The Commercial Directors Diversity Program (CDDP) has announced five new Fellows for 2019: Sofia Garza-Barba, Vanessa Black, Christopher Cegielski, Dominique DeLeon and Jane Qian.
Created by the AICP and the Directors Guild of America (DGA), the CDDP reflects the commitment of both organizations to increase representation of women and other under-represented groups in the commercial directing ranks. CDDP does this through a targeted program of outreach, mentorship and exposure. The program–which will last six months–works to pair unsigned directors with AICP member production companies. In addition to providing a grant for each Fellow to create a spec commercial, the program features an industry showcase of the directors’ work, workshops specific to the intricacies of the ad world, mentoring and shadowing with commercial production companies, networking and more.
Out of over 300 applicants, this year’s Fellows were selected from among finalists, who are: Aemilia Scott, Brian L Tan (“BLT”), Camilla Hall, Dina Mande, Elizabeth Lippman, Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour, Erin Brown Thoms, Husein Alicajic, Jen McGowan, Jose Ho-Guanipa, Krysten Resnick, Lee Davis, LeRon Lee, Liv Colliander, Maya Washington, Michael McGhie, Mitchel Dumlao, Patrick “Praheme” Ricks, Pedro Bermudez, Princess Monique, Reynier Molenaar, Ryan Brown, Sharon Everitt, Sherwin Shilati, Stacey Muhammad, Suha Araj, Tamer Shaaban and Tiffany Frances Huang.
Tamika Lamison is the CDDP director. Last year the program launched six Fellows: Maya Albanese, Erica Eng, Kryzz Gautier, Monty Marsh, Tamika Miller and Gabrielle Paciorek. Marsh has chosen to remain freelance while the other five signed with commercial production companies. Eng is on the Tomorrow roster. Paciorek is with Untitled. Miller and Gautier signed with Above and Beyond shortly after completing the program. And Albanese joined brother during the program.
Carrie Coon Relishes Being Part Of An Ensemble–From “The Gilded Age” To “His Three Daughters”
It can be hard to catch Carrie Coon on her own.
She is far more likely to be found in the thick of an ensemble. That could be on TV, in "The Gilded Age," for which she was just Emmy nominated, or in the upcoming season of "The White Lotus," which she recently shot in Thailand. Or it could be in films, most relevantly, Azazel Jacobs' new drama, "His Three Daughters," in which Coon stars alongside Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as sisters caring for their dying father.
But on a recent, bright late-summer morning, Coon is sitting on a bench in the bucolic northeast Westchester town of Pound Ridge. A few years back, she and her husband, the playwright Tracy Letts, moved near here with their two young children, drawn by the long rows of stone walls and a particularly good BLT from a nearby cafe that Letts, after biting into, declared must be within 15 miles of where they lived.
In a few days, they would both fly to Los Angeles for the Emmys (Letts was nominated for his performance in "Winning Time" ). But Coon, 43, was then largely enmeshed in the day-to-day life of raising a family, along with their nightly movie viewings, which Letts pulls from his extensive DVD collection. The previous night's choice: "Once Around," with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus.
Coon met Letts during her breakthrough performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" on Broadway in 2012. She played the heavy-drinking housewife Honey. It was the first role that Coon read and knew, viscerally, she had to play. Immediately after saying this, Coon sighs.
"It sounds like something some diva would say in a movie from the '50s," Coon says. "I just walked around in my apartment in my slip and I had pearls and a little brandy. I made a grocery list and I just did... Read More