International creative audio network Squeak E. Clean Studios has expanded its Los Angeles team, bringing on Max Taylor as sr. producer and promoting Amanda Patterson to executive producer.
Taylor comes to Squeak E. Clean Studios after spending four years at 20th Century Fox coordinating music for the hit drama Empire. Patterson has over a decade of experience in commercial music production, ranging from original composition to sync and sound design for film and advertising. In her two years with Squeak E. Clean Studios, she has produced work for such clients as Facebook, Pepsi and The North Face, as well as the award-winning spot “Sport Changes Everything” for Nike that features 14-year-old fighter Chantel Navarro.
Chicago-native Taylor grew up amid the music industry, spending his formative years around concerts and musicians with his father as a sound engineer. He studied recording industry at Butler University before kicking off his career in music ticketing and promotions. He spent five years working across multiple functions of live events between Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City, liaising between artists, management teams and venues to optimize the guest experience. In 2016, he joined the production team on Empire as a music production liaison, overseeing the end-to-end process for the music-driven series.
Patterson’s passion for music led her down the path of a serious fan at an early age, skipping school to go to shows as a teenager and surrounding herself with artists and fans as impassioned as herself. After college, her musician friends began to swap touring gigs for longer-term opportunities, exploring the early days of the commercial music shop. This landed her a job at Black Iris Music, producing out of its Richmond, Va. office and later moving to Portland, Ore., to launch the shop’s West Coast presence. After planting roots in Oregon, she joined Marmoset Music as a creative team lead before making the move to Los Angeles to work with Squeak E. Clean 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