The Bigger Picture has added writer/director Oden Few Roberts to its roster for commercials and branded content in the U.S. This marks his first representation as a director in the American ad market.
Roberts’ love of language and visuals translates into an innate understanding of how to bring concepts to vivid life for all screens with story and naturalistic performance at the fore. His short film, Be The One, featuring the music of Moby, was featured as part of the Hello, Future: A Music Video Challenge, part of the Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors’ Showcase, and was later burned to Moby’s DVD/CD album. In advertising, his directing credits include campaigns for Nike, Nascar, 4H, Instagram, and Domino’s.
A graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Roberts earned international acclaim with his debut feature film A Fighting Season which was hailed as a “Hard-charging military version of Glengarry Glen Ross.” For the feature’s script, Roberts was awarded the prestigious San Francisco Film Society and Kenneth Rainin Foundation grant.
An avid traveler and photographer, Roberts aims to surround viewers in story and place. This immersive perspective is deeply felt in his work on social justice advocacy experiences. Among them, Grindadrap a documentary on whaling in the Faroe Islands that screened at SXSW Eco.
“Oden’s talent and experience in directing, shooting, and visual effects, make him a rare and vital asset in content creation of all kinds,” said Tracy Mays, founder/EP of The Bigger Picture. “Plus, as a skilled writer who has worked as a creative director he can help develop brand-specific projects from the concept stage. He’s a true creative partner.”
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
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