Alkemy X has hired Rupert Cresswell as creative director. He will work closely with executive producer Eve Ehrich to continue to build the company’s design and animation team, working across branded and entertainment projects.
Cresswell comes to Alkemy X from MPC, where he spent nearly eight years as a director and creative director working on projects for clients such as Adidas, Samsung, Jaguar, Ford, Google, Sky One and Fox Searchlight. His stylized work is characterized by a meticulous eye for design and a subtle fusion of live action and visual effects to augment the everyday with fantastic elements. Cresswell’s first narrative short, Charlie Cloudhead, starring Paul Higgins and Daisy Haggard, enjoyed a successful international festival run. His work has garnered numerous awards and accolades and he has been tapped as a thought leader, speaking at industry conferences including IBC, PromaxBDA and SIGGRAPH.
London-born Cresswell studied graphic design and illustration at the prestigious University of the Arts London, organically navigating into the advertising arena after landing his first professional gig as a runner at a SoHo post shop. He quickly immersed himself in the industry, rapidly amassing hands-on experience in the broadcast promo space working for clients such as Bloomberg, NatGeo and Sky before stepping into the role of director. He joined MPC London in 2012, helming VFX-driven spots for clients while refining his aesthetic at the intersection of design, visual effects and live action. He stepped up to a creative director role when he moved to MPC’s New York location in 2017.
Alkemy X maintains offices in NY, Philadelphia, L.A. and Amsterdam.
Review: Writer-Director Aaron Schimberg’s “A Different Man”
Imagine you could wake up one morning, stand at the mirror, and literally peel off any part of your looks you don't like โ with only movie-star beauty remaining.
How would it change your life? How SHOULD it change your life?
That's a question โ well, a launching point, really โ for Edward, protagonist of Aaron Schimberg's fascinating, genre-bending, undeniably provocative and occasionally frustrating "A Different Man," featuring a stellar trio of Sebastian Stan, Adam Pearson and Renate Reinsve.
The very title is open to multiple interpretations. Who (and what) is "different"? The original Edward, who has neurofibromatosis, a genetic disorder that causes bulging tumors on his face? Or the man he becomes when he's able to slip out of that skin? And is he "different" to others, or to himself?
When we meet Edward, a struggling actor in New York (Stan, in elaborate makeup), he's filming some sort of commercial. We soon learn it's an instructional video on how to behave around colleagues with deformities. But even there, the director stops him, offering changes. "Wouldn't want to scare anyone," he says.
On Edward's way home on the subway, people stare. Back at his small apartment building, he meets a young woman in the hallway, in the midst of moving to the flat next door. She winces visibly when she first sees him, as virtually everyone does.
But later, Ingrid (Reinsve) tries to make it up to him, coming over to chat. She is charming and forthright, and tells Edward she's a budding playwright.
Edward goes for a medical checkup and learns that one of his tumors is slowly progressing over the eye. But he's also told of an experimental trial he could join. With the possibility โ maybe โ of a cure.
So... Read More