Sebastian Copeland
Encyclopedia
Sebastian Copeland is an award winning photographer, author, lecturer, extreme outdoor adventurer and environmental activist. He has led numerous expeditions around the globe to photograph and film endangered environments. His award-winning documentary Into the Cold
was a featured selection at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival
and was released on DVD timed to Earth Day
2011.
He has addressed audiences at the United Nations
, The World Affairs Council, The General Assembly on Climate in New Orleans, The George Eastman House, Google
Headquarters, and Apple Inc.’s Senior Design Team.
National Philharmonic Orchestra, Jean-Claude Casadesus
, Sebastian graduated Summa Cum Laude from the UCLA Film School.
Sebastian began his career in New York City
directing music videos before moving on to commercial directing as well as professional photography with credits spanning everything from fashion and advertising to album covers and celebrities. His commercial credits include work for Fila (company)
, Old Spice
, Pantene
, Disney, Nintendo
, and Mennen
amongst others. His music video work has included collaboration with artists ranging from Branford Marsalis
to Harry Connick, Jr.
and Hall and Oates.
His career in still photography
has ranged from celebrities to ad campaigns for Hollywood Studios such as Universal Studios
, Warner Brothers, and Paramount Pictures
. His studio credits include promotional work for The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
, Herbie: Fully Loaded
, and Goal!, as well as international press for such films as the Pirates of the Caribbean
film series, Seabiscuit
, and Troy
. His Celebrity subjects include: Elijah Wood
, Kate Bosworth
, Salma Hayek
, Philip Seymour Hoffman
, Phil Collins
, Sandra Bullock
, and Orlando Bloom
.
In recent years, Sebastian has focused his energy on becoming a voice in the fight to bring awareness to the crisis of global Climate change
. His prints have appeared in numerous, worldwide exhibitions that include the United Nations
(Solo Show, 2007), the Council on Foreign Relations
, and the Peabody Essex Museum
as well as the Field Museum of Natural History
in Chicago, among others. His works can also be found in private collections in Europe and the United States where several have been inducted into The Natural World Museum in San Francisco’s permanent archive. In 2006 and 2007 prints from his first book, Antarctica: The Global Warning, were selected to tour with the International Photography Awards’ “Best in Show” world tour. 'Antarctica' garnered much attention, winning Copeland the 2007 Photographer of the Year award in the Book category.
His still work has appeared in countless amounts of publications worldwide including GQ, Marie Claire
, The Face
, Cosmopolitan
, Vanity Fair
, Elle
, People
, USA Today
, W
, Interview Magazine, Publisher’s Weekly, House & Garden
, and National Geographic.
Copeland was named German GQ’s Man of the Year for environmental leadership in 2008.
He is also on the Board of Directors for Global Green and Shine On Sierra Leone, a Non-governmental organization providing educational platforms for the children of war-torn nations.
In 2009 Copeland mounted an expedition to the North Pole
meant to commemorate the centennial of Admiral Robert Peary
’s expedition in 1909.
Sebastian and his partner Keith Heger, filmed their 400-mile expedition on foot to the pole. The surviving footage became Sebastian’s acclaimed documentary “Into the Cold: A Journey of the Soul” which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival
in 2010.
Most recently, Copeland traversed the extensive ice flats of Greenland
on a Kite skiing
expedition. His expedition was meant to raise awareness of Global Warming
. He documented the journey with his camera as well as blogged live updates through Facebook
and Twitter
.
The expedition lasted 44 days and earned Copeland's expedition the new kite skiing distance World Record by covering the longest distance in a 24-hour period: 595 kilometers.
Sebastian currently lives in Los Angeles
. Sebastian continues to lead expeditions to remote corners of the globe to spread consciousness on Global warming
.
Into the Cold: A Journey of the Soul
Into the Cold: A Journey of the Soul is a feature documentary film written and directed by Sebastian Copeland that follows two men's journey to the geographic North Pole in 2009, commemorating the centennial of Admiral Peary's successful 1909 reach....
was a featured selection at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival
Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Film Festival is a film festival founded in 2002 by Jane Rosenthal, Robert De Niro and Craig Hatkoff in a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the consequent loss of vitality in the TriBeCa neighborhood in Lower Manhattan.The mission of the festival...
and was released on DVD timed to Earth Day
Earth Day
Earth Day is a day that is intended to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's natural environment. The name and concept of Earth Day was allegedly pioneered by John McConnell in 1969 at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco. The first Proclamation of Earth Day was by San Francisco, the...
2011.
He has addressed audiences at the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
, The World Affairs Council, The General Assembly on Climate in New Orleans, The George Eastman House, Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
Headquarters, and Apple Inc.’s Senior Design Team.
Career
The son of Director of the LilleLille
Lille is a city in northern France . It is the principal city of the Lille Métropole, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country behind those of Paris, Lyon and Marseille. Lille is situated on the Deûle River, near France's border with Belgium...
National Philharmonic Orchestra, Jean-Claude Casadesus
Jean-Claude Casadesus
Jean-Claude Casadesus is a French conductor.Casadesus was born in Paris on December 7, 1935, the son of actress Gisèle Casadesus and her husband Lucien Pascal...
, Sebastian graduated Summa Cum Laude from the UCLA Film School.
Sebastian began his career in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
directing music videos before moving on to commercial directing as well as professional photography with credits spanning everything from fashion and advertising to album covers and celebrities. His commercial credits include work for Fila (company)
Fila (company)
Fila is one of the world's largest sportswear manufacturing companies. Founded in 1911 in Italy, Fila has been owned and operated from South Korea since a takeover in 2007. Headed by chairman and CEO Yoon-Soo Yoon, Fila now has offices in 11 countries worldwide....
, Old Spice
Old Spice
Old Spice is a prominent American brand of male grooming products. It is manufactured by Procter & Gamble, which acquired the brand in 1990 from the Shulton Company.-History:...
, Pantene
Pantene
Pantene is a brand of hair care products owned by Procter & Gamble. The product line was first introduced in Europe in 1947 by Hoffman-LaRoche of Switzerland, which branded the name based on panthenol as a shampoo ingredient...
, Disney, Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
, and Mennen
Mennen
Mennen is a brand owned in most parts of the world by the Colgate-Palmolive Company. Its most notable product, Mennen Speed Stick, with its fougère perfume and green wide stick, was the market leader among deodorants and antiperspirants for men for many years...
amongst others. His music video work has included collaboration with artists ranging from Branford Marsalis
Branford Marsalis
Branford Marsalis is an American saxophonist, composer and bandleader. While primarily known for his work in jazz as the leader of the Branford Marsalis Quartet, he also performs frequently as a soloist with classical ensembles and has led the group Buckshot LeFonque.-Biography:Marsalis was born...
to Harry Connick, Jr.
Harry Connick, Jr.
Joseph Harry Fowler Connick, Jr. is an American singer, big-band leader/conductor, pianist, actor, and composer. He has sold over 25 million albums worldwide. Connick is ranked among the top 60 best-selling male artists in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America, with...
and Hall and Oates.
His career in still photography
Still photography
Still photography may refer to:* unit still photographer, a person who creates still photographic images for the publicity of films and television programs* other photography producing still images...
has ranged from celebrities to ad campaigns for Hollywood Studios such as Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
, Warner Brothers, and Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
. His studio credits include promotional work for The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift is a 2006 street racing action film directed by Justin Lin. It is the third installment in the The Fast and the Furious film series and currently the sixth in terms of series chronology...
, Herbie: Fully Loaded
Herbie: Fully Loaded
Herbie: Fully Loaded is a 2005 American comedy film directed by Angela Robinson and produced by Robert Simonds for Walt Disney Pictures. It stars Lindsay Lohan as the youngest member of an automobile-racing family, Michael Keaton as her father, Matt Dillon as a competing racer, Breckin Meyer as...
, and Goal!, as well as international press for such films as the Pirates of the Caribbean
Pirates of the Caribbean (film series)
Pirates of the Caribbean is a series of fantasy-adventure films directed by Gore Verbinski and Rob Marshall , written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer...
film series, Seabiscuit
Seabiscuit (film)
Seabiscuit is a 2003 American biographical film based on the best-selling non-fiction book Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand...
, and Troy
Troy (film)
Troy is a 2004 epic war film written by David Benioff and directed by Wolfgang Petersen based on the events of the Trojan War. Its cast includes Brad Pitt as Achilles, Eric Bana as Hector.It was nominated for the Academy Award for Costume Design.-Plot:...
. His Celebrity subjects include: Elijah Wood
Elijah Wood
Elijah Jordan Wood is an American actor. He made his film debut with a minor part in Back to the Future Part II , then landed a succession of larger roles that made him a critically acclaimed child actor by age 9. He is best known for his high-profile role as Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's...
, Kate Bosworth
Kate Bosworth
Catherine Ann "Kate" Bosworth is an American actress. Bosworth starred in the television series Young Americans, in which she played Bella Banks. She became known with a leading role in 2002's Blue Crush. The following year, Bosworth played the teenage girlfriend of porn star John Holmes in...
, Salma Hayek
Salma Hayek
Salma Valgarma Hayek Jiménez de Pinault is a Mexican film actress, director and producer. She received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her role as Frida Kahlo in the film Frida.-Early life:...
, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman is an American actor and director. Hoffman began acting in television in 1991, and the following year started to appear in films...
, Phil Collins
Phil Collins
Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins, LVO is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, pianist and actor best known as a drummer and vocalist for British progressive rock group Genesis and as a solo artist....
, Sandra Bullock
Sandra Bullock
Sandra Annette Bullock is an Academy Award winning American actress and producer who rose to fame in the 1990s after roles in successful films such as Demolition Man, Speed, The Net, A Time to Kill, and While You Were Sleeping. She continued with films such as Miss Congeniality, The Lake House,...
, and Orlando Bloom
Orlando Bloom
Orlando Jonathan Blanchard Bloom is an English actor. He had his break-through roles in 2001 as the elf-prince Legolas in The Lord of the Rings and starring in 2003 as blacksmith Will Turner in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, and subsequently established himself as a lead in Hollywood...
.
In recent years, Sebastian has focused his energy on becoming a voice in the fight to bring awareness to the crisis of global Climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
. His prints have appeared in numerous, worldwide exhibitions that include the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
(Solo Show, 2007), the Council on Foreign Relations
Council on Foreign Relations
The Council on Foreign Relations is an American nonprofit nonpartisan membership organization, publisher, and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs...
, and the Peabody Essex Museum
Peabody Essex Museum
The Peabody Essex Museum , originally the Peabody Museum of Salem and the Essex Institute, in Salem, Massachusetts is the oldest continuously operating museum in the United States, and holds one of the major collections of Asian art in the US; its total holdings include about 1.3 million pieces, as...
as well as the Field Museum of Natural History
Field Museum of Natural History
The Field Museum of Natural History is located in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It sits on Lake Shore Drive next to Lake Michigan, part of a scenic complex known as the Museum Campus Chicago...
in Chicago, among others. His works can also be found in private collections in Europe and the United States where several have been inducted into The Natural World Museum in San Francisco’s permanent archive. In 2006 and 2007 prints from his first book, Antarctica: The Global Warning, were selected to tour with the International Photography Awards’ “Best in Show” world tour. 'Antarctica' garnered much attention, winning Copeland the 2007 Photographer of the Year award in the Book category.
His still work has appeared in countless amounts of publications worldwide including GQ, Marie Claire
Marie Claire
Marie Claire is a monthly women's magazine first published in France but also distributed in other countries with editions specific to them and in their languages. While each country shares its own special voice with its audience, the United States edition focuses on women around the world and...
, The Face
The Face (magazine)
The Face was a British music, fashion and culture monthly magazine started in May 1980 by Nick Logan.-1980s:Logan had previously created the teen pop magazine Smash Hits, and had been an editor at the New Musical Express in the 1970s before launching The Face in 1980.The magazine was influential in...
, Cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan (magazine)
Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s...
, Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
, Elle
Elle (magazine)
Elle is a worldwide magazine of French origin that focuses on women's fashion, beauty, health, and entertainment. Elle is also the world's largest fashion magazine. It was founded by Pierre Lazareff and his wife Hélène Gordon in 1945. The title, in French, means "she".-History:Elle was founded in...
, People
People (magazine)
In 1998, the magazine introduced a version targeted at teens called Teen People. However, on July 27, 2006, the company announced it would shut down publication of Teen People immediately. The last issue to be released was scheduled for September 2006. Subscribers to this magazine received...
, USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
, W
W (magazine)
W is a monthly American fashion magazine published by Condé Nast Publications, who purchased original owner Fairchild Publications in 1999. It was created in 1971 by the publisher of sister magazine Woman's Wear Daily, James Brady. The magazine is an oversize format – ten inches wide and...
, Interview Magazine, Publisher’s Weekly, House & Garden
House & Garden (magazine)
House & Garden was an American shelter magazine published by Condé Nast Publications that focused on interior design, entertaining, and gardening....
, and National Geographic.
Copeland was named German GQ’s Man of the Year for environmental leadership in 2008.
He is also on the Board of Directors for Global Green and Shine On Sierra Leone, a Non-governmental organization providing educational platforms for the children of war-torn nations.
In 2009 Copeland mounted an expedition to the North Pole
North Pole
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is, subject to the caveats explained below, defined as the point in the northern hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface...
meant to commemorate the centennial of Admiral Robert Peary
Robert Peary
Robert Edwin Peary, Sr. was an American explorer who claimed to have been the first person, on April 6, 1909, to reach the geographic North Pole...
’s expedition in 1909.
Sebastian and his partner Keith Heger, filmed their 400-mile expedition on foot to the pole. The surviving footage became Sebastian’s acclaimed documentary “Into the Cold: A Journey of the Soul” which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival
Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Film Festival is a film festival founded in 2002 by Jane Rosenthal, Robert De Niro and Craig Hatkoff in a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the consequent loss of vitality in the TriBeCa neighborhood in Lower Manhattan.The mission of the festival...
in 2010.
Most recently, Copeland traversed the extensive ice flats of Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
on a Kite skiing
Kite skiing
Kite skiing is a relatively recent development of skiing where the pull comes from a kite. It can be done on water, snow, land or ice.Kite skiing on snow has little in common with downhill skiing which is very popular in the alps and on mountains around the world...
expedition. His expedition was meant to raise awareness of Global Warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
. He documented the journey with his camera as well as blogged live updates through Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
and Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
.
The expedition lasted 44 days and earned Copeland's expedition the new kite skiing distance World Record by covering the longest distance in a 24-hour period: 595 kilometers.
Sebastian currently lives in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. Sebastian continues to lead expeditions to remote corners of the globe to spread consciousness on Global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
.