Alex Lopez has been appointed chief creative officer of McCann Worldgroup Japan, a newly created post. Lopez will work closely with each group agency’s executive creative director (ECD) and senior management to continue raising the creative output and foster a more collaborative environment and strengthen the creative culture to deliver better solutions to clients.
Lopez has 20+ years of experience in global creative agency work with high profile clients in both entertainment and fast-moving consumer goods. He started his career in advertising with Leo Burnett from 1988 until 2001 which took him to multiple countries, including Venezuela, Germany, France and Japan. He then spent five years at Beacon Communications in Japan, a Leo Burnett, Dentsu and Publicis joint venture, where he served as CCO for three years until being promoted to managing director.
Lopez is a digital native with particular passion and interest in new tech trends in mobile, interactive retail, and big data. He decided to explore diverse creative fields, from digital movie studios to tech startups all in pursuit of innovation. He has received creative accolades from major international and Japanese award shows including Cannes Lions and the ACC in Japan.
Rob Reilly, McCann global creative chairman, commented, “Japan is a major focus for us. Alex has the depth, knowledge and creative chops that we need to strengthen our creative leadership in Japan. I have tremendous confidence in him and all of the ECDs that we will continue to push forward with urgency.”
Lopez said: “I am truly excited to return to Japan and join MWG combining my past global and Japan experience with my last 10 years of living in the digital frontier. I am committed to creating new tools, resources and talent from one of the most exciting places on the planet, and with some of the most talented and gracious people I have had the good fortune to know.”
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