Absolute has brought Sophie Vaughan (née Hogg) aboard as executive producer, following previous roles at The Mill, MPC, Cut+Run and more recently, OKAY STUDIO, where she was responsible for reshaping the studio and acquiring fresh new talent.
Following a somewhat atypical career start as a city lawyer, a fateful introduction to Pat Joseph presented her with an entry route into the industry, via an assistant role at The Mill. Over a decade later, Vaughan has forged relationships with agencies such as Wieden+Kennedy, BBH and Mother. She’s also worked with directors including Traktor, Dougal Wilson, Andreas Nilsson and Sam Brown across a range of offline, CG, motion graphics, fashion and music promo projects.
Vaughan lists her career highlights to date, however, as producing Pedro Martin-Calero’s award-winning “Up” campaign for Honda Civic, Rupert Sanders’ famous “Peace” campaign for AXE (which boasts over 1.8 million YouTube views to date) and Milka’s all-too-delicious “Biscuit Jar” campaign.
Vaughan said of her new Absolute roost, “the breadth of their capabilities is impressive, from VFX, to CG, to color… not forgetting Blind Pig’s music and animation offering. It is truly an end-to-end studio.”
First-Time Feature Directors Make Major Splash At AFI Fest, Generate Oscar Buzz
Two first-time feature directors who are generating Oscar buzz this awards season were front and center this past weekend at AFI Fest in Hollywood. Rachel Morrison, who made history as the first woman nominated for a Best Cinematography Oscar---on the strength of Mudbound in 2018--brought her feature directorial debut, The Fire Inside (Amazon MGM Studios), to the festival on Sunday (10/27), and shared insights into the film during a conversation session immediately following the screening. This came a day after William Goldenberg, an Oscar-winning editor for Argo in 2013, had his initial foray into feature directing, Unstoppable (Amazon MGM Studios), showcased at the AFI proceedings. He too spoke after the screening during a panel discussion. The Fire Inside--which made its world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival--tells the story of Claressa “T-Rex” Shields (portrayed by Ryan Destiny), a Black boxer from Flint, Mich., who trained to become the first woman in U.S. history to win an Olympic Gold Medal in the sport. She achieved this feat--with the help of coach Jason Crutchfield (Brian Tyree Henry)--only to find that her victory at the Summer Games came with relatively little fanfare and no endorsement deals. So much for the hope that the historic accomplishment would be a ticket out of socioeconomic purgatory for Shields and her family. It seemed like yet another setback in a cycle of adversity throughout Shields’ life but she persevered, going on to win her second Gold Medal at the next Olympics and becoming a champion for gender equality and equitable pay for women in sports. Shields has served as a source of inspiration for woman athletes worldwide--as well as to the community of... Read More