Director/writer James Gray has come aboard biscuit filmworks for commercial representation worldwide except for France where he continues to be handled by Les Telecreateurs, Paris. Gray wrote and directed The Immigrant, a film starring Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Renner and Joaquin Phoenix, set to debut at the Cannes Film Festival this month. His most recent commercial effort, Citro๏ฟฝn’s “Impossible” starring Ewan McGregor and Vinessa Shaw–and produced by Les Telecreateurs–broke on air earlier this month; he has also directed for Martell Cognac and a L’Oreal campaign starring Patrick Dempsey.
Gray made his directorial debut in 1994 with Little Odessa, a critically acclaimed film, which received the Critics Award at the Deauville Film Festival as well as the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival. That same year, he received nominations from the Independent Spirit Awards for Best First Feature and Best First Screenplay. In 2000 Gray wrote and directed The Yards, his second feature and his first with Joaquin Phoenix who would become a frequent collaborator, going on to star in his next three films. The drama premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2000. Gray’s New York crime drama We Own the Night, (2007) stars Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, Eva Mendes and Robert Duvall. The film received a Cesar nomination in 2008 for Best Foreign Film and screened in competition at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.
Gray’s feature Two Lovers, (2008) then received nominations at the Independent Spirit Awards for Best Director and Best Female Lead. The Brooklyn-set drama stars Phoenix opposite Gwyneth Paltrow, Vinessa Shaw and Isabella Rossellini. The film premiered in competition at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and went on to receive a Cesar nomination for Best Foreign Film in 2009.
Born in New York City, Gray grew up in Queens and attended the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television.
“Storytelling is mostly about economy, especially in features,” said Gray. “I love making commercials because you have to hone in on storytelling with even greater discipline and focus on the visual message and still communicate an idea with great speed, accuracy and effectiveness.”
Prior to biscuit, Gray was repped by Anonymous Content. He now joins a biscuit directorial roster that includes company co-founder Noam Murro, Andreas Nilsson, Aaron Ruell, Aaron Stoller, Christopher Riggert, Clay Weiner, Jeff Low, Malcolm Murray, Mike Maguire, Philippe Andre, Steve Rogers and Tim Godsall.
AI-Assisted Works Can Get Copyright With Enough Human Creativity, According To U.S. Copyright Office
Artists can copyright works they made with the help of artificial intelligence, according to a new report by the U.S. Copyright Office that could further clear the way for the use of AI tools in Hollywood, the music industry and other creative fields.
The nation's copyright office, which sits in the Library of Congress and is not part of the executive branch, receives about half a million copyright applications per year covering millions of individual works. It has increasingly been asked to register works that are AI-generated.
And while many of those decisions are made on a case-by-case basis, the report issued Wednesday clarifies the office's approach as one based on what the top U.S. copyright official describes as the "centrality of human creativity" in authoring a work that warrants copyright protections.
"Where that creativity is expressed through the use of AI systems, it continues to enjoy protection," said a statement from Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter, who directs the office.
An AI-assisted work could be copyrightable if an artist's handiwork is perceptible. A human adapting an AI-generated output with "creative arrangements or modifications" could also make it fall under copyright protections.
The report follows a review that began in 2023 and fielded opinions from thousands of people that ranged from AI developers, to actors and country singers.
It shows the copyright office will continue to reject copyright claims for fully machine-generated content. A person simply prompting a chatbot or AI image generator to produce a work doesn't give that person the ability to copyright that work, according to the report. "Extending protection to material whose expressive elements are determined by a machine ...... Read More