Cult Production has named Jeff Beckerman to serve as executive producer. Beckerman will lead the company’s full-service post capabilities, which include editorial, 2D/3D animation, visual effects, motion graphics and finishing.
Beckerman joins fellow executive producer Chavvah Stuart, who oversees the company’s live action and creative production services. The company’s talented postproduction staff includes colorist/Smoke artist Michael Dwass and head of 3D, animator Tanguy Bodivit.
Beckerman first came to know Cult’s work this summer when he served as lead producer on a complex 60-second ad for Ralph Lauren’s “Polo Tech Shirt.” Launched for the 2014 US Open tennis tournament, the project called for extensive 3D animation, motion graphics, editorial, visual effects and color grading/finishing, all within a tight three-week schedule.
“Cult championed the 360-production studio model long before it became commonplace, working on high-end projects for some of the world’s top brands such as Apple, Microsoft, Calvin Klein, Nike and Atlantic Records, as well as global agencies like Leo Burnett, Publicis and Laird+Partners,” Beckerman said. “There’s an amazing amount of talent and technology here, and I’m looking forward to furthering Cult’s presence in the entertainment and advertising communities.”
Previously, Beckerman worked on an array of global ad campaigns and won numerous awards over the last two decades as the founder/executive producer of BOND, which specialized in editorial, animation, motion graphics, CGI and visual effects for leading agencies, brands and TV networks.
Maggie Smith, Star of Stage, Film and “Downton Abbey,” Dies At 89
Maggie Smith, the masterful, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar for "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" in 1969 and gained new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in "Downton Abbey" and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, died Friday. She was 89. Smith's sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, said in a statement that Smith died early Friday in a London hospital. "She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother," they said in a statement issued through publicist Clair Dobbs. Smith was frequently rated the preeminent British female performer of a generation that included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench, with a clutch of Academy Award nominations and a shelf full of acting trophies. She remained in demand even in her later years, despite her lament that "when you get into the granny era, you're lucky to get anything." Smith drily summarized her later roles as "a gallery of grotesques," including Professor McGonagall. Asked why she took the role, she quipped: "Harry Potter is my pension." Richard Eyre, who directed Smith in a television production of "Suddenly Last Summer," said she was "intellectually the smartest actress I've ever worked with. You have to get up very, very early in the morning to outwit Maggie Smith." "Jean Brodie," in which she played a dangerously charismatic Edinburgh schoolteacher, brought her the Academy Award for best actress, and the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) as well in 1969. Smith added a supporting actress Oscar for "California Suite" in 1978, Golden Globes for "California Suite" and "Room with a View," and BAFTAs for lead actress in "A Private Function" in 1984, "A Room with a View" in... Read More