By KATHY DeSALVO
At press time, veteran commercial director Rick Levine was slated to align his New York-headquartered Rick Levine Productions with a shop being launched by his longtime executive producer Pamela Rohs and bicoastal OneSuch Films.
The new company, Next, will operate as a satellite of OneSuch, said Rohs, who added that Next will be signing on additional directors in the next month or two. Besides her Next duties, Rohs will continue to executive produce for Levine.
Observing that Rick Levine Productions will effectively be "a satellite within a satellite," Rohs said, "Business is funny these days; it’s hard to keep track without a scorecard."
A director for nearly 30 years, Levine opened his production house in ’72. From 1980-’84, he headlined production company Levine/Pytka with director Joe Pytka, now at PYTKA, Venice, Calif. In ’84, Levine returned to having his own company.
Levine has received dozens of accolades for his work. He was named best commercial director of ’81 and ’87 by the Directors Guild of America, and his work has won at such competitions as the Cannes International Advertising Festival, earning Lions as well as its Grand Prix. His spots have also been honored at such competitions as the Clios, the One Show, the Andy Awards, Mobius Awards and International Broadcasting Awards.
The Next move by Levine also figured in the closure last week of the New York production office of 1/33 Productions, which continues to operate in Santa Monica. David Lasseron, 1/33 principal/executive producer, related that after Levine’s relationship with 1/33 ended, it wasn’t cost efficient for the company to continue to maintain its large-scale Manhattan space. Rick Levine Productions had been affiliated with 1/33 for the last four years (SHOOT, 11/24/95, p.1).
"The company [1/33] is still doing very, very well," said Lasseron. "All the other directors are based out of Los Angeles, so what is the point of having big overhead and a big office space that is empty. If we need to go and shoot in New York, we’ll go and shoot with some friends of ours." The 1/33 directorial roster consists of Martin Bell, Mark Bennett, James Dalthorp and Olivier Venturini.
New York-based 1/33 principal/executive producer Chris Meltesen continues at the company; he is now working out of a smaller Manhattan office, said Lasseron.
Tim Burton Discusses His Dread Of AI As An Exhibition of His Work Opens In London
The imagination of Tim Burton has produced ghosts and ghouls, Martians, monsters and misfits — all on display at an exhibition that is opening in London just in time for Halloween.
But you know what really scares him? Artificial intelligence.
Burton said Wednesday that seeing a website that had used AI to blend his drawings with Disney characters "really disturbed me."
"It wasn't an intellectual thought — it was just an internal, visceral feeling," Burton told reporters during a preview of "The World of Tim Burton" exhibition at London's Design Museum. "I looked at those things and I thought, 'Some of these are pretty good.' … (But) it gave me a weird sort of scary feeling inside."
Burton said he thinks AI is unstoppable, because "once you can do it, people will do it." But he scoffed when asked if he'd use the technology in this work.
"To take over the world?" he laughed.
The exhibition reveals Burton to be an analogue artist, who started off as a child in the 1960s experimenting with paints and colored pencils in his suburban Californian home.
"I wasn't, early on, a very verbal person," Burton said. "Drawing was a way of expressing myself."
Decades later, after films including "Edward Scissorhands," "Batman," "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Beetlejuice," his ideas still begin with drawing. The exhibition includes 600 items from movie studio collections and Burton's personal archive, and traces those ideas as they advance from sketches through collaboration with set, production and costume designers on the way to the big screen.
London is the exhibition's final stop on a decade-long tour of 14 cities in 11 countries. It has been reconfigured and expanded with 90 new objects for its run in... Read More