ABOUT ME
Cooper Justus is a multiple award-winning and internationally distributed screenwriter, director and producer living in Los Angeles, CA. He has written and directed multiple films that have screened around the world and currently serves as Coordinator of Studio & Production Services at HBO, where he works with a bi-coastal team of production and post professionals that help create record-setting television shows like Westworld and Game of Thrones. He has also worked as the post production coordinator on the most recent four seasons of HBO’s one of a kind Camera Assessment and the Telly Award winning Image Study documentary series.
Previously, Cooper worked as an Executive Assistant at HBO and briefly worked with CBS and Electric City Entertainment within their current series and development departments respectively. While at each, he provided coverage and collated scripts for various executives. Outside of the corporate environment, Cooper has worked as a competition judge at various screenplay competitions including Cinequest. In addition, his script “In Shadows” has garnered three wins and been recognized by several other screenplay competitions including ScreenCraft, the Nashville Film Festival, and Creative World Awards.
Cooper was raised in Missouri and spent some time in Chicago where he received his MFA in Directing at Columbia College Chicago. Most recently, his final short film from his time in Chicago, “A Guide to Love” screened at the 2016 Academy Award Qualifying St Louis International Film Festival and was picked up for an international prime time distribution deal with ShortsTV. Cooper is currently developing a comedic web series with an accompanying pilot and has gone into pre-production on “In Shadows.”
DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
"A lot of my previous work were comedies focused on relationship struggles or interpretations of childhood misunderstanding and imagination. Recently my interests have shifted to exploring how men act in today’s society. As a man who grew up in the midwest and experienced plenty of toxic behavior from others around me, I feel it’s important to shed a light on those experience and skewer them with a my own unique comedic take. My hope is that my films will allow audience members to reflect on their own experiences or the experiences of those around them and be entertained in the process."