Charles Stone III is an award winning feature film director who got his start in 1988 as an animator for New York’s Woo Art International. In the early 90’s he started directing music videos and in 1998, in the height of prosperity and opportunities during the Clinton Administration, he used the prestigious Music Video Production Association Awards to premier True, his short film shot on Video 8 on a shoestring budget and starring Charles and his friends. The film was an instant hit and became an underground sensation in the film and advertising communities.

The success of his music videos and short film opened the door to directing his first feature film, Paid in Full. Meanwhile, True was still an underground hit circulating from one person to the other on shared VHS tapes when it landed in the Chicago offices of advertising agency DDB Needham whose creative directors imagined using the film’s characters for another purpose.

In 2000, on the eve of Bush being elected, together with DDB Needham, Charles ended up creating and starring in (he’s the first guy lying on the couch) a series of Budweiser Whassup?! spots that became an international sensation and garnered the most prestigious awards including the Cannes Grand Prix, Grand Clio, Golden Pencil and Andy Award. In 2002, Paid in Full was released and later that year Charles began directing his second feature, the sleeper hit Drumline for 20th Century Fox.

The prosperity of the Clinton years was waning and the corruption and mismanagement of the Bush years was coming into focus. Luckily, Charles had already established himself as a successful director and jumped onto his next feature film Mr. 3000 for Touchstone Pictures and continued directing commercials like a Nike Air Jordan campaign introducing the NBA star Carmelo Anthony.

Looking back on the last 8 years since Whassup?! debuted, Charles realized how much our country has changed and seized on the opportunity to reunite the whole cast for a searing film on our current condition with the hope that it reminds people the importance of voting and more specifically, the importance of choosing Obama, a candidate who is a clean break from the policies that got our country in this condition in the first place.

Charles is currently in development on several feature films as well as directing episodic television and short form content for the internet.