INNOCEAN USA has hired Frank Striefler as the new SVP of strategic planning. Striefler brings 20 years of experience working on both the agency and the client side. He’s made a major impact on brands like Nike, Apple, Mitsubishi, Infiniti, TrueCar.com, EA Sports, and Boost Mobile. At INNOCEAN, Striefler will work closely with both CEO Steve Jun and EVP/managing director Tim Blett.
“We knew right away that Frank was the brand thinker we were looking for to head up strategic planning for our clients,” said Blett. “Before we made his position official, Frank worked with us on a freelance basis for a few months on critical projects and completely blew the whole team away with his ability to see beyond the campaign and craft the big brand idea both for clients and for INNOCEAN. He’s been at the helm of some of the most major work from a brand stewardship perspective on both the agency and the client side.”
For just over two years, Striefler has been working as a freelance brand strategist for several different agencies including Ignited, Phenomenon, Zambezi and Wunderman West. In his last full-time positions, he was chief strategy officer at tinyRebellion (formerly known as dw+h), and was the first head of planning at 180LA.
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