Mini Biography
Hank was born to a Jewish family in a small river town called Greenville in the heart of the Mississippi Delta. His interest in filmmaking was piqued at an early age by the local theater productions his parents starred in and by sixth grade, he was shooting and editing his own productions on video starring any neighborhood kid who would work for cold cuts.
After moving with his mother to Dallas the following year, he started a video business shooting weddings and Bar Mitzvahs to pay for the equipment he needed to make his increasingly complex productions, including a short and its fourteen sequels called Skull, which consisted of his friend pulling a plastic cranium across the floor by fishing wire.
In high school, he began writing and directing slightly more high brow fare including Forever Young, a fifteen minute dramatic short about the perils of drunk driving that won Grand Prize in the National PTA Video Contest. His youthful passion for filmmaking culminated in his acceptance to the USC School of Cinema-Television, the "best film school in the world"; according to the USC School of Cinema-Television.
While at USC, he directed many short films including Lets Do Love, an award-winning social satire set in the future about two people who fall in love, get married and have a baby; but never meet. Upon graduating from the world's best film school, however, Nelken realized he had no real world skills and therefore could not get a job. To make a living, then, he did the only thing he was qualified to do; he edited wedding videos.
While cutting weddings, however, he was also cutting Fifteen Minutes, a short film he wrote and directed which premiered at the USC First Look Festival in 1996 to rave reviews. Afterwards, he signed with a manager and began looking for work, officially.
During this period commonly referred to as the "salad days" but which would be more aptly described as "Ramen Noodle days," Nelken met Greg DePaul, a writer and recent East Coast transplant who was also looking for work, officially. They began writing together and from 1998 to 2001, wrote a television pilot for Fox, rewrote two feature length scripts, and sold four original screenplays including Saving Silverman, which was released in 2001. It starred Jack Black, Amanda Peet, and Jason Biggs and has gone on to become a cult classic.
Afterwards, Nelken and DePaul amicably parted ways and Nelken wrote a spec screenplay called Mama's Boy which was purchased in 2003 by Warner Brothers. Simultaneously, Warners gave him a blind deal to write another yet to be determined script and Revolution Studios bought his pitch for a remake of the classic Cary Grant comedy Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House with Steve Carr attached to direct.
Mama's Boy was produced by Warner Independent Pictures and stars Jon Heder, Diane Keaton, Jeff Daniels, Anna Faris and Eli Wallach. It will be released in the summer of 2007. Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House got a last minute makeover and became Are We Done Yet? starring Ice Cube, a sequel to the hit comedy Are We There Yet?, and will be released by Revolution on April 6, 2007.
Currently, Nelken is putting together Something Borrowed, a high concept romantic comedy he wrote which will mark his feature directorial debut. He is also working on All My Life For Sale, a script he wrote for Warner Brothers with an eye towards directing.
Nelken was recently married to Rebecca Urwitz-Lane, a Doctor from San Francisco who went to Columbia University and USC medical school. Go Trojans.
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