[1] Slavoljub Vorkapić was born on March 17, 1894, in the small village of Dobrinci, near Ruma in the Srem region, at the time part of the Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Vojvodina, Serbia).

After finishing his primary education, he became a student in a well-known regional high-school in the nearby town of Sremska Mitrovica, where he made his first steps in art and drawing.

With a scholarship received from Matica srpska, Serbia's highest cultural and scientific institution at the time, Vorkapić went to Budapest, Hungary, where he studied art.

At the beginning of World War I, he immediately returned to his homeland where, with the country besieged on all sides, he survived the tragic Serbian retreat across Albania in order to reach Allied positions in Greece.

He co-wrote the screenplay for Johann the Coffinmaker (1927), a 27-minute experimental film directed by Robert Florey that involved a lot of trick photographic effects.

[3][4] His one-minute montage sequence for the otherwise lost movie Manhattan Cocktail (1928), directed by Dorothy Arzner, was released in the October 2005 DVD collection Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant Garde Film 1894-1941.

Vorkapich used kinetic editing, lap dissolves, tracking shots, creative graphics and optical effects for his montage sequences for such features as Manhattan Melodrama (1934), Maytime, The Firefly (both 1937), San Francisco (1936)[5] and Meet John Doe (1941).

Better Call Saul creator Peter Gould has cited Vorkapich as a major influence for the two and a half minute montage sequence seen from 27:33–30:00 in the Season 1 finale, "Marco".