Digital Artist Goldstein Also Comes On Board.
By JEREMY LEHRER
New York-based Slingshot has added editor Noelle Webb, who joins the company from mad.house, New York. Webb worked at mad. house for a total of eight years, including the three years when the company was still named Bender Editorial. Slingshot’s roster is also expanding with the addition of digital artist Gary Goldstein, who joins the company following a two-year tenure at CIS Hollywood, Los Angeles.
Webb and Stephen Ashkinos, Slingshot’s VP/executive producer, met while Ashkinos was a producer at Ammirati Puris Lintas, New York, and Webb was editing at mad.house. Her clients included Ammirati, Foote, Cone & Belding, New York, and DMB&B, New York.
Ashkinos said he always had good experiences working with Webb and knew he could count on her for superb editorial. "When I was searching for an editor, I wanted somebody that was not only creative but very personable," Ashkinos said. "When I was a producer at Ammirati, [Webb] was the editor who I always wanted to cut my spots. I knew I was going to get the most creative spot and that I would get the best creative solutions to any problems that came up."
Webb said she joined Slingshot because of her relationship with Ashkinos, who wooed the editor since the former Morty’s Digitorial was reincarnated as Slingshot in May of this year. She said she appreciated Ashkinos’s vision for Slingshot, which was to "create a unique company" with "a free-flowing creative atmosphere of ideas."
A key tenet of Webb’s editorial philosophy was that subtle differences in dialogue and sound design can radically change the tone of a scene. "You can replace a [dialogue] reading and change the whole feeling of a piece," she said. "And I really think that audio is just as important a part as the visuals. I like things that are purely visual as well, so it’s interesting to mix the two. But you can’t underestimate the power of sound, and that’s an angle I like to take, whether it’s contributing ideas for music or doing sound design."
Earlier this year, Webb finished editing Everything’s Jake, an independently-produced feature film directed by Matthew Miele and starring Debbie Allen, Robin Givens, Ernie Hudson and Phyllis Diller. It was the first feature that Webb edited, and she said she enjoyed the experience and hoped to work on more films in the future. While she intends to stick to spots, Webb said, "If there’s some way to juggle the two, I’d love to do that."
Webb said commercial clients appreciated her feature editing experience, and felt that editing for different formats was one way of ensuring creative vitality. "Whether you’re doing a long format or short format [project], it’s important to stay fresh creatively," she explained. "You learn a lot by jumping back and forth."
Recent credits for Webb include AT&T’s "Planets" and "Beauty Pageant" via Young & Rubicam, New York; and Chase Manhattan’s "Portraits" for Foote, Cone & Belding, New York. Webb is currently working on a four-spot Fig Newtons package through FCB.
While at CIS Hollywood, Goldstein worked as a digital artist on features including Titanic and What Dreams May Come. His duties during his two-year tenure at CIS included building digital mattes, paint rotoscoping and compositing. With that experience under his belt, Goldstein will now head up Slingshot’s graphics department. "They allow me as the head artist to come up with and create great creative product," Goldstein said of Slingshot.
Ashkinos described Goldstein as being "phenomenal, quick and possessing a great creative eye. Having worked on multimillion-dollar films, he understands deadlines."
According to Ashkinos, an in-house graphics department would provide convenience and cost-efficiency for Slingshot clients. "Every spot nowadays needs some sort of titling work, some bluescreen, or minor tweaks to the film," Ashkinos observed. "We basically can do any special effect that’s necessary. … We can keep all of that in-house and keep it quicker and cheaper for the client." Also, "you can try more when you have a graphics department in-house."
In Sept. ’98, Goldstein left CIS to return to his native New York. He has since freelanced on commercial projects for houses such as Curious Pictures, Jump, Pitch, and Casioppo Productions, all of which are New York-based.
Goldstein explained that his approach was to offer clients as many ideas and solutions as possible. "I like to hear what the client is looking for as far as their final goal," he said. "Then, using my background and experience, I like to give them all of their options and let them decide what they like best." Goldstein will be using the Avid Illusion for his effects work at Slingshot.
Credits for Goldstein include Wendy’s "Darrell and Dave" via Bates USA, New York, and Fidelity’s "Penn and Teller" via Gotham Incorporated, New York.
Webb and Goldstein join editor Jim Rubino and VP/editors Morty Ashkinos and Bruce Ashkinos.
Slingshot is represented for sales by Stephen Ashkinos.
Review: Writer-Director Adam Elliot’s “Memoir of a Snail”
It's not your typical stop-motion film when characters name pets after Sylvia Plath and read "The Diary of Anne Frank" — or when the story's inspired by a quote from existentialist thinker Søren Kierkegaard. And it's certainly not your typical stop-motion film when you find yourself crying as much as the characters do — in their case, with huge droplets leaking from bulging, egg-shaped eyes so authentic-looking, you expect the screen to get wet. But those are just a few of the unique things about Adam Elliot's "Memoir of a Snail," a film that's as heart-tugging as it is technically impressive, a work of both emotional resonance and great physical detail using only clay, wire, paper and paint. One thing Elliot's film is not, though, is for kids. So please take note before heading to the multiplex with family in tow: this film earns its R rating, as you'll discover as soon as young Grace, voiced by Sarah Snook, tells us she thought masturbation was about chewing your food properly. Sex, nudity, drunk driving, a fat fetish — like we said, it's R-rated for a reason. But let's start at the beginning. In this, his seventh "clayography" (for "clay" and "biography"), the Australian writer-director explores the process of collecting unnecessary objects. Otherwise known as hoarding, it's something that weighs us down in ways we can't see, for all the clutter. Elliot also argues that it helps us build constrictive shells around ourselves — like snail shells, perhaps. Our protagonist is Grace Pudel, voiced with a quirky warmth and plenty of empathy by the wonderfully agile Snook. We first encounter Grace as a grown woman, telling her long, lonely life story to her pet garden snail, Sylvia (named after Plath), at a moment of deep sadness. Then we flash... Read More