Bent Image Lab has brought Derrick Huang aboard as executive producer. He has relocated from NY to work out of Bent Image Lab‘s Portland, Ore.-headquarters.
Huang has 10-plus years of experience in marketing, media and commercial production. He most recently was head of production at NY-based animation studio and production company Nathan Love where he worked from 2008 through early 2015. As head of production, he scheduled, budgeted, organized and oversaw multiple projects from initial bidding and creative development through final delivery, including ad campaigns and branded content for clients such as Froot Loops, Michelin, McGraw-Hill, Kodak, Chips Ahoy, Mattel, and Nickelodeon.
Huang also played a driving role in strategic direction and operations at the studio, including sales and marketing, talent acquisition, talent management, and systems/process development. Prior to his time at Nathan Love, he worked at the NYC offices of Entertainment Weekly magazine, where he helped launch the company’s first forays into social media and online audience development.
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More