Bicoastal production studio m ss ng p eces has added Adrian Yu to its directorial roster. Yu is a director, creative director, and new media artist who brings a multidisciplinary skill set to his projects. This marks his first commercial representation.
Yu began his career interning at Sid Lee’s New York office while still a student in NYU’s cinema studies program. After graduation he joined the agency full time as a copywriter-art director, and went on to become lead creative at its in-house production arm Sid Lee Studios–directing spots for Adidas, Porsche, and Def Jam. He later founded his own studio Offline Projects to handle a mix of design, digital, and experiential projects for fashion, music, and cultural brands including Alexander Wang, GoldLink, 88 Rising, and Amazon Music. Since then, Yu has worked as a freelance director on projects for Nike, Spotify, One Plus, and others, directed promos and title sequences for Zack Snyder’s Justice League, and his new media installations have been exhibited at Art Basel Hong Kong and Wallplay NY.
“Adrian is an extraordinarily talented visual storyteller. He truly does it all and has really made a name for himself with an impressive creative portfolio,” said Brian Latt, managing partner, m ss ng p eces. “We’re excited to team with him as he enters a new stage in his career and can’t wait to see what he will create.”
“My work is very multi-faceted and I think about projects more holistically in terms of film, digital, design, and experience as interconnected storytelling mediums. M ss ng p eces is fantastic because they work across so many disciplines and pursue the kinds of storytelling that resonate with me,” shared Yu. “I’m happy to be joining this kind of company that has a very forward-thinking outlook on directing and what filmmakers can do.”
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More