Robert Bisi has joined Buck’s L.A. team of creative directors.
Bisi began his career as an illustrator and 3D generalist working at Brand New School (BNS). He ultimately took on the role of creative director and partner, helping build and lead the team in the L.A. studio. In his near decade-long career at BNS, Bisi developed a versatile approach to his work, employing the use of multiple techniques including 3D and 2D animation, puppetry, stop motion, and live action. With a passion for animation and design, Bisi has re๏ฌned a distinct style of storytelling that is evident across his body of work.
This multi-faceted approach to visual narrative makes Bisi an ideal addition to Buck, along with his years of experience leading initiatives for global brands.
While at BNS, he helmed projects for clients including Google, Ebay, Target, Toyota, National Geographic, Chips Ahoy, and McDonald’s. He has drawn recognition from D&AD for his work on Ebay’s “Toys for Tots” interactive installation, which was also shortlisted for a Cannes Silver Lion. His work for National Geographic’s Brain Games mixed CG with puppetry and garnered an Emmy nomination.
Bisi joins more than 100 designers, artists, and storytellers in Buck’s Los Angeles studio, with additional offices in New York and Sydney. Buck has turned out work for global brands like Apple, Facebook and Google.
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 โ a series of 10 plays โ 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