Topic: Roger Avary

Roger Roberts Avary (born August 23, 1965) is a Canadian-born motion picture director, producer, and Oscar-winning screenwriter.

Roger Avary is the son of a Brazilian-raised deep-shaft mining engineer and a German physical therapist. Avary was born in Flin Flon, Manitoba, Canada but grew up in Oracle, Arizona, the home of Biosphere 2. In the early 1970s Avary's family moved first to Torrance, California and then to Manhattan Beach, California where he attended Mira Costa High School. Avary, a cartoonist in the style of Sergio Aragonés and Tom Eaton, made numerous early animations on the 8 mm and Super-8 formats. In 1979 he began working at one of the first video stores in Southern California, Video Out-Takes, in Redondo Beach, California. The store was owned by the father of his childhood friend, and first collaborator, Scott Magill. The two had grown up making movies together, and experimenting in early Betamax videotape formats. One of Avary's early Super-8 mm films, The Worm Turns, won Best Film from LAFTA (The Los Angeles Film Teachers Association) in 1983.

When in 1981 Video Out-Takes co-owner Lance Lawson (a name that comes up repeatedly in Avary and Tarantino's films) left to open the now famous Video Archives Avary went along, writing the store's database program with fellow 6502 programmer Andy Blinn on an Atari 800 computer. Under the vision of Lawson, Video Archives became a gathering place for an eclectic and unique group of film geeks, who became known as "Archivists". Among this group Avary met an odd and brilliant film enthusiast, Quentin Tarantino. The two became friends, introducing each other to their favorite films.