Bicoastal HeLo has signed Alan Poul–who currently serves as exec producer and director on Aaron Sorkin’s Golden Globe-nominated HBO series The Newroom–for his first representation as a director for commercials and branded content. Before The Newsroom, he served as EP and contributing director on all five seasons of HBO’s Six Feet Under.
Over the past 20 years, his work has earned him such honors as a News & Documentary Emmy Award (as a producer of the PBS historical program The Pacific Century), Golden Globe, Producers Guild Awards, GLAAD Awards and Peabody Awards. He has also directed multiple episodes of HBO’s historical drama Rome and the hit HBO polygamy series Big Love. He was nominated for a DGA Award in 2004 for his direction of the “Nobody Sleeps” episode of Six Feet Under, which also earned him an Emmy nom for Outstanding Direction in a Drama Series.
Initially entering the entertainment industry from an academic slant, Poul studied Japanese Literature at Yale, taught several film courses, and became known for his Japanese-film expertise while serving as Film Programmer for the NYC nonprofit The Japan Society. Having never set foot on a film set, he was tapped for his first gig as associate producer on Paul Schrader’s acclaimed Yukio Mishima biopic Mishima, A Life in Four Chapters. After learning both the technology and terminology in Japanese, Poul returned to the states following production and dove into the English version of the industry headfirst, and never looked back.
Poul made his feature directing debut in 2010 with the romantic comedy The Back-up Plan starring Jennifer Lopez and Alex O’Loughlin, and had previously produced numerous features including Woman on Top (Penelope Cruz), Skip Woods’ debut feature Thursday and the horror pic Candyman. Prior to his HBO work, Poul collaborated with author Armistead Maupin on producing all three miniseries based on Maupin’s Tales of the City books (Tales of the City, More Tales of the City, Further Tales of the City), each of which was nominated for an Emmy. Additional television production credits include CBS’ Swingtown, the ABC teen series “My So-Called Life” and the Peabody Award-winning “Rock the Vote” special.
Currently a member of the Boards of Directors of Film Independent and the It Gets Better Project, Poul previously served on the boards of the Producers Guild of America, GLAAD and Outfest.
