Production and post house Optimus has announced a new partnership that includes 11 Optimus team members. This new senior management team will help guide overall company strategy, from marketing to branding to workflow to personnel, and will have input on the focus of Optimus resources. The partners also will be responsible for creating, defining, and translating Optimus’ move to the Wrigley Building, as well as updating and growing the company’s overall branding and image.
“This is an exciting red-letter day for Optimus,” said the company’s president, Tom Duff. “The appointment of these new partners reflects our desire to have active voices in management from all areas of our company. Our success depends on the willingness and ability of the team to address not only individual departmental responsibilities, but also our collective responsibility for the company as a whole. This new lineup is the perfect partnership to take us into a new era.”
Added partner and EP/managing director Gretchen Praeger, “There’s tons of mutual respect among this group, and we’re excited to begin Optimus’ next chapter together.”
The new partners in Optimus are: creative director Donnie Bauer, editor Nate Cali, executive creative director Mike Ciacciarelli, CFO Jim Cowhey, EP Brian Hrastar, EP/managing director Therese Hunsberger, EP/managing director Lisa Masseur, director of operations Knox McCormac, editor Deb Schimmel, technical director Ken Winke, and EP/managing director Praeger.
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