The Mill has added two colorists and made a key staff promotion in its global color grading department. Colorists Damien Van Der Cruyssen and Nick Metcalf have joined The Mill’s NY studio while Dee Allen has been promoted from executive producer of color to group director of color.
Van Der Cruyssen returns to The Mill following a two-year tenure at Company 3. He is known for work that includes major beauty brands, including Maybelline, L’Oreal and Neutrogena. In addition to his work within the beauty world, Van Der Cruyssen is well versed in long-form color grading, and together with Allen will be developing The Mill’s long-form offering as director of DI. Since his arrival, Van Der Cruyssen has made full use of The Mill’s close relationship with Technicolor, recently grading the Mick Rock feature documentary SHOT! The Psycho-Spiritual Mantra of Rock, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Metcalf joins the New York team from Vision On, where he spent the last six years carving a niche out of working with both film and stills photographers to retouch and grade images for the fashion world, collaborating closely with well-known brands such as J Crew, Gap and Michael Kors.
In his new role of group color director, Allen will work alongside the managing directors and color EPs across all studios, focusing on the continued development of The Mill’s global creative roster and the implementation of new color offerings and initiatives.
Across the group, The Mill now has 16 colorists–including the recently added Derek Hansen in L.A.–all of whom are made available to clients globally via The Mill’s remote grading setup.
Head of color for New York Fergus McCall said, “Acquiring and developing new and existing talent is always exciting, and these additions will ensure our continued offering of the best talent to the global advertising industry. Together with our exceptional roster of grading talent across the group, we’ll look to continue producing creatively engaging, award-winning and visually beautiful work as well as build many strong new client relationships, and cultivate existing ones. The developments to our team usher in a new era for color grading at The Mill, wherein we’ll be looking to expand on our color capabilities and offerings.”
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