toptwothreefilms.com > People > Robert Nichols

Robert Nichols
November 2, 2004

Robert Nichols is currently sharing  production duties with  Sébastien Dumesnil on Top Two Three Films' first release, the feature length documentary: “Adventures Into Digital Comics.”  Robert and Sébastien formed Top Two Three Films in 2000.

The author of several feature film and TV spec scripts, Robert has been  engaged professionally in both film and theater.  He has worked as a director, producer, cameraman, set lighting technician, and in international film distribution.

Robert’s film credits can be found on the IMDB under “Robert Nichols (III).”

Robert received his MFA in Writing for Screen and Television from the  USC School of Cinema-Television in fall, 2004.  He attended USC on a  Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, the most prestigious graduate scholarship awarded in the United States for the study of the fine arts.  He is the first student since 1992 to have won this award while attending USC.

At USC, Robert studied acting and directing with Nina Foch.  He studied screenwriting with Elias Davis, Tom Abrams, Lance Gentile and Don Bohlinger, as well as Mary Sweeney, who served as Robert’ thesis advisor.

Robert was a semi-finalist for the 2002  Sundance Writer’s Lab.

Robert and Sébastien met at the Los Angeles City College, Department of Cinema and Television, where Robert’s short “Self Help” was awarded presentation in the Cinema Department's competitive screenings. Robert studied with Jean-Pierre Geuens at both LACC and USC, where he took part in Jean-Pierre’s “Revolutionary Film Workshop.”  Top Two Three Films is currently in pre-production for “Eva,” a narrative short which Robert wrote at LACC for Tom Stempel, who serves on the editorial board of  Creative Screenwriting.

In 1997, Robert shot “Your Heart to Haiti,” a documentary that helped bring about the funding of several dozen low cost, private schools for underprivileged children in Haiti.

For the theater, Robert directed Athol Fugard's “Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act,” founding an independent company, The Meagre Theatre, produce the play.  “Statements” played at the International Student Center in Westwood, Los Angeles.

Regionally, Robert directed and produced John Dos Passos’ “U.S.A.” for the Algonquin Cafe Theater in Amarillo Texas.

Robert was a founding member, along with Julliard alumni Ben Donenberg and Paul Mackley, of Al’s National Theater, a not-for-profit dedicated to providing anyone with enough determination the support and physical space necessary to produce live theater in Los Angeles.

Al’s National Theater was closely associated with the punk rock mainstay, Al’s Bar, and the Downtown L.A. arts scene.  Its aspirations were unabashedly populist, staging  Joel Bloom’s “Mayhem at Mayfield Mall,” possibly the world’s first 2D drive-in drama.  Al’s put on the first performances of Shakespeare in Pershing Square.  Admission was always free with the contribution of canned food for the homeless.  Robert was awarded the Al Award for best director of a spoken word/variety show.  Al’s National Theater was the precursor to artistic director Ben Donenberg’s  Shakespeare Festival/LA.

In 1998, Robert co-founded the California Acting Workshop, a theatrical training  program for middle school students held each summer at the University of California, Berkeley.

Robert completed his undergraduate study at the University of California, Los Angeles.  He graduated from UCLA’s College of Letters and Science with a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy, departmental honors, in spring 2000.

Entering  UCLA as a fine arts major, Robert studied performance and video with  Paul McCarthy and Anne Bray (executive director of  LA Freewaves), visual art with Vasa Mihich, and space planning with Cameron McNall.  He then majored in theater arts for two years in the  School of Theater, Film and Television, where he studied under Peter Sellars, Michael Hackett, Delia Salvi and Gary Gardner.  His first stage role at UCLA was as the lead in “Broken Glass,” a one act play written and directed by members of the Actor’s Gang.  The Actor’s Gang was founded by undergraduates in the UCLA theater department, including current artistic director Tim Robbins.  During a year at the Free University, Berlin, Robert studied comparative literature.

Robert grew up in Sacramento and Berkeley, California, where he attended the  Sacramento Waldorf School, Berkeley Alternative School,  Maybeck High School and Berkeley High School.

Name: Robert Nichols
Occupation: Director, Producer, Writer
Domain: Film
Location: California