Flavor has added Joshua Studebaker to its L.A. staff as CG supervisor.
For more than eight years, Studebaker has been a go-to freelance CG artist in the L.A. marketplace, specializing in design, animation, dynamics, lighting/shading and compositing via Maya, C4D, Vray/Octane, Nuke and After Effects. A frequent collaborator with Flavor and its brand and agency partners, Studebaker has also worked with Alma Mater, Arsenal FX, Brand New School, Buck, Greenhaus GFX, Imaginary Forces and We Are Royale in the past five years alone.
In his new role with Flavor, Studebaker oversees visual effects and 3D services across the company’s global operations. Flavor EP Darren Jaffe stated, “Our creative capacity and our capabilities are growing as a global studio, and bringing Josh in to help shape our pipeline across multiple offices will be invaluable to maximizing our creativity and production expertise to benefit every partner, artist and project.”
Flavor’s talents in its Chicago, Los Angeles and Detroit studios have direct access to color-grading, VFX and picture finishing technologies like Autodesk Lustre and Flame Premium, for starters. Also, Flavor as part of the Cutters Studios’ family can access that network’s talents and full-service production/post-production operations–in those cities, and in New York, Tokyo and Kansas City.
Studebaker said, “I see Flavor as a place to grow my creative and design skills, as well as help bring more standardization to our process in house,” he explained. “My vision is to help Flavor become more agile and more efficient, and to do our best work together.”
Rom-Com Mainstay Hugh Grant Shifts To The Dark Side and He’s Never Been Happier
After some difficulties connecting to a Zoom, Hugh Grant eventually opts to just phone instead.
"Sorry about that," he apologizes. "Tech hell." Grant is no lover of technology. Smart phones, for example, he calls the "devil's tinderbox."
"I think they're killing us. I hate them," he says. "I go on long holidays from them, three or four days at at time. Marvelous."
Hell, and our proximity to it, is a not unrelated topic to Grant's new film, "Heretic." In it, two young Mormon missionaries (Chloe East, Sophie Thatcher) come knocking on a door they'll soon regret visiting. They're welcomed in by Mr. Reed (Grant), an initially charming man who tests their faith in theological debate, and then, in much worse things.
After decades in romantic comedies, Grant has spent the last few years playing narcissists, weirdos and murders, often to the greatest acclaim of his career. But in "Heretic," a horror thriller from A24, Grant's turn to the dark side reaches a new extreme. The actor who once charmingly stammered in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and who danced to the Pointer Sisters in "Love Actually" is now doing heinous things to young people in a basement.
"It was a challenge," Grant says. "I think human beings need challenges. It makes your beer taste better in the evening if you've climbed a mountain. He was just so wonderfully (expletive)-up."
"Heretic," which opens in theaters Friday, is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, co-writers of "A Quiet Place." In Grant's hands, Mr. Reed is a divinely good baddie — a scholarly creep whose wry monologues pull from a wide range of references, including, fittingly, Radiohead's "Creep."
In an interview, Grant spoke about these and other facets of his character, his journey... Read More