His father was a painter, heavily influenced by abstract paintings and symmetrical framing. His mother owned her own beauty salon as a licensed cosmetologist.
He grew up in Highland Park, California where he and his best friend shot stories with the family camcorder.
He wrote and sold his first short script/story at the age of 17 using an old PC tower on Microsoft word software.
His main influences are Stanley Kubrick, Paul Thomas Anderson, Robert Altman, Peter Greenaway, Sidney Lumet, and Peter Bogdanovich, both for their writing and directorial work.
His all-time favorite film is "Network" (1976) which was the first "grown-up" movie his dad ever showed him when he was 7 years old.