Writer/Director Alan Shapiro studied at New York University film school, where his first student production, Briefly...Brian, won NYU best student film in 1978 and was selected to screen at Cannes, New York's Museum of Modern Art, and on PBS, and helped him raise enough grant money to finance a second short, Meeting Halfway, which was bought by Showtime. Warner Brothers provided the balance of a college scholarship and summertime apprenticeship under Ken Russell on Altered States, and his career began. Over the next few years he wrote Stonybrook for Warner Bros., wrote & directed the award-winning Tiger Town for Disney starring Roy Scheider, produced Disney's The Blue Yonder starring Peter Coyote and Art Carney, and penned the teleplay for NBC'S Crossing the Mob with Jason Bateman. Shapiro wrote, produced and directed Disney's The Christmas Star with Ed Asner and Fred Gwynne, and soon thereafter caught the eye of Francis Coppola, who produced his writing & directing efforts on Fox's pilot of S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders, which debuted with the highest overnight ratings in Fox's history. Shapiro wrote and directed the Warner Bros. feature The Crush, which marked the film debut of his young discovery, Alicia Silverstone. Then wrote and directed the Universal Pictures feature Flipper starring Elijah Wood and Paul Hogan. He has published articles in Premiere and Written By magazines, served as a WGA mentor, and teaches directing at USC Cinema Studies.