The Cinema Audio Society has added two new board members: re-recording mixer Jeffrey J. Haboush, CAS and production sound mixer Chris Newman, CAS.
Newman and Haboush will be filling the vacancies on the board left by the recent passing of production mixer Ed Greene, CAS and the retirement of re-recording Mixer Mary Jo Lang, CAS.
“Adding new board members at this time is bittersweet but we are proud and inspired by the fact that we can welcome two dynamic and valued members of the sound community to fill shoes that we thought might be impossible to fill,” said Mark Ulano, CAS president.
With over 200 feature and television mixing credits, Haboush has four Oscar nominations and is a CAS, BAFTA and Emmy nominee as well as an Emmy winner. His career began in 1978 at B&B Sound Studios Burbank Calif. In 1989 he moved to Warner Bros/Goldwyn sound and in 1999 went over to Sony Studios. Currently Haboush can be found bouncing between Technicolor and Smart Post Sound mixing stages.
In a career that spans more than 40 years, Newman has been the production sound mixer on more than 85 feature films and garnered eight Oscar® nominations with three wins for The English Patient, Amadeus and The Exorcist. Newman was honored in 2013 with the CAS Career Achievement Award. He also won a CAS Award for Outstanding Sound Mixing for The English Patient and has BAFTA wins for Fame and Amadeus. Prior to working on feature films Newman spent a decade working on documentaries including working for Ted Yates’ NBC unit in Southeast Asia in 1966. Having taught sound and filmmaking in Europe, Brazil, Mexico, and at NYU and Columbia University, Newman currently teaches both sound and production at The School of Visual Arts in New York.
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More