William Eubank

William Eubank
Eubank in 2014 at the Brattle Theatre
Born	William C. Eubank (1982-11-15) November 15, 1982 (age 42) Holyoke, Massachusetts, U.S.
Other names	Will Eubank
Alma mater	UCLA (dropped out) Brooks Institute
Occupations	Film director screenwriter cinematographer
Years active	2003–present
Agent	Creative Artists Agency[1][2]
Notable work	Love The Signal Underwater
Relatives	Carlyle Eubank (brother)
Website	www.williameubank.com
Signature

William Eubank (born November 15, 1982) is an American

Eubank was born on November 15, 1982, in Holyoke, Massachusetts.^[8] His father, Carlyle Eubank II, is a fine art consultant, former Christie's representative, and adviser to the Office of Fine Arts at the State Department.^[9][10][11] His mother, Patricia Reeder Eubank, is a children's book author and illustrator.^[12] The second of four siblings, Eubank has one older sister and two younger brothers, and grew up in the Santa Ynez Valley, a noted wine-producing region north of Los Angeles.^[13][14]

Growing up he was inspired by his grandfather, a former

When Eubank was young, he had an interesting experience with the verisimilitude of cinema. At the time that he first watched the 1974 film Chinatown, set in the year 1937, Eubank was unaware that it was a period piece, assuming it to have been made contemporaneously in 1937. When he found out it had been made almost four decades after the era it depicted, Eubank came to a realization about film's power.^{[19]: 14:33}

Eubank began accepting jobs as a director or cinematographer at age 18. A number of Eubank's early works featured the use of in-camera

Eubank would become a seasoned Panavision employee, staying at the company for the next eight years.[24] Eubank attended the Sundance Film Festival five times representing Panavision, dreaming of attending as a director. He would meet with his Navy cinematographer grandfather, who lived in Salt Lake City, who insisted Eubank would someday attend with a film.^[8][15][25]

While at Sundance and elsewhere, it was Eubank's job to promote and provide support for the Panavised

In 2007, Eubank was approached by

Eubank spent four years working on the film, serving as the film's production designer and constructing both the International Space Station and Civil War-battleground sets for the film in his parents' backyard himself over the course of nine months.^[33][34] Eubank based his building of the ISS set on NASA photography and skateboard ramp designs and his staging of the battle scenes on Civil War paintings.^[32][35] The filming was frequently interrupted by weather and the sounds of frogs and his family's neighbor operating a weedwhacker.^[32] On February 2, 2011, the film premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. It later screened at eleven other festivals worldwide, including the Athens International Film Festival, where Eubank won the "Best Director" award. On August 10, 2011, National CineMedia released the film.

While Love was still being edited, Eubank began writing a second screenplay, The Signal. He collaborated on the script with fellow screenwriters

To cast the film, Eubank met with actors over Skype from New Mexico, settling on Australian actor Brenton Thwaites, English actor Olivia Cooke and American actor Beau Knapp. For props, Eubank worked with Legacy Effects to design custom pieces. After two years of pre-production, The Signal began shooting in Albuquerque, where it was occasionally hampered by sandstorms.^[25] The film's 29-day shoot took place in New Mexico and Ohio.

Eubank chose Brian Berdan, who had worked on David Lynch's Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks, to edit the film. Berdan and Eubank had collaborated before, Berdan having edited Love. Eubank described his work with Berdan, saying: "Brian’s sensibilities are different from mine; on my first film, Love, I realized that Brian had another way of looking at things than I did. I’ve come to appreciate his perspective, his fresh viewpoint, so much."^[25]

While praising the film's "exquisite visual design", Variety called it "ultimately quite silly".^[38]

In 2016, Eubank began work on the

The film received mixed reviews attaining a rotten score of 47% on Rotten Tomatoes,[40] with Time Out calling it The Abyss-lite ^[41] and Rolling Stone describing it as 'A brazen knockoff that wants to be Alien.^[42]

As cinematographer

Other works