Yard Dog, an L.A.-based production company led by partners/executive producers Joe Piccirillo and Beth Pearson, has formed an alliance with Elma Garcia Films (EGF) for advertising projects. Yard Dog will act as executive producer and provide sales support for EGF, home to award-winning director/cinematographer Elma Garcia. The two companies will produce advertising assignments jointly.
The alliance adds further creative depth to the Yard Dog roster while providing Garcia with access to a well-connected, accomplished EP team and a national sales network.
Garcia said the opportunity to ally with Yard Dog came at a good time. “It allows me to return to my roots as a director,” she explained. “It’s a chance to branch out, to work with new agencies and explore different genres. I want to focus on shooting commercials and telling stories.”
In recent years, Garcia has directed several groundbreaking campaigns for companies in the healthcare and pharmaceutical sector. Among them is a spot for Gilead Sciences, maker of a treatment for hepatitis C, that, through a sequence of artfully-crafted vignettes, evokes the transition patients make from despair to hope. “We’ve done a lot of projects for Gilead and they’ve been effective because they are not like typical pharma spots,” Garcia said. “We took it to a new level.”
Other notable work includes the documentary-style Levi’s 501 commercial Jack Owens, about a legendary Mississippi blues musician; Jack Daniel’s’ Alaska, about an adventure pilot; and the Visa spot Ticket to Paris, where a man surprises his wife with a trip to Europe.
Garcia began her career as a still photographer before becoming a live action director. Encouraged by cinematographers Robert Richardson, Haskell Wexler and Conrad Hall, she eventually moved behind the camera and has now functioned almost exclusively as a director/cinematographer for 23 years. “I’ve always had a keen eye and a good sense for framing,” she said. “I began shooting because it was a way to feel intimate with my subject. I enjoy working with actors as well as real people. I just love telling a good story.”
Garcia recently moderated the Meet the Commercial Nominees panel discussion at the DGA Theater in Los Angeles in which four of the five directors nominated for this year’s DGA Award for spotmaking shared insights into their work: the eventual DGA winner, Spike Jonze of MJZ; Steve Ayson of MJZ; Fredrik Bond of MJZ; and David Shane of O Positive. The remaining nominee, Martin de Thurah of Epoch Films, was out of the country on a shoot.
Rom-Com Mainstay Hugh Grant Shifts To The Dark Side and He’s Never Been Happier
After some difficulties connecting to a Zoom, Hugh Grant eventually opts to just phone instead.
"Sorry about that," he apologizes. "Tech hell." Grant is no lover of technology. Smart phones, for example, he calls the "devil's tinderbox."
"I think they're killing us. I hate them," he says. "I go on long holidays from them, three or four days at at time. Marvelous."
Hell, and our proximity to it, is a not unrelated topic to Grant's new film, "Heretic." In it, two young Mormon missionaries (Chloe East, Sophie Thatcher) come knocking on a door they'll soon regret visiting. They're welcomed in by Mr. Reed (Grant), an initially charming man who tests their faith in theological debate, and then, in much worse things.
After decades in romantic comedies, Grant has spent the last few years playing narcissists, weirdos and murders, often to the greatest acclaim of his career. But in "Heretic," a horror thriller from A24, Grant's turn to the dark side reaches a new extreme. The actor who once charmingly stammered in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and who danced to the Pointer Sisters in "Love Actually" is now doing heinous things to young people in a basement.
"It was a challenge," Grant says. "I think human beings need challenges. It makes your beer taste better in the evening if you've climbed a mountain. He was just so wonderfully (expletive)-up."
"Heretic," which opens in theaters Friday, is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, co-writers of "A Quiet Place." In Grant's hands, Mr. Reed is a divinely good baddie — a scholarly creep whose wry monologues pull from a wide range of references, including, fittingly, Radiohead's "Creep."
In an interview, Grant spoke about these and other facets of his character, his journey... Read More