By Robert Goldrich
SANTA MONICA, Calif. --Director/cinematographer Rebecca Baehler has signed with RadicalMedia for worldwide representation spanning commercials and branded content. She had previously been handled by RSA Films in the ad arena. Baehler has to her credit campaigns for major brands including Apple, Samsung, Beats, Android and Nissan.
Baehler was drawn to RadicalMedia by its president, Frank Scherma, the company’s savvy sales team and talented filmmaking roster. Baehler feels her new roost will afford her the opportunity to continue the clean, graphic and elegant visual, product-centric, tabletop fare for which she’s known while also diversifying her into more actor performance-driven storytelling. That includes infusing her extensive automotive ad exploits with more people and lifestyle touches. She described her goal as taking “the aesthetics of the product stuff I do and bringing that to a people/lifestyle situation.” She has a track record of marrying her visual and technical acumen with a passion for storytelling and doing justice to creative concepts.
Baehler made her first major splash as a cinematographer after working as a camera assistant, most notably with lauded DP John Stanier on assorted commercials. Baehler’s initial break came when director Mark Coppos tabbed her to lens a Levi’s ad back in 1998, starting a run as a DP on numerous spot assignments, eventually dovetailing into her directing portions of Apple projects and then entire commercials. Baehler thus established herself in the directorial ranks with a body of work that now spans some 15-plus years and counting.
Meanwhile in recent years, Baehler’s camera prowess landed her DP/macro unit work on visually ambitious Marvel superhero feature films such as Ant-Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Baehler began her career as a production assistant at Amblin Entertainment where she then broke into the camera department on the comedy/horror feature Arachnophobia while still a teenager. As a film loader she worked with and learned from such cinematographers as Owen Roizman, Mikael Salomon and later Stanier as his second and then first assistant. Stanier was prolific in commercials, and an Intel assignment he shot for Coppos brought Baehler into the director’s orbit. Baehler and Coppos hit it off, striking up a filmmaking rapport. Her visual sensibilities made for a smooth transition into directing. She directed at Coppos Films and then Green Dot Films when Mark Coppos moved over there. Baehler later went off on her own to direct at such shops as Caviar and RSA.
Baehler’s preference is to shoot what she directs. “I can’t imagine ever leaving the camera behind completely,” she affirmed.
After 20 Years of Acting, Megan Park Finds Her Groove In The Director’s Chair On “My Old Ass”
Megan Park feels a little bad that her movie is making so many people cry. It's not just a single tear either — more like full body sobs.
She didn't set out to make a tearjerker with "My Old Ass," now streaming on Prime Video. She just wanted to tell a story about a young woman in conversation with her older self. The film is quite funny (the dialogue between 18-year-old and almost 40-year-old Elliott happens because of a mushroom trip that includes a Justin Bieber cover), but it packs an emotional punch, too.
Writing, Park said, is often her way of working through things. When she put pen to paper on "My Old Ass," she was a new mom and staying in her childhood bedroom during the pandemic. One night, she and her whole nuclear family slept under the same roof. She didn't know it then, but it would be the last time, and she started wondering what it would be like to have known that.
In the film, older Elliott ( Aubrey Plaza ) advises younger Elliott ( Maisy Stella ) to not be so eager to leave her provincial town, her younger brothers and her parents and to slow down and appreciate things as they are. She also tells her to stay away from a guy named Chad who she meets the next day and discovers that, unfortunately, he's quite cute.
At 38, Park is just getting started as a filmmaker. Her first, "The Fallout," in which Jenna Ortega plays a teen in the aftermath of a school shooting, had one of those pandemic releases that didn't even feel real. But it did get the attention of Margot Robbie 's production company LuckyChap Entertainment, who reached out to Park to see what other ideas she had brewing.
"They were very instrumental in encouraging me to go with it," Park said. "They're just really even-keeled, good people, which makes... Read More