Tommy Pallotta

Production

Tommy Pallotta

Born 1968-05-25 · Houston, Texas, USA

Tommy Pallotta is a storyteller who creatively blends technology with filmmaking, animation, and interactivity. Microsoft Research recognized his penchant for innovation where he led a research team to create and design interactive, animated storytelling experiences. Pallotta also directed the first machinima music video, In the Waiting Line, and the rotoscoped MTV Breakthrough video Destiny, both for the band Zero 7. He has produced several short animated films that garnered numerous awards, including Snack and Drink, which is now part of a permanent collection in the New York Museum of Modern Art. Tommy first connected Richard Linklater with animation when he produced the award-winning feature film Waking Life. He followed up with Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly, starring Keanu Reeves and Robert Downey Jr. He then directed the Emmy-nominated transmedia thriller, Collapsus. Most recently he co-directed the feature documentary/ animation hybrid: Last Hijack. The interactive companion of Last Hijack won an International Digital Emmy Award.

Acting credits

Slacker poster
6.7

Austin, Texas, is an Eden for the young and unambitious, from the enthusiastically eccentric to the dangerously apathetic. Here, the nobly lazy can eschew responsibility in favor of nursing their esoteric obsessions. The locals include a backseat philosopher who passionately expounds on his dream theories to a seemingly comatose cabbie, a young woman who tries to hawk Madonna's Pap test to anyone who will listen and a kindly old anarchist looking for recruits.

Slacker

1990

One Summer in Austin: The Story of Filming 'A Scanner Darkly' poster
8.2

A unique documentary that interlaces archival interviews with author Philip K. Dick with chats featuring cast and crew. Discussed are the origins of the story, parallels the cast and crew sees to the goings-on in today's world, and adapting the story for film, modern audiences, and its unique look.

One Summer in Austin: The Story of Filming 'A Scanner Darkly'

2006

American Prince poster
7.0

After being forgotten for 30 years, the filmmaker revisits Scorsese's lost documentary 'American Boy' and it's raconteur subject, Steven Prince.

American Prince

2009

Richard Linklater: Dream Is Destiny poster
6.8

Highlighting one of the most innovative American directors, this film reveals the path traveled by the auteur from his small-town Texas roots to his warm reception on the awards circuit. Long before he directed Boyhood, Richard Linklater’s intense desire to create fueled his work outside the Hollywood system. Rather than leave Texas, he chose to collaborate with like-minded artists crafting modest, low-budget films in a DIY style. His ability to showcase realistic characters and tell honest stories was evident from his films, and others soon took notice of his raw talent.

Richard Linklater: Dream Is Destiny

2016

More Human Than Human poster
5.2

Stephen Hawking has warned that the creation of powerful artificial intelligence will be “either the best, or the worst thing, ever to happen to humanity”. Inspired by Brian Christian’s study The Most Human Human: What Artificial Intelligence Teaches Us About Being Alive, the filmmakers set out on an international investigation highlighting the effects of AI - scenes from our daily lives destructive and constructive.

More Human Than Human

2018

The Weight of the Line: Animation Tales poster
7.0

A behind-the scenes look at the grueling one-year process of transferring the filmed images into the unique animation style featured in the final version of the movie 'A Scanner Darkly'.

The Weight of the Line: Animation Tales

2006

In the Bathtub of the World poster
7.0

On January 1st, 1999, Caveh Zahedi started a one-year video diary. The idea was to shoot one minute each day. This is the result.

In the Bathtub of the World

2001

Behind the camera

A Scanner Darkly poster
6.8

An undercover cop in a not-too-distant future becomes involved with a dangerous new drug and begins to lose his own identity as a result.

A Scanner Darkly

2006

Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood poster
7.0

A man narrates stories of his life as a 10-year-old boy in 1969 Houston, weaving tales of nostalgia with a fantastical account of a journey to the moon.

Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood

2022

Waking Life poster
7.5

Waking Life is about a young man in a persistent lucid dream-like state. The film follows its protagonist as he initially observes and later participates in philosophical discussions that weave together issues like reality, free will, our relationships with others, and the meaning of life.

Waking Life

2001

American Prince poster
7.0

After being forgotten for 30 years, the filmmaker revisits Scorsese's lost documentary 'American Boy' and it's raconteur subject, Steven Prince.

American Prince

2009

More Human Than Human poster
5.2

Stephen Hawking has warned that the creation of powerful artificial intelligence will be “either the best, or the worst thing, ever to happen to humanity”. Inspired by Brian Christian’s study The Most Human Human: What Artificial Intelligence Teaches Us About Being Alive, the filmmakers set out on an international investigation highlighting the effects of AI - scenes from our daily lives destructive and constructive.

More Human Than Human

2018

More Human Than Human poster
5.2

Stephen Hawking has warned that the creation of powerful artificial intelligence will be “either the best, or the worst thing, ever to happen to humanity”. Inspired by Brian Christian’s study The Most Human Human: What Artificial Intelligence Teaches Us About Being Alive, the filmmakers set out on an international investigation highlighting the effects of AI - scenes from our daily lives destructive and constructive.

More Human Than Human

2018

More Human Than Human poster
5.2

Stephen Hawking has warned that the creation of powerful artificial intelligence will be “either the best, or the worst thing, ever to happen to humanity”. Inspired by Brian Christian’s study The Most Human Human: What Artificial Intelligence Teaches Us About Being Alive, the filmmakers set out on an international investigation highlighting the effects of AI - scenes from our daily lives destructive and constructive.

More Human Than Human

2018

Last Hijack poster
5.5

Documentary that follows the lives of two pirates and their community on the Somali coastline; what are the incentives of the pirates, why did they become pirates, how did they grow up in a country with political chaos, war and extreme poverty? The narrative structure is built around two interweaving story-lines; one depicting the "present", the daily lives of the pirates and their community, and the second in the "past", revealing through epic animation, the unfolding of a recent hijacking.

Last Hijack

2014

Last Hijack poster
5.5

Documentary that follows the lives of two pirates and their community on the Somali coastline; what are the incentives of the pirates, why did they become pirates, how did they grow up in a country with political chaos, war and extreme poverty? The narrative structure is built around two interweaving story-lines; one depicting the "present", the daily lives of the pirates and their community, and the second in the "past", revealing through epic animation, the unfolding of a recent hijacking.

Last Hijack

2014

Snack And Drink poster
5.7

In this short film, filmmakers Bob Sabiston and Tommy Pallotta accompany Ryan, a six-foot-tall, 13-year-old autistic boy, to a local convenience store to purchase a "snack and drink".

Snack And Drink

2016