Steve Balderson

Stephen Clark Balderson (born January 19, 1975) is an American film director.

Balderson was born in Manhattan, Kansas, and raised in nearby Wamego, Kansas, until the age of twelve, when his family moved to Manhattan. Balderson attended Manhattan High School." Balderson attended film school at California Institute of the Arts, where he directed six full-length digital movies, including a screen adaptation of Anne Rice's novel The Vampire Lestat. At the end of his third year at CalArts, Balderson realized he'd never had a mid-residency review. When he asked his dean, Hartmut Bitomsky, Bitomsky answered, "Master's students don't have mid-residency reviews." When Bitomsky learned Balderson was an undergrad, he instructed Balderson to stop going to his classes and instead, to do independent study with him. Once a week the two would meet and dissect Alfred Hitchcock films and Steve learned how to focus his vision. After months of working one-on-one with his dean, Balderson decided he was ready to leave CalArts without graduating.