Female-led music and sound house Nylon Studios amplifies its continued efforts to champion diverse talent and gender equality in the sonic realm of advertising by partnering with Free the Bid to add nine women composers to the initiative’s newly launched “database of women composers for visual video.” Nylon Studios is led by the female team of Christina Carlo, EP of the NYC studio, and Karla Henwood, executive producer of music in Australia.
Carlo noted, “The women of Free the Bid have championed female talent in a tangible and unapologetic way, one that has inspired an entire industry to consider who they are offering creative opportunities to and why. So, of course we are committing to this bold initiative, as involving at least one female composer on each and every brief is something we’ve been adamant about for quite some time. The reality is, it’s a craft that is wildly underrepresented by women, but we’re tipping the scales.”
Henwood added, “I’ve had the opportunity to employ, nurture and empower some truly great female talent. The launch of Free The Bid’s Women Composer Database is a fantastic next step in showcasing the remarkable talents of the female composers, not just on Nylon’s roster, but of women composers globally. We’re really excited about the movement and how the industry is starting to really embrace gender equity and cultural diversity.”
Nylon’s participation and support of the Free the Bid movement comes on the heels of numerous accolades recognizing the female talent at the company. Most recently, Henwood won the B&T Women in Media Award for 2018 Creative Producer of the Year and Nylon’s full-time composer Lydia Davies won an award for Musical Excellence in the inaugural Australian Women in Music Awards (AWMA). Nylon is also nominated for Best Use of Music in the London International Awards, with music supervision by Chelsea Ramsden.
The female composers that have partnered with Nylon for the launch of the composer Free the Bid initiative are Davies, Margot, Elena-Kats Chernin, Lindsay Marcus, Johanna Cranitch, Genevieve Vincent, Chiara Costanza, Julia Kent and Annรฉ Kulonen.
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