JustinReardon
Director, The Royal Budapest Film Co.
IN THE BEGINNING / Justin is an American born filmmaker who grew up in the small town of Tranquility, New Jersey. He received accolades as both an artist and an athlete, graduating with an award for Visual arts and first team honors on the New Jersey All-State football team.
ADVERTISING / In 1997 Justin graduated from Miami University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts with concentrations in design and illustration. Upon graduation, Justin pursued an opportunity to learn filmmaking through making commercials. After starting as an intern, he spent two years at Leo Burnett (Chicago) as a writer/art director, before joining nearby rival, DDB (Chicago). While Justin's intent was to learn about filmmaking, his career in advertising climbed to unimaginable heights when he hit on a string of popular campaigns, the biggest one being the iconic Budweiser “Whassup?!” campaign, which won the Cannes Grand Prix and later securing him a place in the CLIO HALL OF FAME. Soon after, Justin tapped into his hometown roots by creating Budweiser’s Emmy-nominated, Jersey Guys’ “Ayadoin’?” campaign.
In only 3 years, Justin had amassed every creative award in the industry, both in the U.S. and Internationally. In 2001, at the height of his career, Justin abruptly left “agency life” and moved to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of being a film director.
DIRECTING / In 2003, Justin broke onto the scene when he wrote, directed and edited a SPEC REEL that became one of the internet’s first and biggest viral sensations, drawing over 22 million hits within the first 4 months with traffic that constantly crashed the production company's website. This was before sharing sites like FACEBOOK or YOUTUBE even existed. Immediately, Justin’s work became an instant hit with people in the film industry and beyond. In fact, his NUTRIGRAIN "Feel Great" attracted a cult like following world wide and could be found as the topic of many chat rooms and at the center of many fan parodies; like one made entirely from stop-motion Legos.
After a big showing at Saatchi & Saatchi's prestigious New Director's Showcase, JustIn was soon recognized as one of the top new directing talents in the world. In 2006, Justin signed on with Anonymous Content where he refined a signature comedic storytelling style, blending bold performances and well-defined characters with a sweeping visual style.
SHORT FILM / In 2011 Justin wrote and directed the short film, "Zoltan, the Hungarian Gangster of Love", a surreal, music fueled, cinematic tale that features a day in the life of the local Don Juan of a remote Hungarian village. The 16mm black and white Hungarian language film was a finalist at London's Raindance Festival for best International Short and went on to win several American Film festivals, qualifying it for the 2013 Academy Awards.
FEATURE FILMS / In 2014, Justin finished his first feature film, A Many Splintered Thing (Playing It Cool) starring Chris Evans, Michelle Monaghan, Topher Grace, Aubrey Plaza, Phillip Baker Hall, and Luke Wilson. It was released in theaters in May of 2015. Justin is presently casting for his next two Indy films, with talented actors such as Ben Kingsley and Jack Whitehall attached to star.
FEATURE FILMS / In 2016, Justin and his family moved from Venice Beach, California to Budapest Hungary where he and his wife Barbara run and operate The Royal Budapest Film Co., producing top international commercial and entertainment projects. Their most recent work includes a promotional campaign for the new HALO TV SERIES and season 2 of Netflix’s Russian Doll.