Adam Isidore has joined The Mill New York as executive producer of brand partnerships. His past roles include VP/executive producer at Charlex, New York, where he ran the high-volume Verizon account, and prior to that VP/exec producer at BBDO New York, where he oversaw production on Cingular Wireless (now AT&T) while also working on such accounts as AOL and Visa.
Before his five-year run at BBDO, Isidore ran his own production company, Red Barn Films, where he produced and directed long and short-form films. He broke into the business as an in-house editor at what is now Saatchi & Saatchi New York.
“I know what it’s like to run the production of a large brand from two perspectives–the post and agency side,” Isidore says. “It’s easy for me to empathize with what the agencies are going through. First and foremost, it’s about great work. But you also have to be detail-obsessed, nimble, flexible, understanding and patient. A large part of my focus is to find ways to enhance our partnerships. While we will continue to excel at the FX work we do–especially at this time of year with the Super Bowl–there are many other components The Mill can offer. We’ll do more full-service brand work, jobs that require creating content and developing new technologies for delivering content to the wide array of different screens consumers now use.
Alistair Thompson, managing director of The Mill N.Y. cited Isidore’s “unique understanding and empathy for the challenges agencies face dealing with brand accounts that require high volume, quick turnaround times and getting things done as efficiently as possible. We believe that combining Adam’s wealth of experience in this area with The Mill’s continual desire to evolve best-quality creative solutions provides a compelling offering for agencies looking for a brand account partnership.”
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