Director Matt Aselton, executive producer Marc Marrie and managing director Mal Ward have teamed to launch Arts & Sciences, a bicoastal production house. The trio comes over from Epoch Films and each will serve as a managing partner of Arts & Sciences, working out of its West Hollywood, Calif. office.
Aselton joined Epoch’s directorial roster in 2004, helming assorted commercials, and writing and directing his first feature film, Gigantic, which debuted at the Toronto Film Festival in ’08. Ward had been Epoch’s head of sales since ’02, and Marrie produced noted spots with Epoch for 11 years.
Aselton, Marrie and Ward’s new venture can access the back room operations (to reduce overhead) as well as the feature film division of Epoch Films, which is supportive of Arts & Sciences’ endeavors. Already Arts & Sciences has turned out several jobs and added to its directorial lineup. On the latter score, the company signed independent feature director Azazel Jacobs whose credits include Momma’s Man and The GoodTimesKid. Jacobs’ most recent feature, Terri, premiered at Sundance and will be released theatrically next month.
As for the alluded to projects produced by Arts & Sciences, thus far they include the Carl’s Jr. launch campaign for david&goliath, ESPN for Wieden+Kennedy, New York, and a package of three Jet Blue commercials for Mullen, Boston. All the work was directed by Aselton. Among the JetBlue fare was “Middle Seat,” a :30 which earned SHOOT Top Spot distinction (SHOOT, 5/6) and featured fast talker John Moschitta who’s famed in the ad biz for his 1981 Federal Express commercial “Fast Paced World,” directed by the legendary Joe Sedelmaier.
Furthermore at press time, Arts & Sciences was in production on a new launch for Toyota via Saatchi & Saatchi LA, also being helmed by Aselton.
Arts & Sciences will be represented by Representation Co’s Tara Averill and John Robertson on the East Coast, and Dexter Randazzo and Irma Rodriguez on the West Coast. Marguerite Juliusson will handle sales in the Midwest.
Maggie Smith, Star of Stage, Film and “Downton Abbey,” Dies At 89
Maggie Smith, the masterful, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar for "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" in 1969 and gained new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in "Downton Abbey" and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, died Friday. She was 89. Smith's sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, said in a statement that Smith died early Friday in a London hospital. "She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother," they said in a statement issued through publicist Clair Dobbs. Smith was frequently rated the preeminent British female performer of a generation that included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench, with a clutch of Academy Award nominations and a shelf full of acting trophies. She remained in demand even in her later years, despite her lament that "when you get into the granny era, you're lucky to get anything." Smith drily summarized her later roles as "a gallery of grotesques," including Professor McGonagall. Asked why she took the role, she quipped: "Harry Potter is my pension." Richard Eyre, who directed Smith in a television production of "Suddenly Last Summer," said she was "intellectually the smartest actress I've ever worked with. You have to get up very, very early in the morning to outwit Maggie Smith." "Jean Brodie," in which she played a dangerously charismatic Edinburgh schoolteacher, brought her the Academy Award for best actress, and the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) as well in 1969. Smith added a supporting actress Oscar for "California Suite" in 1978, Golden Globes for "California Suite" and "Room with a View," and BAFTAs for lead actress in "A Private Function" in 1984, "A Room with a View" in... Read More