By Sarah Woodward
CULVER CITY, Calif.—Noted music video director Joseph Kahn and his production company, Supermega, have linked with bicoastal HSI. Per the deal, Kahn and Supermega directors Hayley Cloake and Todd Kellstein gain worldwide representation for commercials and music videos via HSI, which in return gets a cut of Supermega’s profits. For the past two years, Kahn and Supermega had been affiliated with Palomar Pictures, which recently announced plans to close its doors (SHOOT, 3/14, p. 1).
"One of the reasons [for shifting companies] was because I knew Palomar was going through difficulty," Kahn told SHOOT. "I had a long discussion with Joni [Sighvatsson, CEO/chairman of Palomar], and then decided to look around."
Perhaps best known for strong visuals and inventive visual effects, Kahn said he was drawn to HSI because "it has the best track record of creating great commercial careers for music video directors. I’m always going to be interested in music videos, but I’m also interested in commercials," he related. "There are a lot more unknowns. I’d like to work with actors and dialogue and narrative filmmaking. It excites me."
Kahn’s spot credits to date include Target’s "Simple Soul" via Peterson Milla Hooks, Minneapolis, which featured the pop/R&B group Destiny’s Child. Earlier, he helmed a spec Visa spot, "Bates Motel," which was featured in SHOOT’s "The Best Work You May Never See" gallery (5/28/99, p. 15).
Over the past year, however, Kahn hasn’t been active on the commercial front because he’s been busy directing his first feature, Torque. He described the film, which stars Ice Cube, as "a fifty-million-dollar motorcycle chase movie-it’s thin on plot, but there are a lot of cool visuals."
"I’ve turned down movies for years," he noted. "In fact, I turned this one down twice, but then I started thinking about the challenge of making it interesting for an hour and a half. I like challenges."
At press time, Kahn was about to embark on his first job through HSI, a music video for TLC’s "Damaged." Meanwhile, Cloake is slated to helm a video for Daniel Bedingfield’s "If You’re Not the One."
Kahn recently won a Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video for his direction of Eminem’s "Without Me." The clip also won Video of the Year, Best Direction, Best Rap Video and Best Male Performance at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards.
Kahn has directed clips for U2, Moby, Britney Spears, Destiny’s Child, Korn, George Michael, Janet Jackson, Papa Roach, Aerosmith, Sisqo, Elton John and the Backstreet Boys, among others. His most recent projects through Palomar were clips for Mariah Carey’s "Boy (I Need You)," Nelly and Justin Timberlake’s "Work It," as well as DMX’s "X Gon’ Give It 2 Ya." Prior to Palomar, Kahn had been repped by now defunct Holiday.
Carrie Coon Relishes Being Part Of An Ensemble–From “The Gilded Age” To “His Three Daughters”
It can be hard to catch Carrie Coon on her own.
She is far more likely to be found in the thick of an ensemble. That could be on TV, in "The Gilded Age," for which she was just Emmy nominated, or in the upcoming season of "The White Lotus," which she recently shot in Thailand. Or it could be in films, most relevantly, Azazel Jacobs' new drama, "His Three Daughters," in which Coon stars alongside Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as sisters caring for their dying father.
But on a recent, bright late-summer morning, Coon is sitting on a bench in the bucolic northeast Westchester town of Pound Ridge. A few years back, she and her husband, the playwright Tracy Letts, moved near here with their two young children, drawn by the long rows of stone walls and a particularly good BLT from a nearby cafe that Letts, after biting into, declared must be within 15 miles of where they lived.
In a few days, they would both fly to Los Angeles for the Emmys (Letts was nominated for his performance in "Winning Time" ). But Coon, 43, was then largely enmeshed in the day-to-day life of raising a family, along with their nightly movie viewings, which Letts pulls from his extensive DVD collection. The previous night's choice: "Once Around," with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus.
Coon met Letts during her breakthrough performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" on Broadway in 2012. She played the heavy-drinking housewife Honey. It was the first role that Coon read and knew, viscerally, she had to play. Immediately after saying this, Coon sighs.
"It sounds like something some diva would say in a movie from the '50s," Coon says. "I just walked around in my apartment in my slip and I had pearls and a little brandy. I made a grocery list and I just did... Read More