Fred Claus

David Dobkin is an American film director, producer and former screenwriter best known for directing Clay Pigeons, Shanghai Knights, Wedding Crashers, Fred Claus and The Change-Up. A native of Washington D.C., Dobkin attended Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, MD. He then graduated with honors... from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in Film & Television in 1991. He had launched his career six years earlier as an assistant to the production manager on John Schlesinger's film, The Believers. While pursuing his NYU film studies, he worked for Warner Bros. development division. His NYU thesis film, 57th Street Serenade, won several national and international awards including a 1992 C.I.N.E. Eagle and a Gold award at the prestigious Edinburgh Festival. After graduation, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue his career as a director. He helmed his first feature film, Clay Pigeons, for Scott Free the first film produced at Ridley and Tony Scott's production company that they did not direct. The black comedy about a series of small-town murders starred Vince Vaughn, Joaquin Phoenix and Janeane Garofalo, and was distributed by Gramercy Pictures.
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