Design and VFX studio Spontaneous has hired Aaron King as creative director. He is a veteran CD who has been a driving force behind assorted iconic rebrands, promos, main titles and commercials for HBO, Showtime, LIFETIME, Syfy, ESPN, Olay, Citi and BMW.
Most recently, King served as partner at Be Creative Management, where he curated world-class studios in a number of disciplines ranging from strategy to execution. He oversaw concept and design across all platforms, including commercials, promos, television packaging, motion graphics, animation, print, key art and digital and social media.
King got his start as a creative director and designer for creative agency and design house Pittard Sullivan. He would eventually land at New York-based Pure as executive creative director, where he oversaw its transformation into a commercial visual effects and design company.
Spontaneous is part of Lively Group, the parent company of BlueRock, Scarlett and Ballistic. Lively Group is certified by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) as a certified woman-owned company.
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting โ quite literally โ into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat โ who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival โ has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive โ a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
The one rule to follow is that... Read More