 White began directing commercials in the early 1990s, and directing television programs in the early 2000s, including two parodies for Saturday Night Live.Chel White was born in Kansas City, Missouri and grew up in Colorado, Michigan, Stockholm, and Evanston, Illinois where his father was a Northwestern University professor and his mother a schoolteacher.White cites his earliest influence as being the Surrealist painting he was exposed to in grade school when visiting the Art Institute of Chicago.