Alan Pafenbach, whose work includes the lauded Volkswagen “Drivers Wanted” campaign back when he was managing partner/executive creative director at Arnold Worldwide, Boston, is joining SapientNitro as a creative director in Boston. He comes aboard the Boston office on the heels of it winning all digital duties globally across Chrysler’s Dodge, Jeep and Ram brands.
Pafenbach will report to SapientNitro VP Eric Healy and will partner with fellow creative director Barry Fiske on overseeing creative for the Chrysler account.
Prior to SapientNitro, Pafenbach managed the global creative efforts for Yahoo! while at OgilvyOne New York. Before that, he worked as a Boston creative director at Goodby Silverstein & Partners, with responsibility for the Hewlett-Packard business. Earlier he led creative at Arnold Worldwide, serving as exec creative director on VW.
“I’ve gotten to know the SapientNitro team over the last couple of months, and they truly get where the market is headed,” Pafenbach said. “From TV advertising to online video to social–and all the technology in between–SapientNitro is ahead of the curve, as the world becomes increasingly digital and channels inter-connected. We’re going to deliver fresh ideas and business results to our clients, and hopefully win some awards in the process.”
SapientNitro Boston is hiring 17 people this spring, primarily creative and information-architect positions. SapientNitro was formed last year following Sapient’s acquisition of Nitro Group. Headquartered in Boston, SapientNitro works with many New England clients, including CVS, Liberty Mutual, PerkinElmer, Staples, and Talbots. SapientNitro was recently named to Unilever’s global digital roster and tapped as lead agency for Target’s new e-commerce platform.
Harris Dickinson Toys With Ambiguity In “Babygirl” While Keeping a Secret From Nicole Kidman
Harris Dickinson was nervous to approach Nicole Kidman.
This would not necessarily be notable under normal circumstances, but the English actor had already been cast to star opposite her in the erotic drama "Babygirl," as the intern who initiates an affair with Kidman's buttoned-up CEO. They'd had a zoom with the writer-director Halina Reijn, who was excited by their playful banter and sure that Dickinson would hold his own. And yet when he found himself at the same event as Kidman, shyness took over. He admitted as much to Margaret Qualley, who took things into her own hands and introduced them.
"She helped me break the ice a bit," Dickinson said in a recent interview.
On set would be an entirely different story. Dickinson might not be nearly as "puckishly audacious" as his character Samuel but in the making of "Babygirl," he, Kidman and Reijn had no choice but to dive fearlessly into this exploration of sexual power dynamics, going to intimate, awkward, exhilarating and meme-able places. It's made the film, in theaters Christmas Day, one of the year's must-sees.
"There was an unspoken thing that we adhered to," Dickinson said. "We weren't getting to know each other's personal lives. When we were working and we were the characters, we didn't veer away from the material. I never tried to attach all of the history of Nicole Kidman. Otherwise it probably would have been a bit of a mess."
His is a performance that reconfirms what many in the film world have suspected since his debut seven years ago as a Brooklyn tough questioning his sexuality in Eliza Hittman's "Beach Rats": Dickinson is one of the most exciting young talents around.
Dickinson, 28, grew up in Leytonstone, in East London — the same neck of the woods as... Read More