Rep firm Robin Frank Management has rebranded as This is Frank, taking the approach of representing individual directors from various production company rosters. At the helm is president Robin Frank, who first gained prominence in the music video world before expanding her business to include commercials and varied content in 2005. Nancy Kagan, formerly of Runaway International Productions, has joined Frank's sales force, bringing a background in domestic and international production and sales….Ambitious Entertainment has taken on representation of writer/director/producer David Leaf for worldwide TV and film assignments. Perhaps best known for his feature-length documentaries (John Lennon, James Brown, Brian Wilson, Bee Gees), Leaf has been a key creative figure in hundreds of hours of music-variety, live event specials/series and pop culture retrospectives on such iconic figures as Billy Joel, Elton John, Norman Lear, Dean Martin, the Marx Brothers and the Beatles….
Craig Henighan Sounds Off On “Deadpool & Wolverine”
Hollywood lore has it that character actor Edmund Gwenn--while on his deathbed--quipped, “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.”
The second part of that darkly witty utterance remains all too true today as Craig Henighan--a Best Achievement in Sound Mixing Oscar nominee in 2019 for Roma--can attest in that he had to grapple with the sonic of being comic for this year’s box office hit, Deadpool & Wolverine (20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios).
The degree of inherent difficulty was ramped up even further because Deadpool & Wolverine had to seamlessly bring together high action-adventure exploits with moments and dialogue that tickled the funny bone. There’s a mesh of humorous banter--a staple of the franchise--along with major spectacle replete with explosions, fights, an impactful score and off-the-wall musical numbers.
Henighan explained that among the prime challenges for him from a sound perspective was having to make sure every joke landed within the construct of a superhero film. The tendency for a tentpole movie of this variety, he noted, is to gravitate towards big, loud audio spanning music, dialogue and sound effects. But the unique comedic element of Deadpool & Wolverine necessitated that re-recording mixer and supervising sound editor Henighan strike a delicate balance. “You need to get out of the way for the comedy,” he related. The jokes in a superhero film become “a real dance” as Henighan had to establish a rhythm that did justice to both the comedy and the action as the narrative moves back and forth between them--and sometimes the funny and the high energy, high decibel superhero dynamic unfold simultaneously in a scene or sequence. The “sonic fabric” has to... Read More