Composer/producer Nick Crane and Uppercut owner/editor Micah Scarpelli have teamed to launch music company Racket Club. The NYC-based shop will focus on original compositions for commercial and entertainment work designed to be created in-sync with visuals. Leading the boutique music shop as creative director, Crane will fuse his experiences as both composer and producer to craft original music tracks as well as oversee the creative vision for the studio as a whole, collaborating with a network of composer talent curated throughout his career. The shop has already composed for top branded projects, including a recent Nike campaign for the U.S. Open featuring Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka, as well as work for clients like Verizon, Reebok, Toyota, bareMinerals and Volvo.
“The music and editorial creative processes are all too often isolated from each other in our business,” noted Crane. “I’m excited to partner with clients that are just as music-obsessed, to bridge that gap and bring edit and score together the way they should be.”
Since opening Uppercut in 2015, Scarpelli has built a curated roster of in-house editorial talent who lend their diverse skills to campaigns for clients such as Volvo, Nike, Verizon, FitBit, Kia, Asics, Neutrogena, Lululemon, IBM and CVS.
“As an editor, I’ve always been really excited about how music drives the picture and when I connected with Nick, I knew that this was finally the right time to make the leap to launch a new venture in that space,” said Scarpelli.
Crane joins his extensive musical background–spanning university studies in music and film and touring stints with multiple bands–with an extensive lineup of musical artists compiled over his diverse career. In addition to composing for Racket Club clients, he will oversee the creative vision for all projects, tapping into his talent network to satisfy the musical needs on videos of all scopes and sizes. In addition to his work as a composer, he’s produced commercial projects for Adidas, Dos Equis, Walmart, Sprint and Gillette, as well as music videos for The Avalanches and Danny Brown. He made the segue to music supervision, helping to launch Sixty-Four Music, and later composition, working closely with editors and directors to unite music and picture throughout the production process.
Racket Club has connected with Mary Eiff and Michelle Stuart of Hello Tomorrow for East Coast sales representation.
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