Production company PANOPTICA has hired Roan Bibby as executive producer. Bibby’s experience runs the gamut from commercials to branded content, feature films, and series. He will oversee production, develop PANOPTICA’s roster of directors, seek out new creative talent, quarterback sales, and cultivate client relationships, working closely with founder/director Hughes William Thompson.
Hailing from Berkeley, Calif., Bibby has worked around with the globe with the likes of 72andSunny, Big Block Content, Mustache Agency, ArtClass, Roger, Bodega, Mekanism and Vox Media, creating work for brands including ESPN, Google, Hotels.com, Marriott, Chase, Talenti, Samsung, Peloton, CNN, MSG, Hulu, Lee Jeans, T Brand, Macy’s, Conde Nast, Pandora and Carl’s Jr.
Along the way he has had the opportunity to work with such notables as Anderson Cooper, Swae Lee, Lil Yachty, Joe Montana, Allison Williams, Scott Van Pelt, Andy Cohen, Daniel Kaluuya, Ken Jeong, Anna Wintour, Trudie Styler, Maria Dizzia, Paloma Elsesser, Jason Wu and Emily Ratajkowski.
Bibby’s long-form producing credits include Jeremy Hersh’s The Surrogate (SXSW 2020), Michael Feinstein’s The Browsing Effect (2017), and Forever Alone, a digital series commissioned by Adaptive Studios. He was also recently featured in the BBC series Talking Movies, exploring the role of producers in the film industry.
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