Bicoastal production company Flesh and Bones expands its roster with the signing of multimedia animation director Antoni Sendra Barrachina, aka Podenco. This marks the first time the director has been represented in the U.S. market for commercials and music videos.
Podenco is an internationally accomplished director and animator who specializes in mixed media driven projects across a broad range of platforms from commercials and music videos to title sequences for film and television. His signature style of textured and layered mixed media merges both analog and digital realms, employing a wide variety of mediums including live action, animation, stop-motion, and collage. He has designed and directed projects for brands worldwide including Adidas, Twitter, Warner Music, Sony Music, Vox Media, Time Studios and Red Bull.
Podenco graduated from an audio/visual production program in Spain in 2005 and started working mainly in documentaries for television. The turning point in his career happened in 2012 while working on a documentary project when he started mixing animation with live action. He suddenly found his place and his voice as a filmmaker. Soon after that, he became a freelance director.
“I always wanted to direct. For my generation, cinema was THE art, so I was naturally attracted to it. In the beginning, I was focused on directing live action, but then I discovered animation and realized that it could be a more creative and equally effective medium to tell stories. So I started experimenting with mixing all the mediums. My way of working is to try to light a little flame in a dark room to then, obsessively, find the exit. Obsession is my creative fuel.”
Podenco’s unique style of layering multiple images and then peeling back the layers to find the unexpected visuals has lent itself very well to the advertising space and music video world. One of his recent projects for Sony Music was a video for Rat Pack icon Dean Martin. “I tried to make the old, classic imagery look cool and relevant, which was a real challenge. It was done mostly in 3D, but I tweaked every frame in Photoshop to make it look like a vintage airbrushed film poster illustration,” he explained.
Flesh and Bones’ EP Rob Traill and ECD Tony Benna were instant fans upon discovering Podenco’s art and work.
“His style is raw and rebellious, yet has such a beautiful technical touch to every single piece. It’s exactly the type of thumb-stopping visual work we want to offer our brand and agency clients at Flesh and Bones,” said Traill.
Podenco joins a Flesh and Bones roster of directors specializing in media-mixing, including Aaron Ray, Bryce Wymer, Darcy Prendergast, Monica Medellin, Kevin Antoine, Adam Avilla, and Benna.
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More