Creative director Nathan Frank has joined Goodby Silverstein & Partners (GS&P), New York. The move reunites Frank with his former partner, Paul Caiozzo, who took over as executive creative director earlier this month.
“This gives me the opportunity to build something with a partner who I love and trust, for a company that I have always admired,” said Frank.
Frank comes to GS&P following the sale of the design-centric pharmaceutical company Help Remedies, where he served as chief creative officer and co-founder since 2009. Under Frank’s leadership, Help grew from an art project available only at design stores into a national brand available at Target and Walgreens. In the process Help earned multiple advertising and marketing awards, including the Dieline’s Best of Show for its package design and the Cannes Grand Prix for Good for “Help! I Want To Save A Life,” a bandage kit that allows users to easily sign up for a bone-marrow registry.
Frank spent his earlier career as a copywriter and creative director for NYC advertising agencies Saatchi & Saatchi, BBH, TAXI and Cliff Freeman & Partners. His work for Procter & Gamble’s Tide to Go (“Talking Stain”) won multiple advertising awards and was voted YouTube’s favorite Super Bowl ad of 2008. Among its many other awards, his campaign for Crest (“You Can Say Anything with a Smile”) garnered a Gold Lion at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
Frank will work on new-business projects at GS&P.
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