The directing duo of Chuck Bennett and Clay Williams-formerly a creative team at TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles-has landed at Crossroads Films, bicoastal and Chicago, for exclusive representationA..Director David Emery, who formerly maintained a Los Angeles-based shop-Emery-in association with bicoastal Giraldi Suarez Productions, has joined bicoastal Bedford Falls for exclusive spot representationA.Director Geoffrey Barish told SHOOT that he is no longer affiliated with Los Angeles-based Morton Jankel Zander (MJZ). He initially linked with that company last year when his shop, Seven Ounce Man, became an MJZ satelliteA. Director Alphonzo J. Wesson III has come aboard Blacktop Films, a Los Angeles-based spot and music video house headed by president/executive producer Matthew Earl Jones. A minority-owned production company, Blacktop is focused primarily on the African-American and Latin marketsA.Cupertino, Calif.-based CANAL+U.S. TECHNOLOGIES, a subsidiary of CANAL+ TECHNOLOGIES, Paris, has partnered with Random/Order, Culver City, Calif., to create enhanced and interactive television applications for advertisers. Under the aegis of chairman/CEO Stuart Gross, Random/Order develops interactive TV strategies and solutions for ad agencies and their clients. The company figures to play a prominent role in U.S. growth for CANAL+TECHNOLOGIES, which is already well established in the European interactive TV marketplace. Meanwhile other strategic international relationships are in the offing for Random/OrderA.Howard Schwartz Recording (HSR), New York, has extended its audio reach, launching an ADR, dialogue recording and mix facility with ISDN capabilities at Silvercup Studios, Long Island City, N.Y. HSR/Silvercup figures to diversify the company further into TV programs, including shows that are shot on the Silvercup stages. HSR/Silvercup is currently doing ADR and Sarah Jessica Parker’s voiceovers for the HBO series Sex In the City. HSR’s mainstay Manhattan facility continues to serve a mix of advertising, feature, TV, radio, Internet and corporate clienteleA.
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More