Talent Infusion At Mill+
Managing director Rani Melendez and exec creative director Phil Crowe of The Mill have spearheaded an influx of new hires to the Mill+ roster in L.A.
Coming aboard Mill+ are creative directors Bowe King and Evan Parsons, and executive producer Ben Leiser. Additionally, Mill+ head of production Elizabeth Newman has been promoted to exec producer.
King previously worked at The Mill in New York as art director, and most recently in Chicago as an integral part of the senior team.
Parsons has had stints at a range of studios including Buck, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Imaginary Forces. Prior to joining The Mill, Parsons was associate creative director at Hue&Cry for The Martin Agency where he directed and creative directed projects including Care’s “Power of a Box,” Oreo’s “Mel’s Mini Mart” and the show opener for CT5.
EP Leiser brings with him over 15 years of production experience, working for production companies including Believe Media, Park Pictures, MJZ and RSA. He also has extensive experience working with brands such as Apple, Lexus, Nike, Coca-Cola and HBO, recently leading the promo campaign for the network’s successful limited series Big Little Lies.
Since joining Mill+ in 2013, Newman has produced a diverse range of powerful work including JAY-Z’s epic animated music video for “The Story of O.J.,” campaigns for Google Play, and the poignant titles and graphics for documentary feature We Are the Giant.
Framestore Brings Hulk To Life
Oscar-winning studio Framestore is showing its cross-platform capabilities yet again by bringing the powerful Marvel character Hulk to life on both film and commercial platforms. The Film team in London and Integrated Advertising team in L.A. collaborated on the latest CG characterization of Hulk for upcoming Marvel Studios releases and Renault’s commercial “Renault Kwid.”
“We’ve honed a very tight transition pipeline for film characters into other platforms,” said creative director Ben West. ”The ability to utilize detailed assets with complex rigs ensures we’re meeting the cinematic standard demanded for Marvel projects.”
Shot in São Paulo by Smuggler director Jonathan Gurvit, the “Renault Kwid” adventure begins as a man imagines what the Hulk would do as news breaks that a satellite is falling towards Earth. Framestore artists brought Hulk to life with his signature leaps taking him to the top of the Banco Banespa building before smashing the explosive satellite mid-sky.
Framestore worked to exaggerate Hulk’s strenuous muscle and facial detail. The teams worked closely together to enhance the amount of detail needed in his muscles, including in the rig, muscular weight in animation, textural displacements of veins, lighting art direction to enhance angles, and shot-specific muscle sculpting to refine even further. Other subtle yet essential details of Hulk include peach fuzz on the body, facial stubble and sweat stems.
Timber Shows “Loyalty” For Kendrick Lamar
Timber once again contributed to Kendrick Lamar’s artistry, this time in his new music video “Loyalty” featuring Rihanna. The cinematic piece, directed by Dave Meyers via production house Freenjoy with VFX by Timber, stands as a metaphoric exploration of loyalty under diverse and thrilling circumstances, from city rooftop ledges, where Rihanna holds onto Kendrick’s arm for dear life, to surrealistic sharks stealthily ascending from the ground. The Timber team included creative directors Jonah Hall and Kevin Lau, EP Sabrina Elizondo,Flame artists Miles Kinghorn and Tim Miller, Nuke artists Andrew Ashton, Matt LaVoy, Jason Forster, Eric Almeras, Eduardo Anton and Michael Loney, and CG artists Jeff Willette, Kevin Gillen and Erik Zimmermann.
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