AURELIO VOLTAIRE FILMMAKING BIO:

photo by Edwin Pagan

Aurelio Voltaire started his career as a stop-motion animator and director in the eighties, at a handful of New York City animation houses, During those years, a teenaged Voltaire animated stop-motion commercials for Budweiser, Ikea, RC cola, Hess, Parker Brothers, Kellogg's, Arm and Hammer, Marvel and many others. He made his mark as a director shortly thereafter creating award winning station IDs for MTV including the now classic "MTV Bosch". Based on the work of Hieronymus Bosch, the 15th century, Flemish painter, this station ID brought to life the hell panel of his famous "Garden of Earthly Delights" triptych via stop-motion animation. The spot took home a handful of awards and was included in a time capsule of 20th century programming that was shot into space. Moreover, it established Voltaire's unique style of whimsically dark animation and surreal storytelling. Voltaire then went on to direct a handful of horror, sci-fi and Halloween oriented station IDs for SyFy Channel, USA Networks, Discovery, The Learning Channel, Fangoria and others .

After a ten year hiatus from the film business that saw Voltaire develop a large following for his music, comic books and toys, Aurelio Voltaire has returned to making films for the love of it. He is presently working on a series of shorts call the "Chimerascope series". Based on the station ID work he did for MTV and SyFy Channel, each film is about a minute or two long, animated in stop-motion animation and feature narrations by singers of note. The first four films in the series are narrated by Danny Elfman (Oingo Boingo), Gerard Way (My Chemical Romance), Deborah Harry (Blondie) and Richard Butler (The Psychedelic Furs). The films have toured the festival circuit and have been seen at scores of horror and animation film festivals around the world as well as collected a handful of awards. More Chimerascope shorts are presently in the works.

Voltaire has also recently written his first feature length screenplay, "Call of the Jersey Devil". The film is a live action, horror/comedy feature film Voltaire hopes to direct. The script won "Best Screenplay" at The NYC Horror Film Festival as well as at the Rocky Mountain Horror Film Festival in 2010.