Daniel was born and raised in Hamburg, Germany, where as a teenager he was host of a radio show and editor of a youth magazine. He toured with a theater, studied drama and published a play before he went to Belfast, Northern Ireland, as a peace worker. Two years later he returned to Germany to go to film school and study screenwriting at the Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg in Ludwigsburg. He wrote a TV movie which got nominated for Germany's most prestigious media award and directed a documentary on rock musician Nick Cave. Daniel moved to Los Angeles and graduated from the American Film Institute's directing program. His thesis film got nominated for the ASC award. In the following three years he made short films, wrote songs for local singers, sat on a film festival jury in Kosovo, becam