Paul Rapp

Paul Rapp was born on Oct 24, 1937 in USA. Paul Rapp's big-screen debut came with The St. Valentine's Day Massacre directed by Roger Corman in 1967.

Paul Rapp was born in Beverly Hills, California to father Phil and mother Mary. He is the younger brother of comedy writer Joel Rapp. Paul attended school in Beverly Hills including Beverly Hills High School and finished his schooling at USC where he majored in English, Child Psychology and Film. In 1958 he wrote one of his most important papers about the use of 3 cameras in shooting sitcoms. His experience in this was assisting his father directing 4 pilots of "The Bickersons" in 1954. In 1958 Paul was introduced to Roger Corman where he became head of production on many of Roger's films both in writing and directing. Paul worked virtually every major studio as an assistant director or unit production manager. Throughout that period Paul continued being Roger's right hand man. Paul aimed his skills on developing advanced equipment and production technologies that would speed shooting and reduce costs. From 1960 onward, Paul raised his son Brian. He was the first single father to be given custody of a tender age child in California. Roger helped Paul by supplying him with plane tickets for Brian to visit Paul on location and money for Brian's nanny. Some of Roger's earliest films were shot in five days or less. "The Terror" with Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson was shot in two days using the set of the just finished "The Raven". Many technologies started with Roger. Hand held cameras on "Wild Angels" and "The Trip". Mobile studio vans on "Ski Troop Attack", "Box Car Bertha" and "Gas". Every film was under budget and ahead of schedule. With money invested by Wilt Chamberlain, Paul decided to make a sports documentary style film entitled "Go For It" (1975). He wrote, directed and produced this very successful film. The title became a part of the language as in the teen oriented films of the sixties such as "Girls on the Beach", "The Trip", and "Wild Angels" where many hippie expressions began. Paul also directed 2nd Unit on the "Happy Days" episode where Fonzie jumps the shark, which led to another expression. Budweiser had an entire ad campaign that used the "Go For It" logo. "Go For It" spawned a completely new style of camera work where the hand held 16mm camera was put to use inside waves and mounted on skateboards. The film would later be blown up to 35mm. Paramount Pictures had to rely on Paul's expertise using these technologies to film Fonzie jumping the shark. "Wide World of Sports" asked Paul to show them some of these camera shots for their cameraman. While with Roger Corman, Paul was asked to help tutor the likes of Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme and others who broke into filmmaking working for Roger. When Martin Scorsese came to Paul to make "Mean Streets", Paul said it must be made in Los Angeles with four days of 2nd Unit in New York. Using the first handheld Arriflex BL, 1st unit was shot in 16 days on schedule and under budget of $350,000.