting Away with Murder” by Papa Roach (2004)
  • “Girl” by Beck (2005)
  • “Scars” by Papa Roach (2005)
  • “Dashboard” by Modest Mouse (2007)
  • “Safe and Sound” by Capital Cities (2013)
  • “Roar” by Katy Perry (2013)
  • "Phoenix" by Olivia Holt (2016)
  • "Wow" by Beck (2016)

Awards

Year Award Project Result
2013 Grammy Awards Capital Cities “Safe and Sound” Nominated for Best Music Video
2013 People's Choice Awards Katy Perry "Roar" Won Favorite Music Video
2013 MTV VMA Capital Cities “Safe and Sound” Won for Best Visual Effects
2013 MTV VMA Capital Cities “Safe and Sound” Nominated for Best Art Direction
2004 PromaxBDA Discovery “One Way Out” Won Gold
2008 D&AD Modest Mouse “Dashboard” Won
2007 AIGA Modest Mouse “Dashboard” Certificate of Excellence
2006 MVPA Beck “Girl” Won for Best Special Effects
2006 CLIO Reebok “Wrapshear” Won
2004 AICP Nike “Flow” Won for Graphic Design
2004 The One Show Fox Sports “Shockey” Finalist
2004 Art Directors Club Fox Sports “Shockey” Won Silver
2004 ACM SIGGRAPH ESPN “Evolution” Won
2003 AICP ESPN “Evolution” Won for Graphic Design