David Karlak

David Karlak is a Mexican-American director and writer, known for short films, The Candidate and Rise.

David Karlak
Born	Cleveland, Ohio, United States
Occupation	Film director
Website	http://www.davidkarlak.com/

Biography

David Karlak is a filmmaker based in Los Angeles, California.^{[1][self-published source]} In 2010 Karlak directed the short film The Candidate that went on to make the Viewfinder List in 2011.^[2] Following The Candidate, Karlak sold an original sci-fi pitch to Warner Brothers titled Rise with Roy Lee producing,^[3] and then a second original pitch titled Outliers to 20th Century Fox with Peter Chernin producing.^[4] Karlak is attached to direct both films. In recent years, Karlak has been exploring the use of virtual reality to tell narratives, having directed a virtual reality experience set in the world of Rise^[5] which premiered it at the Storyscapes series at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2014.^[6]

Karlak most recently has been working with 20th Century Fox to direct two virtual reality experiences for Ridley Scott's film Alien: Covenant.^{[7][8][9][10]} The first experience, Alien: Covenant In Utero premiered April 26, 2017 for Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR.^[11]

On March 3, 2017, Deadline Hollywood reported that Filmula's Johnny Lin and Cross Creek's Brian Oliver acquired the feature film rights to Rise from Warner Brothers with Karlak attached to direct.^[12][13][14] Rise is about a dystopian future where robots are targeted for elimination after they develop emotional symmetry to humans and a revolutionary war for their survival begins. Anton Yelchin starred in the short, which was based on a screenplay Karlak penned with writers Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton (the Saw series).

Filmography

As director

• The Candidate (short, 2011)
• Rise (virtual reality experience, 2014)
• Rise (short, 2016)
• Alien: Covenant In Utero (virtual reality experience, 2017)

As writer

• Rise (story by, 2018)