Creative director Izik Roitman has joined Imaginary Forces (IF). With many years of experience in building heavy CGI pipelines, Roitman fills a unique space on IF’s director roster. According to Peter Frankfurt, co-founder and executive creative director, “as our pipelines evolve over the foreseeable future and as our team continues to operate remotely, adding a savvy creative leader who is looking for new ways to conceptualize work is a great fit.”
Roitman, a native of Tel Aviv, spent his early career in Israel as a Flame artist, quickly progressing to directing, integrating, and dreaming up high-end visual effects. After moving to the U.S. and becoming a creative director, Roitman had a tenure at Superfad and Mirada Studios. During that time he was behind many iconic pieces: from Katy Perry music videos and Super Bowl campaigns, to a high publicized iPhone launch.
Roitman has been freelancing at IF for eight months, directing an effervescent throw for the Pepsi Super Bowl LIV halftime show, a VFX heavy teaser for Apple TV+, and a new anthem for Epix broadcast network.
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More