Stefan Avalos


Stefan Avalos is an American musician and filmmaker best known for his work in the latter field. Together with his partner Lance Weiler, he made The Last Broadcast, a horror film based on found footage. The two men wrote, directed, starred in, and produced the film together. It was shown at film festivals, winning Best Feature Film Silver Prize at the Chicago Underground Film Festival.
Trained as a classical violinist, Avalos performed as a soloist with, among others, the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Biography

Avalos studied classical violin from childhood, but by early high school, he realized his true love was film. He made amateur movies in high school and studied filmmaking in college.
He has worked in many aspects of the film business, producing and directing commercials for foreign television, as well as working for numerous American clients. These included Rescue 911, Frontline, and MTV. In 1993, he wrote, produced and directed his first feature film, 'The Game'.
Together with his partner Lance Weiler, he made The Last Broadcast, a horror film based on found footage. Later, partnering with Esther Robinson and David Beard, Avalos created Wavelength Releasing. In October 1998, Wavelength Releasing made the first fully digital national theatrical release of a feature film via satellite: The Last Broadcast.
In 1999, The Last Broadcast was the first feature motion film to be screened digitally at the Cannes Film Festival.
Avalos has lectured in Europe, the United States, South America, Japan and Canada about digital filmmaking, and written articles about it for numerous publications.
In 2004, Avalos made the supernatural thriller, The Ghosts of Edendale. Other work includes animation for Lost in La Mancha, a documentary directed by Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe.
In 2017, Avalos directed, produced, edited and shot his first documentary, Strad Style. It follows the work of an Ohio man in trying to build a Stradivarius-quality violin for a highly ranked Romanian violinist. It premiered at Slamdance Film Festival. It won the Grand Jury Award and Audience Award for Best Feature Documentary.

Honors

Stefan Avalos was recognized in 1997 as "one of the twenty-five people helping to reinvent entertainment" by Wired magazine.