David Yates (born 1963) is an Emmy Award-winning English film and television director. He has worked extensively in British television, mainly for the BBC, helming high-profile drama projects such as When I Was a Girl (1991), The Sins (2000), The Way We Live Now (2001), Paul Abbott's State of Play (2003), The Young Visiters (2003), Sex Traffic (2004) and Richard Curtis's The Girl in the Café (2005).
Yates was trained at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield.
He received his highest-profile assignment to date when he was chosen to direct the fifth Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Yates was the one that chose composer Nicholas Hooper to do the score. Yates will also direct the sixth film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which began filming in September 2007, and the final installment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, expected 2010-11. This has been decided to be split into two parts, as David Yates wants the film to fulfil the book.
In 2006 he won an Emmy Award for Best Direction in a Made for Television Movie for The Girl in the Café.
Yates was first inspired to become a director when he saw Steven Spielberg's Jaws, and his mother bought him his first camera at the age of 14. He then began making small movies with his brother, Andrew, in local parks. He studied Politics, English literature and Sociology at St Helens College in Merseyside, in which he produced grades of two A's and a C, although he was in hospital for six months at the time of studying. Following this, he attended University of Essex, followed by Beaconsfield film school, where he excelled as a student.
He worked at cre8 studios in Regent Circus in Swindon as a facilitator.
He trained as a director at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield.
His favorite directors are David Lean (I), Ken Loach and Martin Scorsese.
Is one of only two directors to helm more than one Harry Potter film, the other being Chris Columbus.
Frequently works with composer Nicholas Hooper (I) .
His favorite Harry Potter film is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) .
