Comedy director Andrew French, who began his career in the MTV promo department before going on to establish himself as a spot helmer, has joined Pictures in a Row, a Hollywood house headed by executive producer David Quartararo and owned by director Peter Lang.
French has already wrapped his first job at Pictures in a Row: an AT&T campaign out of DDB Chicago promoting a “Stretch” feature that translates voicemail into text messages.
The director was most recently repped by Mirror. He began his commercial directing career as one-half of the directing duo Spooner/French (with Nick Spooner who’s now with L.A.-based Beef Films) before branching out on his own in 2006. He has directed for such clients as Bud Light, Dominoes, Dodge, ESPN, Hyundai, the Pennsylvania Lottery, Subway and vegas.com.
Quartararo cited French’s prowess in comedy and eye for talent as among the factors that drew the company to the director. His comedy chops include following his MTV promo department tenure serving as a writer at Comedy Central for comedians Bill Maher, Dave Atell, Jim Gaffigan and Penn & Teller.
French now joins a Pictures in a Row directorial roster that consists of Lang, Jason House, Misko Iho and Keva Rosenfeld. The company is repped by independents Andrew Halpern on the West Coast and Texas, Tracy Bernard & Associates in the Midwest, and Ann McKallagat in the East.
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