Framestore has recently fortified its New York studio with a series of senior creative hires: Corey Brown as executive creative director, Andre Vidal as VFX supervisor, and Keno Naidoo and Theuns Van Rensburg as compositing supervisors.
As ECD of the New York studio, Brown will further bolster Framestore’s advertising division. An established name in the VFX industry with over 25 years of industry experience, including the last 12 years at The Mill in New York, Brown is known as an exceptional problem-solver and highly regarded VFX supervisor and creative leader. Grown has worked alongside A-list directors including Baz Luhrmann, Darren Aronofsky, Peter Berg, Jake Scott, and Simon McQuoid.
VFX supervisor Vidal joins from The Mill. His most notable projects include Bud Light’s iconic “Bud Knight” and Pepsi’s halftime trailer, “The Call,” for the Super Bowl, and the Cannes Lions Grand Prix-winning “Leica 100.” He has also contributed to award-winning campaigns for brands like Playstation, Nissan, DirecTV, Paramount+, and a project for Google Pixelbook which was shot in a zero-gravity airplane.
Naidoo joins Framestore as compositing supervisor (Flame) with a career spanning nearly two decades in his native South Africa. He has extensive experience working in Flame, Nuke, Houdini, and Unreal, color, and on-set supervision, completing projects for Coca-Cola, Nissan, Puma, and Jameson. He has already lent his skill set while at Framestore to the McDonald’s “Knowing Their Order” Super Bowl LVII campaign.
Van Rensburg also hails from South Africa, bringing over 12 years of VFX experience on commercial projects. Most recently, he spent four years in Switzerland as a Flame artist and VFX supervisor, overseeing on-set supervision through to final mastering with brands including Audi, Coca-Cola, and Castle Lite. Prior, he spent time at Searle Street Post and Black Ginger in Cape Town. Since joining Framestore, Van Rensburg has worked on projects including Nissan’s “Town of Basic” and Booking.com’s Super Bowl LVII spot, “Somewhere, Anywhere.”
Jordan Carroll has also been promoted to head of CG at Framestore’s Los Angeles and Chicago studios. As an established member of the Chicago team, Carroll will expand his responsibilities to the West Coast, managing the CG team, and working with department heads to continue raising the team’s creative output.
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 โ and those many "Babadook" memes โ 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 โ "Bah-Bah-Doooook" โ 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