Visual effects creative studio JAMM has added commercial and feature Flame artist Brian Hajek to its roster.
After graduating from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, Hajek began working in the commercial field before crossing over to feature films. His extensive experience includes compositing shots for movies like The Avengers, Life of Pi, Avatar, Snow White and the Huntsman, American Sniper, Moonrise Kingdom, Guardians of the Galaxy and many more.
Hajek’s skill for making the fantastic feel tangible led to a VES Award for Outstanding Compositing in a Feature Motion Picture, for his role in helping to create “Skinny Steve Rogers” for the movie Captain America: The First Avenger. The shrunk-down version of the superhero played by Chris Evans was so believable, many viewers assumed it to be footage of a doppelganger actor. After working on over 50 feature titles, Hajek is returning to advertising.
After working with JAMM as a freelancer, Hajek is glad to jump on board in a greater capacity, saying, “It’s an incredible opportunity to be part of JAMM’s creative team. I had the chance to work on the Toyota ‘Discovery Machine’ campaign here, and it was immediately clear that this was a place I’d like to stay.”
Juliette Welfling Takes On A Musical, A Crime Thriller, Comedy and Drama In “Emelia Pérez”
Editor Juliette Welfling has a track record of close-knit, heartfelt collaboration with writer-director Jacques Audiard, a four-time BAFTA Award nominee for Best Film not in the English Language--starting with The Beat That My Heart Skipped in 2006, then A Prophet in 2010, Rust and Bone in 2013, and Dheepan in 2017. He won for The Beat That My Heart Skipped and A Prophet.
Welfling cut three of those features: A Prophet, Rust and Bone, and Dheepan. And that shared filmography has since grown to most recently include Emelia Pérez, the Oscar buzz-worthy film from Netflix. Welfling herself is not stranger to Academy Award banter. In fact, she earned a Best Achievement in Film Editing Oscar nomination in 2008 for director Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
Emelia Pérez is a hybrid musical/drama/thriller which introduces us to a talented but undervalued lawyer named Rita (portrayed by Zoe Saldana) who receives a lucrative offer out of the blue from a feared drug cartel boss who’s looking to retire from his sordid business and disappear forever by becoming the woman he’s always dreamt of being (Karla Sofía Gascón in a dual role as Manitas Del Monte/Emilia Pérez). Rita helps pull this off, orchestrating the faked death of Del Monte who leaves behind a widow (Jessi, played by Selena Gomez) and kids. While living comfortably and contently in her/their new identity, Pérez misses the children. Pérez once again enlists Rita--this time to return to family life, reuniting with the kids by pretending to be their aunt, the sister of Del Monte. Now as an aunt, Pérez winds up adopting a more altruistic bent professionally,... Read More