Bicoastal production studio CVLT continues to expand its reach and capabilities in full-service production and post, hiring sr. editor Joe Simons as lead editor. He will be tasked with growing CVLT’s editorial department, further strengthening CVLT’s soup-to-nuts offerings under one roof.
Simons joins the CVLT team after three years at The Mill, where his editorial skills were utilized to craft several highly regarded projects, including the “It’s What Connects Us” campaign for HBO, the “Top Artist of the Year” campaign for Spotify and several major campaigns for Ralph Lauren, among many others. Simons launched his career at PS260 before spending four years at Cut+Run, a creative editing studio.
Simons’ addition represents CVLT’s rapid lateral growth as a concept-to-completion creative studio, launching campaigns for luxury and fashion brands including Lexus, Peloton and Louis Vuitton.
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 โ a series of 10 plays โ 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