The Colonie has added colorist Jennifer Gaida to its team. Her hiring marks the launch of the Chicago-based company’s color grading division, rounding out the one-stop editing, design, and postproduction boutique’s full-roster of high-end services and talent.
Gaida exited Energy BBDO’s Flare and officially joined The Colonie staff at the beginning of the year. A previous three-year stint at Utopic honed her skills as both a colorist and editor. Her addition to The Colonie’s team of editors, designers, creative directors, animators, producers, visual effects artists and finishers provides clients with an accessible collective of top-tier talent–all under one roof.
Her credits include color grading broadcast commercials and social media campaigns for a mix of national brands, such as Starbucks, Porsche, Revlon, and Pantene. Gaida has also been called on to color grade a variety of independent projects, including the short films Milk Shake and Networking Lunch, as well as several music videos, such as the recently released “Stayed Down” featuring Twista.
Gaida has settled into The Colonie’s new Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve suite and hit the ground running, completing projects for Perrier, Cresco, La Mer, Walmart, HP, and a Toyota campaign out of Burrell Communications.
“In 2020, we plan to continue building The Colonie’s team of out-of-the-box creative thinkers and providing innovative solutions for every size screen while getting the most out of each budget. Our goal is to keep raising the bar and bringing exceptional talent on board. The addition of Jennifer does just that,” said company partner and sr. editor Brian Sepanik.
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