Bran Ferren

Place: New York City

Born: 1953

Biography:

Bran Ferren while his father served as the first artist-in-residence for a U.S. Department of State cultural exchange program to introduce American abstract art to the Middle East. After returning from overseas, he spent three years at the McBurney School in New York City, and then the last three years of high school at East Hampton High School, in East Hampton, New York.
Ferren started his first design and engineering company, Synchronetics while in high school. He left high school at age 16 to attend MIT, but departed in 1970 to continue entrepreneurial pursuits. Despite his short stay at MIT, he was invited back by then school president Charles M. Vest to be a keynote speaker for MIT Technology Day 1996. Before his 21st birthday, Ferren had worked on TV commercials, films, and regional theater. He had also pioneered visual effects for arena concerts for groups such as Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Laurie Anderson, David Bowie, and Foreigner, using pyrotechnics, audio, projection, and novel lighting techniques.
Ferren founded Associates & Ferren at the age of 25 to do work at the "crossroads of design and science and entertainment." One of the first projects was for Broadway play The Crucifer of Blood, a Sherlock Holmes mystery that starred Glenn Close and won Ferren a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle award. The production featured a "shattering display of thunder and lightning", which got the attention of director Ken Russell, leading to Ferren's first prominent assignment as Special Visual Effects director on a major Hollywood science-fiction film, Altered States.
For his work in theater, Ferren also received the New York Drama Desk Award, the Maharam Foundation Award, and the American Theater Wing, Hewes Design Award. He has designed the Special Effects and Sound for several Broadway shows, and is a long-term member of the Broadway stagehands union, IATSE Local #1. His theatrical special effects design work for the Broadway productions of Frankenstein, Cats, and Sunday in the Park with George, were widely acknowledged for their groundbreaking special effects. Frank Rich said in his New York Times review of Sunday in the Park with George: "What Mr. Lapine, his designers and the special-effects wizard Bran Ferren have arranged is simply gorgeous."
As principal designer of Associates & Ferren, Ferren went on to lead many high-profile projects, such as special effects for the Paul McCartney World Tour, R.E.M, Depeche Mode, Pink Floyd, and visual effects for Little Shop of Horrors. He was a technical consultant for the films Impostor and Fat Man and Little Boy, and designed the titles for Simon, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Guilty as Sin, and Little Shop of Horrors. In addition to special effects, they were considered leaders in advanced projection, simulation and laser effects technology, and provided customized equipment for dozens of major road tours, and stationary installations.
He also produced, directed, and was the cinematographer for the movie "Funny", which received a Nomination for a Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and nomination for Best Documentary at the Chicago International Film Festival, Gold Jury prize at the Houston International Film Festival (now called WorldFest Houston), and was featured in the Toronto International Film Festival Midnight Madness program, and at the Cleveland International Film Festival. "Funny" features over 100 individuals, from Dick Cavett to Frank Zappa, telling their favorite jokes on camera.

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