Cedric Gairard has been appointed head of production at Johannes Leonardo. He will oversee all aspects of production across the agency’s roster of clients including adidas Originals, TripAdvisor, Google, Mondelēz International and The Coca-Cola Company. Gairard will report to agency co-founders and chief creative officers, Jan Jacobs and Leo Premutico.
Gairard is charged with developing a truly modern approach to production and fostering a more direct collaboration between brand, agency and creators, delivering a multitude of outputs across all media.
Over the past 20 years, producer Gairard has been heading advertising campaigns, across all media, at groundbreaking agencies. As a founding member of Amsterdam-based 180, Gairard was particularly instrumental in articulating the acclaimed global adidas “Impossible is Nothing” campaign, for which he relocated to Los Angeles in order to oversee a series of television spots using iconic athletes such as Muhammad Ali and Nadia Comaneci.
Later as a founding member and executive producer at Nexus Interactive Arts, Gairard produced Chipotle’s “Back to the Start” campaign that won the 2012 Grand Prix at Cannes. In 2013, Cedric moved to New York to launch Pulse Films USA, a joint venture with Caviar Content.
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