Production house Mothership, a sister company to Digital Domain, has signed director Grzegorz Jonkajtys (Greg) for commercial and music video work in the U.S. He is perhaps best known as the writer/director behind the CG animated short Ark which earned a Golden Palm nomination at the Cannes Film Festival, Best in Show honors at the 2007 SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival, and an Award of Distinction at Prix Ars Electronica.
The story Ark relates is of an unknown virus that wipes out the human population. It heads a list of Greg-directed short films that includes Mantis, Legacy and The 3rd Letter, which has been making the rounds on the festival circuit. Greg, who graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Poland, in 1995 and lives in San Francisco, is currently writing the feature screenplay for his next project, Snow King. As a VFX artist and animation lead for Platige Image, Digital Kitchen, CafeFX, The Syndicate, and in his current post at Industrial Light + Magic, Greg has contributed to such films as Sin City, Hellboy, Blade III, Pan’s Labyrinth, Mist and Terminator Salvation.
During his 12-year career working in feature film and advertising, the Warsaw-born Greg has established himself as a filmmaker with a distinctive aesthetic and point of view. His work has been described as dark, full of texture with dramatic character design and compelling storylines, and often combines CG techniques with shot practical miniatures and other handmade elements that heighten the otherworldly aspect of his films.
Ed Ulbrich, president of Mothership, credited agent Bryan Besser at Verve with introducing the company to Greg’s work.
Greg in turn was favorably impressed with Mothership. “Despite my obsession with animation and visual effects, I actually take a fairly classic approach to moviemaking,” said the director. “I love almost autographic framing, inward dollies; I want to immerse the viewer into my world. Mothership was the ideal production studio for me to spread these wings and the exciting things they’re doing in the transmedia space enables its directors to be involved in extending their storytelling experiences even further.”
Martin Scorsese On “The Saints,” Faith In Filmmaking and His Next Movie
When Martin Scorsese was a child growing up in New York's Little Italy, he would gaze up at the figures he saw around St. Patrick's Old Cathedral. "Who are these people? What is a saint?" Scorsese recalls. "The minute I walk out the door of the cathedral and I don't see any saints. I saw people trying to behave well within a world that was very primal and oppressed by organized crime. As a child, you wonder about the saints: Are they human?" For decades, Scorsese has pondered a project dedicated to the saints. Now, he's finally realized it in "Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints," an eight-part docudrama series debuting Sunday on Fox Nation, the streaming service from Fox News Media. The one-hour episodes, written by Kent Jones and directed by Elizabeth Chomko, each chronicle a saint: Joan of Arc, Francis of Assisi, John the Baptist, Thomas Becket, Mary Magdalene, Moses the Black, Sebastian and Maximillian Kolbe. Joan of Arc kicks off the series on Sunday, with three weekly installments to follow; the last four will stream closer to Easter next year. In naturalistic reenactments followed by brief Scorsese-led discussions with experts, "The Saints" emphasizes that, yes, the saints were very human. They were flawed, imperfect people, which, to Scorsese, only heightens their great sacrifices and gestures of compassion. The Polish priest Kolbe, for example, helped spread antisemitism before, during WWII, sheltering Jews and, ultimately, volunteering to die in the place of a man who had been condemned at Auschwitz. Scorsese, who turns 82 on Sunday, recently met for an interview not long after returning from a trip to his grandfather's hometown in Sicily. He was made an honorary citizen and the experience was still lingering in his mind. Remarks have... Read More