Editor Eric Alexander-Hughes has joined The Den–the recently formed independent boutique shop founded by editor Christjan Jordan and EP Mary Ellen Duggan–for commercials, music videos, documentaries and web and TV content.
While studying at San Francisco State University, Alexander-Hughes started his editing career at ad agency Pereira O’Dell. He continued to hone his skills freelancing at top editorial houses in Los Angeles. Alexander-Hughes spent the last three years with Final Cut Editorial, where he edited Spotify’s “Black History Is Happening Now” campaign featuring Pharrell Williams and the Doritos 2019 Super Bowl spot “Boy Band” featuring Chance the Rapper and The Backstreet Boys,
Additional work by Alexander-Hughes includes editing the hit HBO documentary miniseries The Defiant Ones and dozens of music videos for J. Cole, Selena Gomez, Justin Bieber, Travis Scott, Diddy and Pharell, among others.
“I think of editing as a marriage between two elements–classical and jazz,” said Alexander-Hughes. “The first is exact and cerebral, while the second is more free-style and rooted in a gut-feeling. I like to mix the two in my work–adapting to the individual needs of the client and project.”
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More