EP/MD
The-Artery
Survey, Part 1. The Pandemic
1) Our draftLine/Anheuser Busch clients reached out shortly after we took The-Artery to fully-remote status asking if we thought we could take the upcoming online/print launch for their new Stella Artois’ brand and create it completely in cg – once they realized there was no possibility they’d be able to mount their planned print production given the recent installation of COVID restrictions. They originally had big plans for a traditional outdoor photo shoot. When they had to pivot and quickly reimagine, we jumped in and, collaborating closely with the draftLine creative team, designed and created a fully-integrated cg campaign which, ultimately, went beyond print to TV, out of home, Digital and more.
2) Because we had history with draftLine on previous cg executions, it was relatively easy for them to make the leap and realize we could help them move the idea to a fully-cg solution. And like the campaign we developed with draftLine, we have collaborated with a number of our client partners over these last seven months developing design, VFX and animation solutions for projects initially envisioned to be live-action executions.
3) The-Artery has been collaborating closely with its clients on a very high creative level for some time and this practice put us in a great position to be able to help draftLine successfully reimagine their initial photo/live-action concepts with a focus on creative VFX as a solution for the challenges COVID forced on the team. We have developed a strong creative team of artists who have successfully tackled tough creative challenges over time that provides us great experience to draw upon and a base we can rely on to develop successful pipelines to ensure we deliver complex and creative production solutions.
4) For The-Artery, and with strictly post solutions, our challenges are minimized because we have been working with a very tight remote crew of artists that has been fully-integrated with our on-site creative team for a number of years — so moving to a completely remote operation has been a very smooth transition.
5) Our biggest takeaway from that very first production with draftLine and the Stella team was the importance of complete and constant communication between our creative team, production and the agency/client team. Providing full preproduction prep to insure the client team is fully-aware of their own participation and obligation to the production really helps to insure success.
Survey, Part 2. Emerging filmmaking talent.
1) Create. Create and share the work you do as often as you can. Share your work and whenever you have the chance to collaborate with creatives you admire, jump at the chance to do so!
2) Learn as much as you possibly can about the creative tools available to you as a producer and, importantly, the creative tools directors, cinematographers, colorists, editors and visual effects artists are not only working with, but developing on an ongoing basis.
Be open, listen and participate whenever the opportunity presents itself.
3) I am learning something every day! – whether it’s from one of our incredibly talented artists who has a moment to share how they are considering creating an asset or a shot, or a director who’s working out a design approach, or one of our amazing core of coordinators and new artists who are bringing their creative voices and influences to projects – and our clients who bring a wholly different point-of-view to a job than we might …. every day I learn something new.
4) We always have our eye out for new talent and our founder+guru, Vico Sharabani, is actively committed to cultivating new talent and exposing young people to the opportunities in the creative technologies. We are, as a company, actively developing initiatives with creative tech companies to bring students into the business via education and exposure to these technologies as early as later high school grade levels.
5) I am particularly proud of a project our team recently wrapped – a completely CG music video that was created entirely during quarantine and utilized in-house motion capture only – remotely captured by our artists in their own homes – not on a mocap stage! They did an amazing job and, along with director, Uri Schutzer, and Vico Sharabani – delivered an amazing piece for online band/artists The Living Tombstone. It’s incredible. https://slt.re/561da
Review: Writer-Director Andrea Arnold’s “Bird”
"Is it too real for ya?" blares in the background of Andrea Arnold's latest film, "Bird," a 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) rides with her shirtless, tattoo-covered dad, Bug (Barry Keoghan), on his electric scooter past scenes of poverty in working-class Kent.
The song's question — courtesy of the Irish post-punk band Fontains D.C. — is an acute one for "Bird." Arnold's films ( "American Honey," "Fish Tank") are rigorous in their gritty naturalism. Her fiction films — this is her first in eight years — tend toward bleak, hand-held verité in rough-and-tumble real-world locations. Her last film, "Cow," documented a mother cow separated from her calf on a dairy farm.
Arnold specializes in capturing souls, human and otherwise, in soulless environments. A dream of something more is tantalizing just out of reach. In "American Honey," peace comes to Star (Sasha Lane) only when she submerges underwater.
In "Bird," though, this sense of otherworldly possibility is made flesh, or at least feathery. After a confusing night, Bailey awakens in a field where she encounters a strange figure in a skirt ( Franz Rogowski ) who arrives, like Mary Poppins, with a gust a wind. His name, he says, is Bird. He has a soft sweetness that doesn't otherwise exist in Bailey's hardscrabble and chaotic life.
She's skeptical of him at first, but he keeps lurking about, hovering gull-like on rooftops. He cranes his neck now and again like he's watching out for Bailey. And he does watch out for her, helping Bailey through a hard coming of age: the abusive boyfriend (James Nelson-Joyce) of her mother (Jasmine Jobson); her half brother (Jason Buda) slipping into vigilante violence; her father marrying a new girlfriend.
The introduction of surrealism has... Read More