Corky Quakenbush and Joel Trussell have joined the directorial roster of ka-chew!, the Hollywood-based commercial production company owned by Gabor Csupo and Arlene Klasky, owners of multi-Emmy Award-winning animation studio Klasky Csupo, Inc.
Quakenbush had most recently been repped for spots by Los Angeles multimedia studio DUCK. His signing with ka-chew! marks a return to the company fold. Best known as a stop-motion animation director and for his brand of funny, irreverent work, Quakenbush was earlier repped via what was then known as Class-Key Chew-Po Commercials (now the ka-chew! banner).
He worked on the early seasons of FOX’s Madtv. His television directing, producing and developing credits include shows, pilots and segments on FOX, MTV, NBC, ABC, WB, HBO, VH-1, Disney, Cinemax, Oxygen, TBS, Discovery, and PBS. Quakenbush holds the record for number of films–nine–screened from a single director at the Sundance Film Festival. Numerous festivals have honored Quakenbush, in the form of tributes, retrospectives and awards. HBO’s U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen honored him with a “Best Of” program.
In 2008, Quakenbush returned to MADtv to create more than a dozen new shorts for their 12th season. During ’07-’08, he created and directed 12 comic shorts for Turner’s comedy broadband channel SuperDeluxe.com.
Quakenbush said he was drawn in part to ka-chew! by its executive producer/creative director John Andrews, who is also head of production at Klasky Csupo. “I’ve had a long relationship with John Andrews, starting when he was at MTV in the ’90’s,” recalled Quakenbush. “I’m happy to be ‘coming back’ into the world of commercials with John as my EP. I felt now was a good time to reinvigorate my commercial direction, as most of my work during the past few years has been either service work for television and entertainment websites, short films, or the production of commercial parodies.”
Joel Trussell
Director Trussell, whose reputation is in quirky 2D animated comedy featuring well developed characters, comes to ka-chew! through his association with 6PH (Six Point Harness). A Hollywood independent TV animation studio, 6PH is repped by ka-chew! in the ad space. Currently, Trussell is directing for ka-chew! an online campaign for Nature Made out of Ogilvy & Mather. All animation is being done at 6PH.
Trussell has worked in the animation industry for over a decade. He has directed music videos for many popular artists, such as the Gossip, Jakob Dylan, Morcheeba, and Jason Forrest’s War Photographer, for which he won numerous awards, including the Ottawa International Film Festival’s Best Music Video honor. He has also directed several segments for Nick Jr’s Yo Gabba Gabba, and commercials for clients such as Nicorette and Esurance. He wrapped the Esurance work via animation studio Wild Brain but was not formally represented by that studio.
Both Quakenbush and Trussell had work in last year’s edition of Mike Judge’s The Animation Show. They now become part of a directorial lineup at ka-chew! that includes Paul Cummings, Davy Force, David Russo, Elliot M. Bour, Parallax Studioworks, Liz Blazer, Tom Deslongchamp, Jeff Gill, Paul Westergard, Tom Schroeder, Sean Nadeau, Paul Sloboda, Nadia Roden, Carolle Shelley Abrams and London-based studio TRUNK (with Grigoris Leontiades, Steve Smith, Layla Atkinson, and Siri Melchior, among other helmers).
“Captain America: Brave New World” Tops Weak Weekend At The Box Office
"Captain America: Brave New World" kept falling but still hovered above all others at a weak weekend box office.
The latest Disney-Marvel offering brought in another $15 million according to studio estimates Sunday, when most of Hollywood's attention was on the Oscars.
The Anthony Mackie-led "Captain America: Brave New World" opened strong at about $120 million on a three-day weekend last month, but plunged to $28.2 million last week in one of the most significant second-week drops for a Marvel movie. It's earned $163.7 since its release.
It was slammed by many critics and audiences, failing to bring the Marvel reset some had hoped for. That task now falls to May's "Thunderbolts" and July's "Fantastic Four: First Steps." But "Captain America" will face little competition through March, and could remain at No. 1 for a while.
The weekend's only significant new release, Focus Features' "Last Breath," earned just $7.8 million. The based-on-a-true-story adventure starring Woody Harrelson, Simi Liu and Chris Lemons is about a routine deep-sea diving mission that goes terribly wrong when a young diver is stranded some 300 feet below the surface.
It got strong reviews, with Lindsey Bahr of The Associated Press praising the "white-knuckle experience" and "pure suspense and anxiety" it brings.
At No. 3 was Oz Perkins' "The Monkey," which brought in $6.4 million for a two-week total of $24.6 million. It's among the strongest openings for indie distributor Neon, whose film "Anora," and its director Sean Baker could make a major mark at the Oscars later Sunday.
"The Monkey" marks another successful low-budget collaboration between Perkins and Neon, whose "Longlegs" brought in $126.9 million globally last year.
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