The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), a leader in performing rights and advocacy for music creators, announced that Joel Beckerman and Rudy PĂ©rez have been elected as new writer members to the ASCAP Board of Directors.
Beckerman is an award-winning composer, producer and the founder of Man Made Music, a strategic music and sound studio in New York and Los Angeles. Man Made is dedicated to impacting everyday experiences across entertainment, technology, spaces, products and devices for people everywhere. Beckerman has created original scores for over 50 television series and specials across major networks including CBS, ABC, FX, NBC, and A&E. As a television soundtrack producer, Beckerman has collaborated with a wide range of artists, songwriters and composers ranging from John Legend and John Williams to will.i.am and the late James Horner. He and his team have also developed signature sonic identities for global giants such as Disney, AT&T, HBO, IMAX, Hulu and the Super Bowl on NBC. He is the co-author of THE SONIC BOOM: How Sound Transforms the Way We Think, Feel, and Buy, a treatise on the topic he calls “sonic humanism.” For his work, Beckerman has received ASCAP’s Most Performed Themes award for 10 consecutive years. He is a former board member of the Society of Composers and Lyricists, and proud to have worked with fellow ASCAP board member Dan Foliart to establish the SCL in New York.
PĂ©rez is an international songwriter, producer, arranger, entrepreneur and philanthropist. During the last 30 years, he has composed over 1,000 songs, more than 300 of which have become #1 or top ten hits. He is a founder of the Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (LARAS), The Latin Grammys as well as co-founder of the Latin Songwriters Hall of Fame. PĂ©rez has written and produced tracks for artists including BeyoncĂ©, Julio Iglesias, Christina Aguilera, Il Divo, Natalie Cole, Michael Bolton, Luis Miguel, Jose Feliciano, Marc Anthony, Jon Secada, Cyndi Lauper, Luis Fonsi and more. He is the first Latin record producer to be named the Billboard Hot Latin Tracks Producer of the Year for four consecutive years, and has been recognized as ASCAP Latin Songwriter of the Year five times. In 2010, Billboard Magazine named PĂ©rez Producer of the Decade for having more #1 and top 10 hits chart from 2000 to 2010 than any other Latin producer in the magazine’s history. PĂ©rez has received over 500 gold and platinum album awards, and five Grammys with 19 Grammy nominations.
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More