Director Brent Jones has joined bicoastal production and post company humble. His signing was announced by Ned Brown, humble’s West Coast exec producer. Jones comes over from Motion Theory.
The director’s recent work includes several fast-paced and humorous campaigns for Nissan, one of several automotive brands for which he’s directed commercials and web content. His visual flair extends beyond sheet metal, however, as he’s also directed spots for FedEx, Monster.com, McDonald’s Ikea, Subway and DirecTV, among others.
Jones’ interest in directing was cultivated from an early age: his father was a director in his native Kansas City, and he recalls helping run casting sessions at age 15. He got his professional start shooting football games for his hometown Kansas City Chiefs before he made the move to L.A., where he studied at UCLA and worked his way up the production ranks on features with such directors as Steven Spielberg, Michael Bay, Cameron Crowe and Sam Raimi.
His 2004 short, The Company Man, received high acclaim at the Los Angeles Film Festival and paved the way for his transition into commercial directing in 2006. The following year, his work catapulted him into SHOOT’s New Director Showcase.
Jones’ signing comes on the heels of humble signing Oscar-nominated comedy director Rob Pearlstein who earned a Best Live-Action Short Film Oscar nomination in 2006 for Our Time Is Up. Both directors, as well as the rest of the humble roster, are represented by Hustle on the East Coast, Obsidian Reps in the Midwest, Jack Reed Reps in Texas, Siobhan McCafferty on the West Coast and Momentum Reps for the Hispanic market.
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More