In his senior year as a pre-med student at Florida State University Andy had to pick an elective. His mother had been a painter, and he has always had an interest in art, so an art elective it was.
In these classes he was to meet the two pivotal influences in his life in film, photographer Evon Streetman and thelate filmmaker Werner Vagt, both were teachers, and taught him how to work with content as well as concept...never to confuse process with art.
After graduating with a Bachelor's degree in Art, Andy entered the Navy (ours) with the intent of spending the next five years flying...an injury in training left him a civilian. With an unplanned future ahead of him he returned to F.S.U.
Andy wrestled a Masters degree in Film and Photography (Minor: Art History) from the Art Department at FSU...it was a tough match...three falls, no time limit (or so it seemed.)
About that time he had been doing some off-hours writing for a small Ad agency as part of his work as an all-night AM disk jockey. Andy's writing attracted the attention of a small commercial film company that was looking for a director.
During the next twenty years, Andy would continue to write, produce, and direct over three hundred commercials for National accounts like Holiday Inns, Ford Motor Company, The Peace Corps, Avis, Warner Bros., Disney and others for major advertising agencies, and his own company.
In 1973 Andy decided to produce some of this own creative works. In order to do so, he decided to use that long forgotten Masters degree. For the next two years Andy taught at a tiny college in North Miami...an experience that both renewed his own desire to produce work, and totally absorbed him in building a strong, nationally recognized Photography and Film area in their Art department. Andy also taught printmaking, Commercial Graphics and Film History.
With his own artwork in mind once again, Andy wrote, produced, and directed his first personal work since graduate school... the chilling film POINT OF VIEW...called by film critic Bill Cosford of The Miami Herald "A knockout, perhaps the most unsettling film in my experience...".
In 1976 Andy joined the Art faculty at the University of Texas at Arlington. In the next few years Andy was able to write, produce and direct six personal, creative narrative films. His films from this time, LIFE, CLAP!, MY FATHER'S HANDS, and RITUAL (in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art and others) show Andy's concern with what the audience takes with them when they leave the theatre, and a gradual progression toward the tense, tight narrative that works so well in all of Andy's works in the future.
Success with his feature film directorial debut on a low-low-budget thriller, INTERFACE (Vestron/Live Entertainment, 1984), influenced Andy to leave teaching in 1987 to again do his own work.
POSITIVE I.D. (Universal Pictures, 1987) marked Andy's debut as a Feature Film Writer/Producer/Director and represented over three years of work from the final draft of the screenplay, to the raising of the money, through production and post production and on to the 2,000 screen, domestic and international theatrical release for Universal/MCA Pictures.
POSITIVE I.D. has gone on to be a critical success, making a number of "ten best" lists (Austin American Statesman, Boston Globe and others) and was one of only two American films chosen for the prestigious "New Directors/New Films" festival (as was RITUAL in 1984) at the Museum of Modern Art.
Andy was invited to bring the project LOOK IT UP to Robert Redford's Sundance Institute's Director's Seminar. Recently, Andy has been fortunate enough to have been commissioned by major studios to create new works, Including EDDIE NINE LIVES for Paramount Pictures and Eddie Murphy Productions, and Hyperion Pictures' HONEYMOON IN MOSCOW set in Russia, where Andy traveled for research.
In 1991 Andy was offered an opportunity to return to teaching in the prestigious position of Writer in Residence at the University of Texas at Arlington. "It gave me an opportunity to do something I love, teaching... but not get so wrapped up in it that I couldn't get back to doing my own work,"
Andy has just finished a feature length film about the nature of crime just below the surface of society. DRIVE BY SHOOTING (1994) was recently honored and supported with grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Southwest Alternate Media Project. It premiered on the German Television Network / ZDF, in the Spring of 1995.
Andy is currently writing two new screenplays TENDER, and DETENTION. DETENTION is slated for a July 1996 production start.
Andy continues as a Professor of Art and Writer in Residence at the University of Texas at Arlington.