Director and choreographer Erin Murray has joined the talent roster at Los Angeles-based production studio FLORENCE. This is Murray’s first commercial representation in the U.S.
Murray hails from Lagrange, Georgia, growing up with a strong passion for ballet and with the initial goal of becoming a professional ballerina. As her artistic expression evolved, the extreme discipline that dance taught Murray at a young age shaped her approach to future career pursuits of choreography and direction. She incorporates her experience to great effect in her work, having developed her own unique visual language in her intuitive movement-driven projects.
Murray combines dance and filmmaking to create captivating pieces for artists including Ed Sheeran, John Legend, Charli XCX, and Muse. Her narrative short Hydra was named Booooooom TV’s Best Short Film of 2018. The experimental film is a dance narrative that offers commentary on identity, herd mentality, and indoctrination. The short has been selected for festivals and screenings around the world, including the Aesthetica Short Film Festival, Dance Camera West, RAW Film Festival, San Francisco Dance Film Festival, Mexico City Video Dance Festival, Riff Festival Norway, and CAPITOL Dance and Cinema Festival.
Her “Phenom” music video for Thao & The Get Down Stay Down offers a striking commentary on our current reality blended with inventive visuals and choreography, earning Vimeo Staff Pick distinction. She directed her first commercial for Electrify America, a fast-charging electric car station brands in the U.S. Her work has been featured in multiple print and online outlets.
Alli Maxwell, executive producer at FLORENCE, said, “Erin’s work continues to span music, commercial, and narrative projects, always displaying a thoughtfulness and rhythm unique to someone with her dance background. Her work is human and always feels effortless.”
Murray regards her joining FLORENCE as a major step in her directorial career, citing the company’s “knowledge, logistically and creatively,” adding, “They understand my voice and they know how to leverage my specific skills within the industry, and to collaborate with the right people and brands.”
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More