J. Darin Wales

J Darin Wales started his directing career early on when he directed his first "production" while still in the 5th grade in the small town of Florence, Texas. He is, like any good Texan, extremely proud of his Texas heritage and won't hesitate to tell you about it. J Darin Wales is the 4th child of A. N. and Dorothy Wales of Florence. He has one sister and two brothers.

Following his graduation from the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, Wales pursued a career of coaching and teaching for the next eight years or so. He received an MA in Education from Baylor University in 1984. During the years of 1989-90, Wales took part in an extended missions trip that changed the course of his life forever. While serving with the organization Youth With A Mission (YWAM) on board the M/V Anastasis, he fell in love again with storytelling and began to piece together video shorts for the crew and the organization. Soon after his missions stint in Africa and Northern Europe, he attended film school at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia, graduating in 1997 with an MS in Communication. There he met his lovely wife, Lorene Duran. They were married in 1996.

Starting out as a professional editor, Wales soon began directing training videos for a local company in Virginia Beach and eventually began freelance directing for companies such as New Dominion Pictures, The Discovery Channel, and The National Geographic Channel. Mr. Wales' television directorial debut was for the series "The New Detectives". His first short film was "Wynona'$ Wrecker", which garnered him several festival awards as a student film. Darin recently won the Virginia Filmmaker Award at the James River Film Festival for his work on his short film "PLiNK". He continues to freelance direct, on occasion for Discovery ID, and has plans for an independent feature in the future.