The Visualist

THE VISUALIST is an entertaining memoir, an experiential narrative, and tale that allows the pop culture fan, filmmaker to be, or budding academic a world view into a mind engaged, an unfiltered dive into image making and narrative for multiple mediums across multiple platforms.

The Visualist: Storytelling, Process and Image Making from 1983-2020: MTV to Hollywood, Madison Avenue to the New Digital Era - A visual memoir by Mark Pellington

A personal history and first-hand account of image making with amazing pop-culture icons, The Visualist offers a rare narrative of Pellington’s creative process, cultural memory, and unique aesthetic experience to inspire creativity across all visual media.

The Visualist is a survival guide for image making and storytelling for screen--from iPhone image blasts to IMAX size 360-degree tour visuals--images tell stories, evoke feelings, and leave lasting impressions. And only in The Visualist does Pellington share this hard-earned knowledge.
Mark Pellington opens the curtain in this one-of-a-kind art book, photo book, director’s memoir, and scrapbook to reveal his Master Videographer’s unique and creative prowess in the world of image making, starting with his achievements in the realm of music videos from the birth of the genre in 1983 through the new technologies of 2017.

Pellington shares his insights into what makes visual storytelling work: uncanny narrative instincts, revealing personal anecdotes, the structure of powerful images, first-hand telling of countless A-list collaborations, the toll and goal of making an emotional impact, successes and failures in conflict resolution, how and why to access the subconscious, and his unique perspective on balancing the clarity and ambiguity of visual meaning.
Obsessed with the role of images and how they mesmerize, entertain, and entice--self-taught and untrained, filmmaker Mark Pellington has navigated the changing landscapes and fickle tastes of multi-media over his 36 years in the entertainment arts industry having directed an impressive 70 music videos, 9 movies, 20 TV episodes, and 6 documentaries among other productions.

Through it all Pellington has matured, survived, sometimes thrived, sometimes struggled but always created as an image maker, image sharer...years before those terms existed. As a director, producer, writer, artist, and experimenter Pellington has shifted and adjusted the expectations and appetites of audiences across media platforms.

Pellington was born in Baltimore, Maryland and worked at MTV from 1984-1990 winning awards as promo producer and created the landmark TV show Buzz.

He became a freelance director in 1990 doing videos for U2, Crystal Waters, De la Soul and Pearl Jam. His video for Pearl Jam’s ＂Jeremy＂ won many MTV awards in 1993. In 1994, his Music Video for Whale’s song ＂Hobo Humpin’ Slobo Babe＂ won the inaugural MTV Europe Music Award for Best Video. He then directed ＂Going All the Way＂, with Ben Affleck and Rachel Weisz, Arlington Road in 1999 starring Tim Robbins and Jeff Bridges, as well as The Mothman Prophecies in 2002, starring Richard Gere dealing with mysterious deaths[1] foretold by a strange red-eyed flying creature, Mothman.

Pellington has also worked with such musical artists as Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam, Demi Lovato, Imagine Dragons, Foo Fighters, Nine Inch Nails, Cage the Elephant, Linkin Park, Echosmith, The Fray, Dave Matthews, U2, Michael Jackson, Public Enemy, Moby, Flaming Lips, Damian Marley, Chelsea Wolfe and Bruce Springsteen. Pellington was born in Baltimore, Maryland and worked at MTV from 1984-1990 winning awards as promo producer and created the landmark TV show Buzz.