January 29, 2010
A month into Hollywood’s awards season and the competition is still wide open. The Hurt Locker appears to be a front-runner, but Avatar, Precious, ‘Inglourious Basterds and Up in the Air have won their share of awards, too. The directors of these films—Kathryn Bigelow, James Cameron, Lee Daniels, Quentin Tarantino and Jason Reitman—compete Saturday for the top prize from the Directors Guild of America, an award that almost always predicts the Oscar winner for best director….Editor Karen Schmeer, who worked on many of Errol Morris’ documentaries, including The Fog of War, was struck and killed by a getaway car speeding from a Manhattan drugstore robbery….Creative editorial boutique jumP has hired Tommy Murov to serve as executive producer at its New York office. He comes over from Spot Welders where he had been since 1999, promoted from producer to exec producer of that shop’s N.Y. operation in 2006….
January 28, 2005
Damian Stevens has returned to the agency side of the business, joining Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles as director of broadcast production. The move reunites him with Saatchi LA executive creative director Harvey Marco; the two had worked together at Fallon where Stevens was a West Coast-based producer for the agency while Marco served as a creative director in Minneapolis. Stevens most recently served as an executive producer at JGF, Hollywood, which is now bicoastal Sandwick Films…..Directors Shona Auerbach, who has made a major splash with her feature film debut, Dear Frankie, and Jim Weedon, an accomplished spot editor who’s successfully diversified into helming, have joined GARTNER for their first formal representation in the American ad market. Both Auerbach and Weedon are with The Bare Film Company, London, a shop formed last summer by partners/managing directors Helen Hadfield and Claire Sims. GARTNER gains a European production foothold via Bare, in addition to repping two of its directors stateside….Editor Jason Painter—who made his first major industry mark on the 2003 Super Bowl with Reebok’s “Terry Tate: Office Linebacker” spot directed by Rawson Thurber—has joined Mad River Post. Plans call for Painter—who comes over from Jigsaw—to be available via all the Mad River studios, splitting his time primarily between NY and Santa Monica….
After 20 Years of Acting, Megan Park Finds Her Groove In The Director’s Chair On “My Old Ass”
Megan Park feels a little bad that her movie is making so many people cry. It's not just a single tear either — more like full body sobs.
She didn't set out to make a tearjerker with "My Old Ass," now streaming on Prime Video. She just wanted to tell a story about a young woman in conversation with her older self. The film is quite funny (the dialogue between 18-year-old and almost 40-year-old Elliott happens because of a mushroom trip that includes a Justin Bieber cover), but it packs an emotional punch, too.
Writing, Park said, is often her way of working through things. When she put pen to paper on "My Old Ass," she was a new mom and staying in her childhood bedroom during the pandemic. One night, she and her whole nuclear family slept under the same roof. She didn't know it then, but it would be the last time, and she started wondering what it would be like to have known that.
In the film, older Elliott ( Aubrey Plaza ) advises younger Elliott ( Maisy Stella ) to not be so eager to leave her provincial town, her younger brothers and her parents and to slow down and appreciate things as they are. She also tells her to stay away from a guy named Chad who she meets the next day and discovers that, unfortunately, he's quite cute.
At 38, Park is just getting started as a filmmaker. Her first, "The Fallout," in which Jenna Ortega plays a teen in the aftermath of a school shooting, had one of those pandemic releases that didn't even feel real. But it did get the attention of Margot Robbie 's production company LuckyChap Entertainment, who reached out to Park to see what other ideas she had brewing.
"They were very instrumental in encouraging me to go with it," Park said. "They're just really even-keeled, good people, which makes... Read More