Early life and education

A native of Washington D.C., Dobkin attended Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, MD. He then graduated with honors from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in Film & Television in 1991. He had launched his career six years earlier as an assistant to the production manager on John Schlesinger's film, The Believers. While pursuing his NYU film studies, he worked for Warner Bros. development division. His NYU thesis film, 57th Street Serenade, won several national and international awards including a 1992 C.I.N.E. Eagle and a Gold award at the prestigious Edinburgh Festival. After graduation, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue his career as a director.

Career

He helmed his first feature film, Clay Pigeons, for Scott Free the first film produced at Ridley and Tony Scott's production company that they did not direct. The black comedy about a series of small-town murders starred Vince Vaughn, Joaquin Phoenix and Janeane Garofalo, and was distributed by Gramercy Pictures. Dobkin followed the film by directing the hit comedy Shanghai Knights, starring Jackie Chan, Owen Wilson and Fann Wong.

Dobkin has directed commercials for clients such as ESPN, Heineken (which earned him honors from SHOOT magazine), Carl's Jr., Coke, Honda, Coors Light and Sony PlayStation (which won a Bronze Lion at Cannes). His spots for the Utah Symphony were named "Spot of the Month" by Adweek Magazine and featured as the year's best in Communication Arts Magazine.

His music video credits include George Thorogood's "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer," Elton John's "You Can Make History" and Coolio's "1, 2, 3, 4" (MTV best dance video award), to name a few.

Quickly attracting the attention of several music labels, Dobkin made his music video debut with two video clips from rapper Tupac Shakur, both of which turned Platinum. Fifteen more videos followed in quick succession for such diverse music groups as Extreme, Robin Zander, Sonic Youth, dada, Blues Traveler, and others.

In May 2009 it was announced Dobkin had entered negotiations to direct Neighborhood Watch, a comedy about an urbanite who moves to the suburbs, and uncovers a conspiracy. In talks to star is Will Ferrell, to whom Dobkin gave a cameo in Wedding Crashers. Dobkin will direct the film adaption of the Dark Horse comic Rest in Peace Department and the comedy film The Change-Up.

Personal life

He married to Megan Wolpert (Dobkin), a former film and television executive and daughter of screenwriter/producer Jay Wolpert. They had their first child Jacob Ilo Dobkin at the end of 2007.