Creative studio Luma, known for its visual effects work, has hired Ben Hibon to serve as head creative director.
A career as an artist and animation director has taken Hibon from television commercials to branded content to video game creation for clients like Disney, Microsoft, Sony, and Riot Games. He has lent his design skills to feature films such as Snow White and the Huntsman and The Last Witch Hunter. Most notably he was at the helm of the Academy Award-nominated The Tale of Three Brothers animated sequence from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.
VFX house Luma is expanding into the realm of original content. Luma’s Santa Monica and Melbourne studios will continue their exclusive service model while developing partnerships that enable the company to be active in creative as well. Hibon will be working with the heads of Luma’s animated and live action content, and new content and media arms, helping to shape and guide the new branches toward varied forms of storytelling.
Founded by Payam Shohadai, Luma Pictures debuted in 2002 with visual effects for Charlie’s Angels and has gone on to contribute visual effects for such films as Deadpool, Captain America: Civil War, and Doctor Strange.
Netflix Series “The Leopard” Spots Classic Italian Novel, Remakes It As A Sumptuous Period Drama
"The Leopard," a new Netflix series, takes the classic Italian novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and transforms it into a sumptuous period piece showing the struggles of the aristocracy in 19th-century Sicily, during tumultuous social upheavals as their way of life is crumbling around them.
Tom Shankland, who directs four of the eight episodes, had the courage to attempt his own version of what is one of the most popular films in Italian history. The 1963 movie "The Leopard," directed by Luchino Visconti, starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, won the Palme d'Or in Cannes.
One Italian critic said that it would be the equivalent of a director in the United States taking "Gone with the Wind" and turning it into a series, but Shankland wasn't the least bit intimidated.
He said that he didn't think of anything other than his own passion for the project, which grew out of his love of the book. His father was a university professor of Italian literature in England, and as a child, he loved the book and traveling to Sicily with his family.
The book tells the story of Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, a tall, handsome, wealthy aristocrat who owns palaces and land across Sicily.
His comfortable world is shaken with the invasion of Sicily in 1860 by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was to overthrow the Bourbon king in Naples and bring about the Unification of Italy.
The prince's family leads an opulent life in their magnificent palaces with servants and peasants kowtowing to their every need. They spend their time at opulent banquets and lavish balls with their fellow aristocrats.
Shankland has made the series into a visual feast with tables heaped with food, elaborate gardens and sensuous costumes.... Read More