NYC-headquartered creative design, animation and mixed media studio LOBO has expanded its sales team, adding Nathan Skillicorn of Heart, Brains & Nerve to handle the Midwest and James Bartlett of Mr. Bartlett to help cover the East Coast. Bartlett will work alongside LOBO’s existing East Coast sales team, Minerva, led by Mary Knox and Shauna Seresin. Heart, Brains & Nerve’s roster also includes Believe, Hound, Friends Electric, Schrom and Seed. Mr. Bartlett’s roster also includes Diktator, Jump Editorial, The Marmalade and Strike Anywhere.
HERO: Creative Management and Strategy has launched in Los Angeles, providing independent sales and talent management to the commercial production industry in the West Coast and Texas markets. Founded by Harrison Elkins, HERO represents shops across live action production, VFX and animation, editorial, and music and audio. Current roster clients include Spark & Riot, Fancy Content, Gentlemen, and Ring the Alarm. Elkins has a decade of talent management and sales experience across major U.S. markets, most recently serving as head of sales at bicoastal studio Humble + Postal for over three years, setting new sales benchmarks and positioning the company for direct-to-brand partnerships. Recent client work booked through HERO includes a new Jaguar campaign for Spark & Riot with Spark44, M&C Saatchi’s new campaign for the San Diego Zoo with Gentlemen, and ongoing work with Beats by Dre for Ring the Alarm.
AWS (Amazon Web Services) Thinkbox has added Will McDonald as head of business development. Based in Seattle, McDonald now leads client relationships for AWS Thinkbox, working closely with the business development team to help studios manage on-premises resources and rendering on the cloud. McDonald comes to AWS Thinkbox from Conductor Technologies, where he served as VP of product and helped launch the company’s cloud-based rendering platform. He has also spent more than four years at Autodesk as sr. manager of interactive and emerging technology, and has held various art, TD and R&D roles at Electronic Arts, ILM and Pixar Animation Studios…
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