Native Content and Schrom & Co. have formed a partnership for tabletop commercials and digital content. The new alliance enables Native to expand its talent offering to include the tabletop category, and provides Schrom & Co. with a West Coast base of operations and a direct line to Native’s network of brand and agency clientele.
Director/cinematographer Michael Schrom’s award-winning work includes commercials for assorted brands including Nikon, Neutrogena, Folgers, Miller, Kraft, General Mills, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Heineken. Also on Strom & Co.’s creative roster is director/DP Anneke Schoneveld, whose focus is food storytelling.
On Native’s directorial roster are Rob Cohen, Gary McKendry, Ben Briand, The Work, Tom Dey and Prmry. Its management team includes founding partner/executive producer Tomer DeVito and partner/EP Susan Rued Anderson in Los Angeles, and Chris Messiter, partner/director of development in New York. Native partners with veteran feature film producer Michael Costigan in film division COTA, with Costigan as EP.
“Michael Schrom and Carl Sturges [Schrom & Co.’s president/EP] have been innovating in the tabletop business for many years, including being the first to embrace digital photography and other new technology, and emerging media platforms,” said Messiter. “Schrom & Co. has always been ahead of the curve in both creative applications and the way business is done. Our new affiliation adds key capabilities to our integrated offering, and will let us achieve new benchmarks by delivering comprehensive creative and production solutions to our clients.”
Sturges noted, “We see enormous potential with Native’s access to unique clients and their ability to further our production capabilities on the West Coast.”
Rom-Com Mainstay Hugh Grant Shifts To The Dark Side and He’s Never Been Happier
After some difficulties connecting to a Zoom, Hugh Grant eventually opts to just phone instead.
"Sorry about that," he apologizes. "Tech hell." Grant is no lover of technology. Smart phones, for example, he calls the "devil's tinderbox."
"I think they're killing us. I hate them," he says. "I go on long holidays from them, three or four days at at time. Marvelous."
Hell, and our proximity to it, is a not unrelated topic to Grant's new film, "Heretic." In it, two young Mormon missionaries (Chloe East, Sophie Thatcher) come knocking on a door they'll soon regret visiting. They're welcomed in by Mr. Reed (Grant), an initially charming man who tests their faith in theological debate, and then, in much worse things.
After decades in romantic comedies, Grant has spent the last few years playing narcissists, weirdos and murders, often to the greatest acclaim of his career. But in "Heretic," a horror thriller from A24, Grant's turn to the dark side reaches a new extreme. The actor who once charmingly stammered in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and who danced to the Pointer Sisters in "Love Actually" is now doing heinous things to young people in a basement.
"It was a challenge," Grant says. "I think human beings need challenges. It makes your beer taste better in the evening if you've climbed a mountain. He was just so wonderfully (expletive)-up."
"Heretic," which opens in theaters Friday, is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, co-writers of "A Quiet Place." In Grant's hands, Mr. Reed is a divinely good baddie — a scholarly creep whose wry monologues pull from a wide range of references, including, fittingly, Radiohead's "Creep."
In an interview, Grant spoke about these and other facets of his character, his journey... Read More