Executive Producer Chris Zander and director Andrew Wonder have teamed to launch Tomorrow, a production company with offices in Playa Vista, Calif., and Brooklyn, NY, Zander, former managing director of Backyard Productions. and Wonder, who was previously on the roster of Station Film, will in their new venture produce work spanning commercials, films, music videos and branded content.
Tomorrow opens with a directorial roster that includes Wonder, Stuart Douglas, Erica Eng, Jesper Ericstam, and Parker Hill. Douglas and Ericstam had been at Backyard while Eng and Hill were previously unaffiliated with a production company.
Wonder’s filmmaking is emotional, approachable and textured; recent work includes the feature film Feral and projects for GM and Prudential. Douglas, who forged a name as half of the iconic photography team The Douglas Brothers, is equally skilled at directing real people, actors, and celebrities. Ericstam’s honest, funny, and humane voice as a filmmaker is evident throughout his work, including recent projects for IKEA, HSBC and McDonald’s.
Eng is an alum of SHOOT’s 2018 New Directors Showcase. She was also part of a select group of directors chosen for the Commercial Directors Diversity Program, the joint initiative of the AICP and DGA. Her varied work includes spots, music videos and short films, which have screened at film festivals including Holly Shorts and New Filmmakers. Hill is an accomplished photographer who has successfully transitioned to short films and music videos, work that reflects beauty and the mystery of human existence.
Zander related, “The production company model has stayed relatively the same forever. There’s nothing wrong with the heritage brands in our industry, but if you wanted to build the 2019 version of them, you wouldn’t and couldn’t build them the same way today. We created Tomorrow to take a stand for a new way of doing things, with an emphasis on creative collaboration and an empathetic and mindful way of working. This business is at a crossroads, and we are energized by the uncertainty and possibility.”
Wonder added, “Just as we expect agencies and clients to evolve, it is time we as directors and company owners do the same. At a time when anyone can be a content creator, everyone deserves a voice. Good ideas come from everywhere and no matter your gender, ethnicity or orientation you will not only be welcome but encouraged to be a part of the work we do. It’s no longer enough to be good, you need to be a good person too. Tomorrow doesn’t entertain ideas, we sponsor them. We grow our talent, putting fuel back into the creative fire.”
Tomorrow is represented on the East Coast by Diane Patrone of The Family, in the Midwest by Marni Halliburton and Sean Sullivan of Collective Content, and on the West Coast by Harrison Elkins of Hero Management.
Carrie Coon Relishes Being Part Of An Ensemble–From “The Gilded Age” To “His Three Daughters”
It can be hard to catch Carrie Coon on her own.
She is far more likely to be found in the thick of an ensemble. That could be on TV, in "The Gilded Age," for which she was just Emmy nominated, or in the upcoming season of "The White Lotus," which she recently shot in Thailand. Or it could be in films, most relevantly, Azazel Jacobs' new drama, "His Three Daughters," in which Coon stars alongside Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as sisters caring for their dying father.
But on a recent, bright late-summer morning, Coon is sitting on a bench in the bucolic northeast Westchester town of Pound Ridge. A few years back, she and her husband, the playwright Tracy Letts, moved near here with their two young children, drawn by the long rows of stone walls and a particularly good BLT from a nearby cafe that Letts, after biting into, declared must be within 15 miles of where they lived.
In a few days, they would both fly to Los Angeles for the Emmys (Letts was nominated for his performance in "Winning Time" ). But Coon, 43, was then largely enmeshed in the day-to-day life of raising a family, along with their nightly movie viewings, which Letts pulls from his extensive DVD collection. The previous night's choice: "Once Around," with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus.
Coon met Letts during her breakthrough performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" on Broadway in 2012. She played the heavy-drinking housewife Honey. It was the first role that Coon read and knew, viscerally, she had to play. Immediately after saying this, Coon sighs.
"It sounds like something some diva would say in a movie from the '50s," Coon says. "I just walked around in my apartment in my slip and I had pearls and a little brandy. I made a grocery list and I just did... Read More