Bennett Joshua Davlin

For other people named Bennett Joshua Davlin, see Bennett Joshua Davlin.

Bennett Joshua Davlin is an American novelist, screenwritwer, film director and producer, primarily known for the films Memory and Jackie Chan's The Medallion. Bennett is the founder and principle member of his production company 3210 Films Inc. specializing in content for the American and emerging Chinese markets.

Early life

Born in Opelousas, Louisiana, Davlin's mother, Sheila, was a Ford fashion model who later became an award winning apparel designer and ended her career as America's leading home decorative accessory manufacturer with products gracing the covers of Neiman Marcus Home and Horchow catalogs uninterrupted for seven years. She also had departments in most major, upscale department stores. His late father, Irwin, was a Harvard educated entrepreneur and inventor with thirty design patents who at one time was the world's largest manufacturer of forged steel fittings for the petrochemical and defense industry. Bennett's younger sister, Alisha, became a novelist, published poet, and college English professor. His older brother, Lance, is a board certified orthopedic hand surgeon. Bennett was inspired by his older brother's fascination with photography and the dark room he built in their home. Bennett began making films at the age of five years with the family's 8 mm home movie camera, often using his sister for starring roles. Also a budding novelist, Bennett completed his first novel when he was ten and continued to write at least one novel each summer until he was twenty five. At twelve, Bennett struck up an accidental friendship during a Christmas vacation with the award winning novelist James A. Michener who became Bennett's early mentor, editing and commenting on Bennett's short stories and novels for many years. By the time Bennett graduated from college, he completed thirty two unpublished novels. Bennett also directed and acted in various plays throughout his academic career.

Education

Davlin graduated from the Episcopal School of Acadiana in Cade, Louisiana and attributed his independent thinking to the amazing teachers at that institution. He attended Tulane University earning a degree in liberal arts with a major in Philosophy and minor in anthropology. After graduation, he attended Tulane's A.B. Freeman School of Business, but had to leave the program to restructure his mother's manufacturing company which fell into disarray after the death of his father. Later as a successful screenwriter, he studied cinematography at The New York Film Academy at Universal Studios where he met Anthony Badalucco who would later become his producing partner. The two forged a friendship over lunches between classes at "The Smokehouse" an old school restaurant across from Warner Bros. once favored by Frank Sinatra. Bennett ended his cinematography education with an award winning short film, TC3, before moving into the role of writer, producer, director in feature films.

Career

After attending a semester abroad as a student in London, Davlin briefly served as a war correspondent in the Croatian Serbian war. After experiencing intense combat in Oesjeck, Croatia, almost dying three times during the night of his 21st birthday, he quickly decided combat reporting was not for him and was lucky to escape alive from the city. Yet his desired career in film was delayed by five years when he was forced to restructure his mother's manufacturing business after his dad's death from cancer. At one point he was CEO of 140 employees and successfully took the company into and out of a Chapter 11. Bennett was offered a job in corporate turnarounds by a former member of Warren Buffet's turnaround team, but passed on the offer. In order to stay competitive, Bennett took his mother's company offshore to mainland China and was based out of Hong Kong and southern China for three years in the mid 1990s with the aim of entering the entertainment business. In 1998 he signed with the L.A. based William Morris Talent Agency and Michael Ovtiz's now defunct AMG Management and quickly became a favored American collaborator for Asian actors who were migrating state side at the time based on the success of the director John Wu. Bennett worked with such names as Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh as well as Hong Kong production companies like Emperor Group and Media Asia.

Bennett directed a series of short films including "TC3" which was accepted and garnered awards in various film festivals including The East Hampton, Woods Hole, Nantucket, Boston, and New York Film Festivals. Since 1998 he worked as a professional screenwriter, credited as lead writer on Jackie Chan's action/comedy "The Medallion", a 40 million dollar Sony Pictures release. "Memory" was his first printed novel, published by the Berkley imprint of Penguin Putnam in North America and translated into nine languages by Random House, Sony Books, and others. Bennett adapted the book into a film with fellow producer Anthony Badalucco who would later serve as a producer on the film. Bennett credits two time Oscar nominee Dennis Hopper's involvement as critical to getting the picture made. Inheriting the ability to draw from his designer mother, Bennett hand drew all 1200 shots of the film in two weeks and edited it into a complete storyboard animatic with sound, dialogue and score. Upon seeing this animatic, Hopper called Davlin "The only living American auteur." Davlin followed the detailed boarded film-making approach of Alfred Hitchcock and Steven Spielberg. At the time, Bennett created the first full length animatic of a live action film, working alone with drawing pencils, a video-camera, and Final Cut. The preparation was key for him to complete the film under budget and under schedule despite many production issues including losing his leading star for three days during production.

Davlin's television show "Garden 1.0" was recently optioned by the upstart TV channel VU TV which aims to produce the show as a Chinese/American co-production with Davlin directing in the first season. Davlin is also set to make his feature sci fi film based on his upcoming novel.

Works

Films directed

• Memory (Mem-o-re) (2005) (feature film)
• The Medallion (2003) (feature film)
• TC3 (2002) (short subject)

Novels

• Memory (Mem-o-re) (2005)

External links

• Official website
• 3210films.com
• Official Memory website
• Bennett Joshua Davlin at the Internet Movie Database