Production company Envision Media Arts (EMA) has signed director Mike Nelesen to its commercial division. Among his credits is H&R Block’s “Procrastination” out of Fallon Minneapolis, which was named to TruTV’s “Top 10 Funniest Commercials of the Year” for 2013. The H&R job was produced by Drive-Thru, Minneapolis, which continues to handle Nelesen for select house accounts in Minneapolis. EMA otherwise reps him nationally.
Nelesen’s work spans such brands as McDonald’s, TiVo, Baskin Robbins, MNsure, ConocoPhillips, Marshfield Clinics and Nickelodeon Universe. He also directed, shot and edited two “user-generated” clips for Nike that were posted anonymously to YouTube. Besides being picked up by tens of thousands of blogs worldwide, each clip can claim millions of views. One of the clips, “Randy’s Donuts,” was viewed more than a half million times in a single day. “Cheerleader Toss,” another of Nelesen’s early viral projects, was viewed over 11 million times. The clip still retains thousands of web postings today.
Nelesen teamed with Best Buy, Redline Entertainment and The Rolling Stones to develop and produce broadcast and internet marketing material for The Rolling Stones’ four-DVD box set, “Four Flicks,” which was distributed exclusively by Best Buy and achieved five-times platinum sales in less than a month. Nelesen also directed broadcast campaigns featuring Sheryl Crow, Tony Hawk, Moby, and Elton John. For AMC Theatres, Nelesen co-conceived and directed four of the five successful “Silence is Golden” mock film trailers, which played for cinema audiences internationally.
For Nelesen, the opportunity to join EMA came from his long-term relationship with Andrew Halpern, exec producer/president of commercial production at EMA. “Andrew and I have always had a great time working together,” said Nelesen. “And he and Lee (Nelson, EMA’s president/CEO) as a team are a great creative force. I have watched them develop the EMA commercial division over the last year, and am excited to have an opportunity to join them.”
Nelesen has known Halpern dating back to when they were together at Crossroads. Together they turned out work for Ford, ConocoPhillips and Honda.
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