Eight VFX, the New York and Los Angeles-based visual effects, design and production studio, has named Abbe Daniel as the new executive producer for its New York office. In addition, the studio has named Carolyn Hill and Amanda Rosenberg of Carolyn Reps to handle sales on the East Coast. The appointments were announced by Eight VFX’s partners, creative director Jean-Marc Demmer and managing director Baptiste Andrieux.
Daniel joins Eight VFX from Leroy & Clarkson, the brand design and identity boutique in New York. She’s held key positions at production companies and agencies, specializing in the production of digital ad campaigns, visual effects work and experiential installations. Prior to Leroy & Clarkson, she was an EP at the experiential studio Fake Love, and has held EP/MD or sr. producer posts at such studios as Digital Kitchen, Curious Pictures, Click 3X and R/GA.
In her new position Daniel will play several key roles in the New York office; in addition to acting as both EP and general manager, she’ll oversee sales and marketing and is in the process of recruiting and hiring an experienced creative team, with plans to add additional VFX supervisors, CG supervisors, 2D and 3D lead compositors, designers and other key contributors.
Currently Eight handles a range of work, including commercials for such brands as Target, Pandora, Puma, Ram Trucks, New York Lottery, Call of Duty, Honda and Perrier. The studio has partnered with such directors as Craig Gillespie, Michel Gondry, Noam Murro, Tom Kuntz, and Michael Gracey.
The studio also has extensive feature credits, and provided VFX for the soon-to-be-released “I, Tonya,” directed by Gillespie. Eight’s New York office was the sole effects studio on this picture, completing over 200 shots delivered in under four months. They’ve also worked on films like “Beasts of No Nation” for Cary Fukunaga, “Knight & Day” for James Mangold, “Mother” for Darren Aronofsky, “Hostage” for Florent Emilio Siri and Gillespie’s 2014 sports drama, “Million Dollar Arm.”
Eight VFX has branched into episodic television as well, working on the hit Netflix series “Stranger Things 2” and “The Orville,” the sci-fi comedy from “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane. For the latter, the studio turned around over 120 shots in under four weeks. “They tapped into our strengths for large digital matte paintings, set extensions and photoreal CG,” Daniel said about their work.
The main focus of growing Eight VFX’s presence in New York, Daniel added, will be to continue to build on their current relations, both with directors and production houses, as well as with agencies and brands. “We’re also expanding our design and development and mixed media services for all of our clients across the board,’ she noted. “Our goal is to help clients achieve their visions and meet their objectives, so all touchpoints across all platforms will be important.”
Said Shira Boardman, EP in Eight’s L.A. office, “I’m excited to have a true partner in Abbe. She’s tuned in to the details of how to bring the right elements together to support and improve a job, and she’s a great problem-solver with so many creative resources to tap. I’m confident we’ll be able to build a bigger and better Eight, together.”
Naming Carolyn Reps to handle sales reunites Daniel with Carolyn Hill, who repped Curious Pictures when Daniel was a senior producer at that storied animation and mixed media studio.
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 โ and those many "Babadook" memes โ 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 โ "Bah-Bah-Doooook" โ 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