Arnold Worldwide is expanding its global micronetwork into Australia. Via a merger with Havas sister agency The Furnace, Arnold has launched Arnold Furnace. The expansion includes office locations in Sydney and Melbourne and is partly in response to increasing international assignments from Arnold clients, such as Carnival Cruise Lines, Ocean Spray and Progressive Insurance.
Furnace’s managing director Tony Singleton will lead Arnold Furnace. Singleton will report to Andrew Benett, global CEO of Arnold Worldwide and global chief strategy officer of Havas Worldwide.
The collaboration is already paying dividends with Arnold Furnace working on projects for current Arnold clients, including Carnival Cruise Lines, Ocean Spray and Progressive Insurance. The Furnace has enjoyed a period of sustained growth over the past 12 months with significant business wins from new and existing clients including Warner Bros, Procter & Gamble, Atkins Nutritionals and, most recently, Huawei. In addition to producing several internationally award-winning pieces of work, it has also made a number of significant hirings last year, adding to its creative and digital departments in particular.
Arnold Furnace’s creative leads will be existing Furnace joint national creative directors Paul Fenton and Tom Spicer.
Arnold Furnace is the latest stride internationally for Arnold Worldwide in the last 18 months. Most recently, Arnold was named the global agency of record for Dell, and added other global clients including Alberto Culver (recently acquired by Unilever) and New Balance. In addition to Australia, Arnold Worldwide expects to expand into Brazil in the coming months. Last year Arnold opened an office in Amsterdam and expanded its presence in the U.K.
Craig Henighan Sounds Off On “Deadpool & Wolverine”
Hollywood lore has it that character actor Edmund Gwenn--while on his deathbed--quipped, “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.”
The second part of that darkly witty utterance remains all too true today as Craig Henighan--a Best Achievement in Sound Mixing Oscar nominee in 2019 for Roma--can attest in that he had to grapple with the sonic of being comic for this year’s box office hit, Deadpool & Wolverine (20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios).
The degree of inherent difficulty was ramped up even further because Deadpool & Wolverine had to seamlessly bring together high action-adventure exploits with moments and dialogue that tickled the funny bone. There’s a mesh of humorous banter--a staple of the franchise--along with major spectacle replete with explosions, fights, an impactful score and off-the-wall musical numbers.
Henighan explained that among the prime challenges for him from a sound perspective was having to make sure every joke landed within the construct of a superhero film. The tendency for a tentpole movie of this variety, he noted, is to gravitate towards big, loud audio spanning music, dialogue and sound effects. But the unique comedic element of Deadpool & Wolverine necessitated that re-recording mixer and supervising sound editor Henighan strike a delicate balance. “You need to get out of the way for the comedy,” he related. The jokes in a superhero film become “a real dance” as Henighan had to establish a rhythm that did justice to both the comedy and the action as the narrative moves back and forth between them--and sometimes the funny and the high energy, high decibel superhero dynamic unfold simultaneously in a scene or sequence. The “sonic fabric” has to... Read More