Channing Lowe

Channing Lowe (born November 27, 1970) is an American screenwriter and film director.

Lowe graduated from Timpview High School in Provo, Utah in 1988. He briefly attended Utah Valley State College in Orem, Utah before leaving to begin his career.

Early Life
Lowe is at the fore-front of the Independent Non-Mormon Utah Horror-Comedy Film Movement, a budding industry within the state. Lowe, while initially a reluctant recipient of the attention he fostered, has moved beyond his earlier reclusivity and has accepted the rock star status bestowed by his adoring fans. When asked why he chose to produce films in Utah, Lowe simply replied “I make movies. I live in Utah. So, I make movies in Utah.”

Lowe was not always the poster boy for the INMUHC film movement, but arose from much more tragic beginnings. As a youth he suffered from a rare genetic disease that caused him to wear leg braces, headgear, and thick corrective lenses, which inevitably led to bullying from peers. Lowe has said that “during this time of deep personal anguish and isolation, my only real escape was my daily trip to the dollar theatre. It was there that I finally felt like I had found the loving acceptance that a young boy of my age so desperately needed.”

When an astute subsitute teacher, Steven Levinstein, noticed Lowe's love for the cinema, he raised the necessary funds to send Lowe to the prestigious Leonard J. Christiansen Endowed Media Arts Film Camp for Visionary Youth at Bowling Green State University in Toledo, Ohio. “When Mr. L. organized that bake sale to send me to film camp... it was the first time I felt loved, like I really mattered to someone.” Unfortunately Lowe's naiveté and eagerness to please attracted the attention of Junior Counselor over Plot Development, Brian Peppers. Over time many of the other counselors grew concerned with the unusually close relationship between the two. For years Lowe maintained that the relationship was nothing but appropriate, but after the trial and subsequent conviction of Peppers for sexual assault of a minor, Lowe began to address the difficult topic in his art, beginning with the release of Open House a film that explores the monsters we all have within our closets.

As Lowe began to find and accept himself through his film making, he also found the acceptance from his peers, which he had always yearned for.

Career
Lowe is a well known director-writer-cinematographer-producer-editor and is known to make cameo appearances in his movies. This is in a nod to his inspiration Sir Alfred Hitchcock, to whom Lowe is often compared.

Lowe has directed, written, cinematographed, produced, and edited: Old Hag the Movie, Open House the Movie, Telemarketing Avenger, and Ghost Towns of Utah.

Personal Life
Lowe is an avid philanthropist, devoted to many charitable causes that help children reach their full potential. After the huge box-office success of Open House, Lowe founded the Foundation for Compassionate Relief for Aka Children Living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. On his first trip to the Congo, he personally adopted fourteen Aka from an orphanage that he funded. Many of these children suffer from Apert Syndrome and all have minor acting roles in Lowe's films.

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See Also

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