Creative post studio Spontaneous has upped its CG game by bringing VFX artist Ed Manning on board as CG supervisor to oversee the increasingly complex CG projects coming through the New York office.
A Harvard grad, Manning has held key executive positions at digital agency R/GA and worked as a freelance VFX supervisor and technical director across a variety of disciplines–from feature films and commercials to software development–with such shops as Method Studios and Psyop. This new role represents a chance for him to take on a more meaningful stake in enhancing and shaping the technical and creative skillset at an evolving studio.
“Spontaneous has a solid creative core of artists across all post disciplines. I’m looking forward to undertaking more complex projects, and building on their already substantial body of knowledge, best practices, and technical resources for the department,” said Manning. “I am also excited about tapping into their foundation in commercial production as a basis for growth into other rich-media areas, like experience design, interactive multimedia, and casual gaming. Finally, the position also affords me the opportunity to take on a leadership role in more personally rewarding areas, like mentoring artists.”
Spontaneous is headed by creative director John Leamy and team leaders Lawrence Nimrichter, director of animation/associate creative director, and Andy Milkis, director of VFX. Manning and Leamy had known each other for years and have worked together on numerous occasions so the opportunity to collaborate on a more permanent basis was a natural step.
Craig Henighan Sounds Off On “Deadpool & Wolverine”
Hollywood lore has it that character actor Edmund Gwenn--while on his deathbed--quipped, “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.”
The second part of that darkly witty utterance remains all too true today as Craig Henighan--a Best Achievement in Sound Mixing Oscar nominee in 2019 for Roma--can attest in that he had to grapple with the sonic of being comic for this year’s box office hit, Deadpool & Wolverine (20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios).
The degree of inherent difficulty was ramped up even further because Deadpool & Wolverine had to seamlessly bring together high action-adventure exploits with moments and dialogue that tickled the funny bone. There’s a mesh of humorous banter--a staple of the franchise--along with major spectacle replete with explosions, fights, an impactful score and off-the-wall musical numbers.
Henighan explained that among the prime challenges for him from a sound perspective was having to make sure every joke landed within the construct of a superhero film. The tendency for a tentpole movie of this variety, he noted, is to gravitate towards big, loud audio spanning music, dialogue and sound effects. But the unique comedic element of Deadpool & Wolverine necessitated that re-recording mixer and supervising sound editor Henighan strike a delicate balance. “You need to get out of the way for the comedy,” he related. The jokes in a superhero film become “a real dance” as Henighan had to establish a rhythm that did justice to both the comedy and the action as the narrative moves back and forth between them--and sometimes the funny and the high energy, high decibel superhero dynamic unfold simultaneously in a scene or sequence. The “sonic fabric” has to... Read More