jonathan glazer was born into a jewish family in london, and studied in a jewish school. after studying theatre design at nottingham trent university, glazer started out directing theatre and making film and television trailers, including award-winning work for the bbc. in 1993 he wrote and directed three short films of his own ("mad", "pool" and "commission"), and joined academy commercials, a production company based in london. he has directed popular campaigns for guinness ("swimblack" and "surfer") and stella artois ("devil's island"). since the mid-1990s he has directed a number of music videos, and was named mtv director of the year 1997. he named his video for radiohead's 1996 single "street spirit" as a "turning point" in his work: "i knew when i finished that, because [radiohead] found their own voices as an artist, at that point, i felt like i got close to whatever mine was, and i felt confident that i could do things that emoted, that had some kind of poetic as well as prosaic value. that for me was a key moment."