Paul Yates

Paul Yates (a.k.a. Paul Francis Sanchez Yates) is an American filmmaker, artist, and musician.

Paul Yates has worked in the film industry since he was nine. Despite losing his family and becoming homeless at 15 Yates has made music videos or shot footage for Moby, R.E.M., The Dandy Warhols and others. Yates attended NYU for photography, received a BFA in film from SUNY Purchase in 1993 and received his M.F.A. in directing from AFI Conservatory in 2006. Yates has had films in festivals all over the world from Berlin to Havana, Singapore to Tribeca. Yates was the DP on the feature documentary Modulations which was a Sundance Film Festival hit. Yates's first directed feature, Moby Presents: Alien Sex Party (executive produced by Moby) was released in 2003. Yates's AFI Thesis film Onion Underwater was a 2007 Tribeca Film Festival selection. Yates's German pop star alter ego Schaumgummi has had several pop hits in Germany. Yates was Moby's keyboardist during his live shows during the 1990s. Yates has performed at Woodstock 1999 and the Late Show with David Letterman. He did an extensive shadowing of the writers and director for the TV series Battlestar Galactica. His screenplay Let's Not and Say We Did is considered by the AFI to be one of the top three ever to be written in the conservatory. He is also an accomplished photobooth artist and was a pilot for the Red Bull Flugtag event in New York City in 2003.