William Campbell Eubank (born November 15, 1982) is an American film director, screenwriter, and cinematographer known for movies that appear to have larger budgets than they do and for making almost anything look more artistic than it probably deserves to.
Starting out as a below-the-line technician in the camera department, this Panavision alum worked his way up the ladder through independent features like Love to swelling studio projects like Underwater (20th Century Fox’s final film).
Eubank grew up playing water polo and hiking in the California wilderness while in the Boy Scouts. He became interested in filmmaking because of his grandfather–a US Navy cinematographer in World War II–who would tell stories such as the time he shot footage from an airplane while flying underneath the Golden Gate Bridge. Wanting to somehow follow in his footsteps, Eubank was admitted to Annapolis but was torn between becoming an officer or heading to Hollywood to pursue filmmaking. He chose to move to LA and has been working in the town almost ever since.
Eubank has written half of the movies he has directed and sometimes collaborates with his brother, screenwriter Carlyle Eubank.
Filmography:
- Love (2011)
- The Signal (2014)
- Underwater (2020)
- Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin (2021)
- Land Of Bad (2024)
Tropes About Him or that He Often Uses:
- Ambiguous Ending: Eubank likes to let the audience decide what happened and what it means. And sometimes there's no debate the heroes have taken heavy hits.
- Bilingual Dialogue: English and French in Love; English and German in Next of Kin.
- Fanservice: shots of the memory girl in Love, the motel scene with Olivia Cooke in The Signal, Kristen Stewart in skivies throughout Underwater.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: the diary in Love, the necklace in The Signal, the Weyland-Yutani seatbelt arm-sling and locker decorations in Underwater.
- Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: frequently defied. Eubank often sets things in places of physical peril where helmets are neccessary: spacewalks, biological-isolation units, the bottom of the ocean and we see the hero through the glass of their facemask.
- Heroic Sacrifice: musings on warfare in Love, Jonah in The Signal, both Captain Lucien and Norah in Underwater.
- Irony: often characters will pursue actions that we later learn weren't necessary or were working against them. Perhaps that's life! By the end of Underwater, viewers realize that the risky, desperate walk on the bottom of the ocean was safer than directly picking a rescue pod to the surface.
- Plucky Comic Relief: Jonah in The Signal, Paul in Underwater, and Dale in Next of Kin.
- Production Posse:
- actor Gunner Wright appears in Love, Underwater and Next of Kin
- editor Brian Berdan edited Eubank's first three films
- Legacy Effects for suits on first the low-budget The Signal and then suits on the high-budget Underwater.
- Safely Secluded Science Center: the ISS, a government facility in the desert, a drilling research lab at the bottom of the ocean.
- Scenery Porn: this is what Eubank is known for, as he started as a cinematographer.
- Signature Shot: Eubank finds a way to include tack-sharp slow motion and/or speed-ramping in everything, even a found-footage movie.
- Solitary Tropes: themes of isolation are present in all of Eubank's films, from an astronaut getting forgotten on the ISS, to kids being held captive alone in their cells, to a small team of scientists walking across the ocean floor, to filmmakers venturing into a secluded Amish community.
- Survivor Guilt: Lee feels this in Love, Nick and Haley feel this in The Signal, Norah is mourning her husband and trying to come to terms with his death throughout Underwater while simultaneously considering her crewmates who she has only recently lost.
