Director Jeffrey Karoff, known in the advertising world as a visual storyteller and for his work with real people, has joined Original for exclusive national representation. Karoff, who directs branded content and documentaries in addition to spots, was last repped by The Artists Company.
Karoff’s recent work includes a package for Ford’s Swap Your Ride campaign chronicling the experiences of consumers who are given a chance to trade their current vehicles for Fords, and campaigns for the pharmaceutical brands Crestor and Nuvaring.
Karoff traces his interest in photography and filmmaking to acquiring his father’s Canon 7 Rangefinder camera “whose wicked-fast F.95 Dream lens,” he joked, “never produced an in-focus picture — making me a life-long Canon devotee.” He went on to study filmmaking at UCLA and the American Film Institute.
“They taught that everything, from the wardrobe to the lighting to camera movement, ‘must serve the story,'” he recalled. “Now story pumps through the veins. Even in the tiny span of a spot, I strive to create an arc, a beginning, middle and end, a journey to take the viewers on.” He later co-founded Paradox Works, a workshop where directors and actors worked together.
Karoff got his professional start in “offbeat media,” including a stint programming and designing multimedia shows involving dozens of synchronized slide and film projectors. Although the medium “went the way of the calculator watch,” he peaked as programmer/designer on Genocide, an Academy Award-winning feature about the Holocaust.
Among his most ambitious projects was a 360-degree CircleVision film for Mercedes Benz. “I chose to keep the nine-camera, Barco-lounger sized camera rig moving in every shot,” he said. “I had to find the smallest dolly grip in the Western Hemisphere to crouch under the lenses.” The project played for a year in a movie-theater-in-the-round at auto shows across the U.S.
Karoff broke into spotmaking in 2001 via Coppos Films, followed by stints at Backyard and The Artists Company. Along with his recent work for Crestor, Nuvaring and Ford, he directed two fundraising films for New York philanthropic giant The Robin Hood Foundation. He is currently editing his documentary, Cavedigger, about an artist whose work involves single-handedly digging sculptural, cathedral-like caves in sandstone. Karoff shot part of the film in 3D.
Karoff also recently directed a series of PSAs for Model Environment that employed the novel concept of using renowned fashion models to promote environmental causes. One spot features Mexican model Carla Houston (and three clones) in a humorous pitch for water conservation.
Original is led by executive producers Bruce Mellon, Joe Piccirillo, Marc Lasko and Jeff Devlin, and maintains production offices in Los Angeles and New York City. The company’s postproduction division, headed by Jonathan Del Gatto, provides editorial, design, graphics and visual effects services.
“Mickey 17” Tops Weekend Box Office, But Profitability Is A Long Way Off
"Parasite" filmmaker Bong Joon Ho's original science fiction film "Mickey 17" opened in first place on the North American box office charts. According to studio estimates Sunday, the Robert Pattinson-led film earned $19.1 million in its first weekend in theaters, which was enough to dethrone "Captain America: Brave New World" after a three-week reign.
Overseas, "Mickey 17" has already made $34.2 million, bringing its worldwide total to $53.3 million. But profitability for the film is a long way off: It cost a reported $118 million to produce, which does not account for millions spent on marketing and promotion.
A week following the Oscars, where "Anora" filmmaker Sean Baker made an impassioned speech about the importance of the theatrical experience – for filmmakers to keep making movies for the big screens, for distributors to focus on theatrical releases and for audiences to keep going – "Mickey 17" is perhaps the perfect representation of this moment in the business, or at least an interesting case study. It's an original film from an Oscar-winning director led by a big star that was afforded a blockbuster budget and given a robust theatrical release by Warner Bros., one of the few major studios remaining. But despite all of that, and reviews that were mostly positive (79% on RottenTomatoes), audiences did not treat it as an event movie, and it may ultimately struggle to break even.
Originally set for release in March 2024, Bong Joon Ho's follow-up to the Oscar-winning "Parasite" faced several delays, which he has attributed to extenuating circumstances around the Hollywood strikes. Based on the novel "Mickey7" by Edward Ashton, Pattinson plays an expendable employee who dies on missions and is re-printed time and time again. Steven... Read More