Biografia
David James Bartlett, born in Seattle, Washington and raised in Beaverton, Oregon, is an American filmmaker, actor, teacher, and human rights activist. His films range from comedies and dramas to documentaries and music videos. His focus has been on human stories with redeeming characters and a hope for a better future. He has taught filmmaking at every major film school in Los Angeles and has been a champion of orphans around the world for years. His charity, Orphans In The Storm, provides human rights education to orphans worldwide.
David Bartlett started his career in school by making films and working in every aspect of theater, including acting. He directed the full-length play The Wind in the Willows while still in high school. He worked in movie theaters as a projectionist and manager for three years and then made his move to Los Angeles. He drove there without knowing anyone or having any industry connections to see Academy Award-winning director William Friedkin speak at the Sherwood Oaks Experimental College.
Two weeks after arriving in Hollywood, Bartlett met four-time Academy Award-winning producer and director Robert Wise and worked with him on a promotional film for the Motion Picture Home Hospital. Wise became his first advisor, and Bartlett took his advice. He said: "If you want to get a job as a director, write the great American screenplay they want so badly they will let you direct it. But if you want to learn how to be a director, be an editor, as the editor knows exactly what works and what does not work in a film."
David has now worked on over 200 productions, more than 140 of them features. He worked as a set carpenter at Roger Corman's New World Studios with production designer James Cameron. He has worked with Quentin Tarantino on Pulp Fiction, Joel Silver on Predator 2 and Action Jackson, William Friedkin on The Guardian, Paul Verhoeven on Total Recall, Gale Anne Hurd on Tremors, Kathryn Bigelow on Point Break, and Brian De Palma on The Bonfire of the Vanities. He has worked with actors such as Morgan Freeman, Goldie Hawn, Laurence Fishburne, Ellen Barkin, Ashley Judd, Mira Sorvino, Patrick Swayze, and five-time Emmy winner Doris Roberts.
Bartlett has won over 50 film festival awards and many other nominations, including an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Sound Effects Editing for the miniseries Space. His work as a sound editor contributed to the Academy Award-nominated Total Recall and the Academy Award-winning Speed. He has produced, directed, written, handled cinematography, editing, and music for over 60 features, shorts, and documentaries. His films have screened at festivals all over the world, including Cannes, Sundance, SXSW, London, Beverly Hills, WorldFest-Houston, New York, Maui, Los Angeles, and many others. Festival award wins include Burbank, WorldFest-Houston, Beverly Hills, Montreal, Moondance, and AOF Action on Film.
Bartlett's film Change: Orphans In The Storm has been screened at 12 film festivals and has won 7 awards. He has acted in three independent features (Cartel War, Nowhere Fast, and A Voice in the Dark), three short films, and an original musical (Divine Lust).
He traveled around the world twice as a volunteer with a human rights activist, filming and shooting stills, and was inspired to start the charity project Orphans In The Storm to help address the needs of the world’s 152 million orphans through human rights education.
David's brother, Ron Bartlett, has won two Academy Awards for Best Sound (Dune and Dune: Part Two) and received nominations for Life of Pi and Blade Runner 2049. David’s nephew, James Bartlett, is a film composer who won Best Score for The Algerian (2014) at the Maverick Movie Awards.
David Bartlett is the producer of the five-feature series Space Command, produced and directed by Marc and Elaine Zicree. He produced, directed, and wrote the short sci-fi thriller Into the Abyss, which is on the festival circuit. Into the Abyss had its world premiere at the Golden State Film Festival and is screening at CineVegas and WorldFest-Houston on May 3, 2026. It is scheduled to receive an award at WorldFest-Houston, which will mark David’s 93rd festival win.
David is producing, directing, and writing the psychological thriller feature Cyn, which has begun shooting in Vernonia, Oregon, and is slated for release in late 2027.
Bartlett has also been a teacher of filmmaking and has taught screenwriting and film production at every major film school in Los Angeles, including the American Film Institute, USC, UCLA, the Los Angeles Film School, and the New York Film Academy. He has also taught at Sherwood Oaks College, his Alma mater, and has now come full circle.
