John Howard Carpenter was born on January 16,1948 and is an American filmmaker, actor, and composer.
46 Facts About John Carpenter
2.
John Carpenter is generally recognized as one of the greatest masters of the horror genre.
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John Carpenter returned to the Halloween franchise as composer and executive producer of the sequel Halloween, doing so with the sequels Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends.
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John Carpenter won a Saturn Award for Best Music for the film Vampires.
5.
John Carpenter was born on January 16,1948, in Carthage, New York, the son of Milton Jean and Howard Ralph John Carpenter, a music professor.
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John Carpenter was interested in films from an early age, particularly the westerns of Howard Hawks and John Ford, as well as 1950s low-budget horror films such as The Thing from Another World and high-budget science fiction like Forbidden Planet, and began filming horror short films with 8 mm film even before starting high school.
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John Carpenter attended Western Kentucky University, where his father chaired the music department, then transferred to the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts during 1968, but quit to make his first feature film.
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John Carpenter's first major film as director, Dark Star, was a science-fiction comedy that he co-wrote with Dan O'Bannon.
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John Carpenter received praise for his ability to make low-budget films.
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John Carpenter has said that he considers Assault on Precinct 13 to have been his first real film because it was the first film that he filmed on a schedule.
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The film was the first time John Carpenter worked with Debra Hill, who would collaborate with John Carpenter on some of his most well-known films.
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John Carpenter assembled a main cast that consisted of experienced but relatively obscure actors.
13.
Originally an idea suggested by producer Irwin Yablans, who thought of a film about babysitters being menaced by a stalker, John Carpenter took the idea and another suggestion from Yablans that it occur during Halloween and developed a story.
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In 1979, John Carpenter began what was to be the first of several collaborations with actor Kurt Russell when he directed the television film Elvis.
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John Carpenter followed up the success of Halloween with The Fog, a ghostly revenge tale inspired by horror comics such as Tales from the Crypt and by The Crawling Eye, a 1958 film about monsters hiding in clouds.
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John Carpenter has said that The Fog is not his favorite film, although he considers it a "minor horror classic".
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John Carpenter immediately followed The Fog with the science-fiction adventure Escape from New York.
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John Carpenter said he directed it because it was the only thing offered to him at the time.
19.
Douglas chose John Carpenter to be the director because of his reputation as an action director who could convey strong emotion.
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John Carpenter resumed making lower budget films such as Prince of Darkness, a film influenced by the BBC series Quatermass.
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John Carpenter worked as director during 2005 for an episode of Showtime's Masters of Horror television series as one of the thirteen filmmakers involved in the first season.
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John Carpenter later directed another original episode for the show's second season in 2006 titled "Pro-Life".
23.
On October 10,2010, John Carpenter received the Lifetime Award from the Freak Show Horror Film Festival.
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On October 19,2015, All Tomorrow's Parties announced that John Carpenter will be performing old and new compositions in London and Manchester, England.
25.
In February 2016, John Carpenter announced a sequel to Lost Themes titled Lost Themes II, which was released on April 15 that year.
26.
John Carpenter returned, as executive producer, co-composer, and creative consultant, on the eleventh entry in the Halloween film series, simply titled Halloween, released in October 2018.
27.
John Carpenter worked as a composer and executive producer on the 2021 sequel Halloween Kills and 2022's follow-up Halloween Ends.
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John Carpenter's films are characterized by minimalist lighting and photography, panoramic shot compositions, use of steadicam, and distinctive synthesized scores.
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John Carpenter's music is generally synthesized with accompaniment from piano and atmospherics.
30.
John Carpenter is known for his widescreen shot compositions, and is an outspoken proponent of anamorphic cinematography.
31.
The Ward was filmed in Super 35, the first time John Carpenter has ever used that system.
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John Carpenter has stated he feels that the 35mm Panavision anamorphic format is "the best movie system there is", preferring it to both digital and 3D.
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John Carpenter was an early adopter of synthesizers, since his film debut Dark Star, when he used an EMS VCS3 synth.
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John Carpenter's soundtracks went on to influence electronic artists who followed, but Carpenter himself admitted he had no particular interest in synthesizers other than that they provided a means to "sound big with just a keyboard".
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For many years he worked in partnership with musician Alan Howarth, who would realize his vision by working on the more technical aspects of recording, allowing John Carpenter to focus on writing the music.
36.
John Carpenter narrates the documentary film The Rise of the Synths, which explores the origins and growth of the synthwave genre, and features numerous interviews with synthwave artists who cite him and other electronic pioneers such as Vangelis, Giorgio Moroder and Tangerine Dream as significant influences.
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The retro-1980s synthwave band Gunship are featured in the film; John Carpenter narrated the opening to their track entitled "Tech Noir".
38.
John Carpenter is featured on the track "Destructive Field" on his godson Daniel Davies' album Signals, released February 28,2020.
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John Carpenter has been married to producer Sandy King since 1990.
40.
John Carpenter produced his films In the Mouth of Madness, Village of the Damned, Vampires, and Ghosts of Mars.
41.
John Carpenter was earlier the script supervisor for Starman, Big Trouble in Little China, Prince of Darkness, and They Live.
42.
John Carpenter co-created the comic book series Asylum, with which Carpenter is involved.
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John Carpenter has expressed an interest in making a film based on Dead Space.
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John Carpenter has included helicopters in his films, many times doing a cameo as a pilot.
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Many of John Carpenter's films have been re-released on DVD as special editions with numerous bonus features.
46.
John Carpenter was interviewed by Robert Rodriguez for his The Director's Chair series on El Rey Network.