Tanya Cohen–who founded Slash Dynamic, a WBENC certified, 100% female-owned production company, in 2018–has now launched a unit dedicated to automotive marketing. The new creative content studio is Slash Dynamic Automotive. To a roster that already included automotive film directors such as Konrad Begg (Top Gear) and Deluxe, Cohen has added auto creative directors Dave Hedeman and Steve Rice, a pair who formerly led brand and retail creative together on Nissan USA for 15 years, at both TBWAChiatDay NY and Zimmerman.
Cohen felt the time was right for a studio that’s hyper-focused on automotive. “With there being more media channels than ever and more content being produced, I knew we had a unique opportunity as experts in the category,” she said. “It’s such a specialty and you really have to know the business and the vehicles inside and out to create meaningful content. You can’t just point a camera at a car and drive.”
Cohen further noted, “Creating a studio where creative directors work together with film directors and producers from the starting line gives us a powerful advantage. We all know, live and love automotive. Our team thinks like automotive CMOs, internal marketing and PR teams and agency teams, so they can integrate seamlessly into any project and work alongside them,” she said. It creates a much shorter learning curve, higher efficiency and brand-level creative output.
Slash Dynamic Automotive has the capability to go from ideation through production and postproduction under one roof. The company will create branded, marketing and PR content. “We can also scale from bare bones to multi-day, multi-unit productions across the globe, while maintaining the highest levels of production value,” Cohen contended. “It’s that kind of flexibility that we know is vitally important to global auto brands with budgets and locations that vary widely from project-to-project.”
In addition to being able to satisfy the immediate needs of automakers and auto-related brands, the Slash team is heavily focused on creating storytelling and experiences that speak to the future landscape of the auto industry on the whole.
It’s a future, Cohen said, of “EV’s, self-driving vehicles, drones, electric bikes, scooters and other vehicles that will be capturing data and this data will be used to tell stories. In-cabin entertainment will be important, and creating immersive experiences for consumers to engage with their vehicles.”
Slash Dynamic Automotive and Cohen dovetail with the growing number of women making an impact in the vehicular marketing space. “It’s exciting to be following in the footsteps of some very talented female automotive CMOs and marketing directors whom I respect and admire,” Cohen said. “They’re helping re-shape the industry and have paved the way for us to create a space where we can do amazing work for auto brands of every size.”
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