New York/Los Angeles/San Francisco-based content creation studio/production company BODEGA has signed Mike Orsini of No Relation @ Uncle Lefty to handle commercial representation on the East Coast. Orsini will also represent the integrated post offerings of BODEGA in-house partners Northern Lights (editorial), SuperExploder (sound) and Mr Wonderful (design/branding). No Relation @ Uncle Lefty’s East Coast roster also includes Acres, Canteen and House Special. Orsini started as a sales rep with Uncle Lefty in 2012, launching the No Relation imprint under Uncle Lefty’s banner in 2017 to create a unique home for a growing roster of film, TV & commercial directors, editors, composers, artists, VFX, digital creators and technologists….
Voyager, a Brooklyn, NY-based production company headed by EP Andrew Hutcheson, has signed with Favorite Child, a branch of RepresentationCo, and will be repped by Erin Wahed on the East Coast. This is Voyager’s first commercial representation. Earlier this year, Voyager added editor-turned-director Caitlyn Green (HBO’s The Jinx), and directors Marcus Tortorici and Andrew Litten to its roster. Voyager has recently worked with BBDO, TBWAChiatDay, Translation, Vice, P&G, Champion, and Facebook among others. Voyager’s first feature, a documentary by the company’s founding director Charles Frank, is currently in postproduction. Voyager joins Erin Wahed’s Favorite Child roster alongside Doomsday, Gentlemen and Variable….
Los Angeles-based integrated production company Stept has added Ashley Ford and Susanne Kelly to its sales team. The studio’s work for clients including Oakley, The North Face, and Gatorade ranges from branded content and documentary shorts to television commercials. Ford, the founder of creative partnership broker Friends of Ford, connects with Stept as an independent rep handling West Coast sales in the L.A. office. Friends of Ford’s roster includes a variety of visual effects, sound and live action companies. Before founding the company, Ford worked in integrated advertising at creative studio Framestore and as part of the sales team at Siobhan McCafferty & Associates. Kelly, who is based in NYC, is in-house at Stept, a sales EP with a focus on East Coast business. Before joining Stept, Kelly served as an EP for Rocket Film and as the East Coast director of new business and sales for Aéro Film. Stept’s directorial roster includes Jess Colquhoun, Nick Martini, Miles Joris-Peyrafitte, and Toby Wosskow. The company also maintains full in-house post capabilities….
Brooklyn-based, full-service experience agency Fake Love has hired Jamaal Stewart as its sr. business director. Before joining Fake Love, Jamaal served as account director at Momentum Worldwide, where he oversaw all cross-cultural sponsorship opportunities to integrate the Verizon brand and managed the Verizon brands partnership with the NBA League and teams. Prior to that, he was associate director for Commonground MGS, where he also led the Verizon account, managing concept development and execution for experiential ideas that translated to the multicultural consumer…..
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