Casta Diva Pictures, an international production company with offices in New York, Milan, London and six other cities, is adding a select group of photographers from Artist & Agency to its directorial roster for global commercial and web video representation. Additionally Casta Diva will serve as the outsourced production company for all film and video projects generated by Artist & Agency, a boutique shop which was founded by Noah Bruun and Gina Whitehead in 2011 to represent and manage top fashion and beauty photographers and directors.
The infusion of talent is the second major move Casta Diva Pictures has made in the past six months to bolster its presence in the U.S. advertising market. Earlier this year the company established a stateside foothold with the hiring of Jack Cohn as its N.Y.-based executive producer and partner. Cohn is best known to the American ad community as the founder and executive producer of several noted production companies, including Lovinger Cohn, Cohn & Company, and C Entertainment. He’s managed and built the careers of such directors as Michael Grasso, Paul Goldman, Paul Cade and Jeff Lovinger, while producing broadcast work for a who’s who of global brands and assorted ad agencies.
The Artist & Agency photographers who will join the Casta Diva Pictures lineup of directors includes Gilles Bensimon, Rasmus Mogensen, Morten Bjarnhof, Pascal Demeester, Torkil Gudnason and the team of Zoren Gold & Minori.
“What’s great about this association is that it fits perfectly into the Casta Diva 360 approach to finding solutions for our agency clients,” said Cohn. “It allows us to offer a full range of production services to accompany Artists & Agency’s extremely talented and creative image makers, which will lead to finding the ideal scenario for any project worldwide.”
Birth of a partnership
Casta Diva Pictures’ relationship with Artist & Agency grew out of a project shot last year for the Vidal Sassoon brand via agency Atelier, the fashion and beauty arm of Leo Burnett Worldwide. Shot in Europe and directed by Mogensen, Artist & Agency tabbed Casta Diva Pictures to handle aspects of its production.
Based on the success of this job, Luca Oddo, chairman of Casta Diva Group, offered Bruun and Whitehead the opportunity to form an exclusive partnership.
Bruun noted, “We’re confident this relationship will endure and grow to be very powerful. We feel that linking our boutique agency with the Casta Diva Group will revolutionize how creatives solve their problems.”
The relationship with Artist & Agency adds to what originally attracted Cohn to Casta Diva Pictures. He said he was drawn to the global nature of the company which maintains production covering every major region from Europe, North America, South America, Africa and Asia. He also cited Casta Diva’s holistic approach to producing advertising content; various aspects of its parent company, the Casta Diva Group, handle everything from production for television commercials and web video to branded entertainment, print, digital, events and experiential installations.
“Luca and his team have created a company that’s ideally positioned to handle the needs of a changing marketplace, where clients and agencies are not only looking for standout creative talent but also global efficiencies in integrated production that will allow them to maximize their budgets and create assets for all their media channels,” said Cohn.
Notable U.S. work for Casta Diva Pictures includes a Gillette campaign produced for BBDO New York that ran in support of the 2012 Summer Games in London, as well as the aforementioned work for Vidal Sassoon. The company’s Buenos Aries office also teamed with the New York operation earlier this summer to shoot a Latin American campaign for Ace detergent that was shot in the U.S. with Modern Family star Sophia Vergara. The project included both broadcast commercials and a viral component for the web.
In addition to New York, Milan, London and Buenos Aires, Casta Diva Pictures also maintains full service production offices in Munich, Prague, Istanbul, Mumbai and Cape Town.
Michael Gracey Delves Into The Evolution of “Better Man”
Michael Gracey’s feature directorial debut--The Greatest Showman, released in 2017--garnered assorted honors, including a Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy, followed shortly thereafter by an Oscar nod for Best Original Song (“This is Me”). During the making of that film, Gracey got a chance to connect with a real-life showman, British pop superstar Robbie Williams, who lent some musical support and morale boosting to its star, Hugh Jackman.
Gracey and Williams developed a rapport with one another on The Greatest Showman and kept in touch. They swapped life experiences and Gracey, who clearly knows a worthwhile story when he hears it, became intrigued by Williams--and how entertaining his tales were. Gracey found it remarkable that despite drug and alcohol abuse, Williams vividly remembered so many details of his life.
Given that Williams had a recording studio at his home, Gracey implored him to commit those memories to audio. With that, a routine was born. Whenever Gracey visited Los Angeles, he’d come to Williams’ home where they’d kibitz in the studio and Williams would talk into the microphone, recollecting different aspects and stages of his life. While the original intent was just to get Williams to share and preserve his story, Gracey began chronologically rearranging these audio clips collected over a year and a half, patching together an a spoken mosaic of William’s life. It was during that process that Gracey realized he had the framework for an engaging narrative film.
That narrative took a seemingly bizarre turn as Gracey sought a departure from the traditional musical biopic. What struck Gracey was Williams referring to himself repeatedly as “a performing... Read More