Will Hess

Will was born in Dallas, Texas in April of 1972 and grew up in the New Orleans, Louisiana metro area.

He played trumpet in the high school band and marched annually in the Mardi Gras parades along with his 2 brothers and sister whom played the saxophone, trombone and clarinet respectively.

After graduating Belle Chasse High School in 1990 he attended LSU (Louisiana State University) Baton Rouge where he earned his B.A. in History in August 1997.

In September of 1997, Will moved to Los Angeles and interned around town for a handful of his favorite film directors/producers including:

. Director Oliver Stone - Illusion Entertainment (Wall Street; Platoon) . Director James Cameron - Light storm Entertainment (Titanic; Avatar) . Director George Lucas - THX (Star Wars) . Producer Roger Corman - New Horizons (Little Shop of Horrors)

During the summer of 2002, Will made his writing/directing/producing debut with the comedy, Bill The Intern (2003) which is a feature length comedy shot for about 30k on Super16mm (in the vein of Swimming With Sharks / Office Space). BTI pokes fun at the Hollywood intern system. Will self distributed a few thousand DVDs door to door in 7 states (from New York to California) to make back some of the film's budget. It can be viewed on Netflix via their DVD service only (not streamable yet)!

In Spring of 2001, Will began his M.F.A. in Cinema Production at USC (University of Southern California) where he graduated from in May of 2004.

Between 2006-2012 Will committed 6 years of his career/life writing/producing/directing his first feature length documentary entitled With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story which is a biography on the 91 year old man (as of 12/28/2013) whom founded Marvel Comics and created many of Marvel's most beloved characters including:

. Spider Man . Fantastic Four . Iron Man . X Men . Avengers . Thor . Daredevil . and over 500 more!

With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story played the festival circuit in 2011-2012 playing in (26) film festivals including:

. Slamdance Film Festival . New Orleans Film Festival . Anchorage International Film Festival . DOC NYC Film Festival . Rhode Island International Film Festival . Salem Film Festival . Catalina Film Festival . Guam Film Festival . Warsaw Film Festival . Calgary Underground Film Festival . Atlanta Int. Documentary Film Festival . Nevada Film Festival . New Hampshire Film Festival . Albuquerque Film Festival

In 2011-12, Will spent a large chunk of time on the road promoting WGP by taking part in screenings & Q&A's at various film festivals. After winning awards at (8) festivals, the documentary went on to be distributed on multi platforms including:

. DVD/VOD (Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Netflix, Amazon, ITunes, Time Warner, etc.) . Domestic Premium Cable (Viacom's Epix).

As of JAN 2014, Will is producing/writing/directing his 2nd feature length documentary which is entitled King Cake: A Big Easy Story which is a history of Mardi Gras and the city of New Orleans!

Beyond King Cake, Will is also writing scripts for and developing 3 other projects including (2) dramas entitled 'Aura' and 'Turmoil' plus a comedy/horror/musical entitled 'Barely Love: A Bear Mauling Love Story'!

His parents are Jean and Rick Hess. He has an older brother Bruce, a younger brother James, and a younger sister Alicia.