Director Paul Gay is joining bicoastal/international Hungry Man for worldwide representation. He was previously with now defunct Omaha Pictures in the U.S., and Paul Weiland Film Company, London, in the U.K…..Clear, a privately held, London-based commercial and feature visual effects house, will not be launching a 4k/color grading unit and hiring Mick Vincent this month, as originally planned. Clear managing director Greg Caplan told SHOOT that funding for the new unit was cancelled, so as a result the company would not be going forward with expansion. Instead, Clear will continue to focus on its primary business of spot and feature effects, which remains steady; recent work has included effects shots for Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven and for such commercials as Ford’s “Penguins” for Ogilvy & Mather, London. Also in response to the turn of events, Caplan said that Clear has downsized from 49 to 35 employees while keeping focus on its core business….Director/cameraman Gillean Proctor has signed with Crossroads Films, bicoastal and Chicago. Crossroads initially got turned on to Proctor through its affiliation with Avion Films, Toronto…..Matt and David Cooper–owners of Lightning Media, The Vault, The Post Group and co-owners of iO Film–have purchased Hollywood-based Novastar Digital Sound. The goal is to provide a “creative campus” for the film and television communities with services including DI finishing, color correction, telecine, editing, visual effects, audio, conversions, duplication, DVD replication, and Internet design and development…. Rainmaker Limited Partnership in Vancouver, B.C. has launched a division called Rainmaker Animation & Visual Effects. Warren Franklin will head the new division as president. Franklin started his career at San Rafael-based Industrial Light & Magic in ’79 and moved up to manage Lucasfilm divisions including ILM, LucasArts Games and Skywalker Sound. In 1992 he made a move to now-defunct Colossal Pictures; Franklin held subsequent positions at Cinesite Hollywood (now managed by Kodak-owned Laser Pacific) and Pinnacle Studios…..
Faith In The Power of Holy Horror To Connect With Moviegoers–From “The Exorcist” To “Heretic”
In the new horror movie, "Heretic," Hugh Grant plays a diabolical religious skeptic who traps two scared missionaries in his house and tries to violently shake their faith.
What starts more as a religious studies lecture slowly morphs into a gory escape room for the two door-knocking members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, underscoring just how well-suited religion can be for terrifying and entertaining thrill-seeking moviegoers.
"I think it is a fascinating religion-related horror as it raises questions about the institution of religion, the patriarchy of religion," said Stacey Abbott, a film professor at Northumbria University in Newcastle, England, whose research interests include horror, vampires and zombies.
"But it also questions the nature of faith and confronts the audience with a debate about choice, faith and free will."
Horror has had a decades-long attraction to religion, Christianity especially in the U.S., with the 1970s "The Exorcist" and "The Omen" being prime examples. Beyond the jump scares, the supernatural elements of horror and its sublime nature pair easily with belief and spirituality — and religion's exploration of big existential questions, Abbott said. Horror is subversive. Real-life taboo topics and cultural anxieties are fair game.
"It is a rich canvas for social critique and it can also be a space to reassert traditional values," Abbott said in an email.
Death, demons and other tough topics religion and horror address
Religions and horror tackle similar questions about what it means to be human — how people relate to one another and the world, said Brandon Grafius, a Biblical studies professor at Ecumenical Theological Seminary in Detroit and an expert on... Read More