RANDAL KLEISER, born July 20, 1946 in Lebanon, PA. is an American film director and producer. Randal Kleiser has directed several feature films, including Grease (1978), Other features include The Blue Lagoon (1980) with Brooke Shields, Summer Lovers (1982) with Daryl Hannah, Grandview, U.S.A. (1984) with Jamie Lee Curtis, Flight of the Navigator (1986), featuring the first use of digital morphing in a film, Big Top Pee-wee (1988), White Fang (1991) and Honey, I Blew Up the Kid (1992).
In London, Kleiser directed the comedy Getting It Right (1989), starring Lynn Redgrave, Helena Bonham Carter, Jane Horrocks and Sir John Gielgud. In 1996, he wrote and directed It's My Party, starring Eric Roberts, Gregory Harrison, Lee Grant, Bruce Davison and Marlee Matlin. As a writer-producer, he was responsible for the surfing film North Shore (1987) for Universal Pictures. He also directed the thriller Shadow of Doubt (1998) with Melanie Griffith and Tom Berenger. Working in 70mm 3-D, he directed Honey, I Shrunk the Audience (1995) at the Disney Theme Parks in Anaheim, Orlando, Tokyo and Paris. His television films include The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (1976) with John Travolta, the Emmy-Award winning The Gathering (1977) and Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway (1976).
As a freshman at the University of Southern California, Kleiser appeared in George Lucas' first student film Freiheit. Kleiser's award winning Master's thesis film Peege launched his career. He has taught a graduation workshop at USC and Masters Directing Classes for European students at film festivals in Deuville and Sarlat, and Malaga. He serves as a judge on the Student Awards for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and as chairman of the Academic Subcommittee for the Directors Guild of America, he inaugurated a videoconferencing program to connect film classes with working directors. Working with the Graphics Lab at USC's Institute for Creative Technologies, he has co-invented a digital Cinerama-like process called Vistarama HD.
A longtime friend of George Lucas since film school at USC and Digital film avant, Randall Kleiser was the marshall force in planning, filming, and during two years of computer lab post-production of the original experimental movie musical shot on interactive virtual sets, entitled Red Riding Hood (2004). The work takes new ground for the High-definition community. The production is also notable for being among the lowest-ranked by Internet Movie Database users, who mainly comment that Red's cape is too short and she is wearing too much make up.
Kleiser's house was used in the film Scream 3. Kleiser was inducted into Radnor High School's Hall of Fame on October 20, 2006.
