Chicago-based post house Optimus has inked a deal to buy offline editorial shop Edit Sweet, Chicago. Plans call for Edit Sweet staffers—including partner/editor Jan Maitland, editors Katie Wrobel, Craig Lewandowski, Tim Kloehn and Steve Mach—to work out of the Optimus facility. Optimus president Tom Duff related that his company intends to launch a Santa Monica-based operation to be headed by Edit Sweet partner/editor Jim Staskauskas, who is slated to move to Southern California.….. Backyard Productions, the Venice, Calif.-headquartered production house headed by founders, executive producer Blair Stribley and head of sales Roy Skillicorn, has launched Transistor Studios, a new media group under the aegis of digital producer Damon Meena and creative director Jared Plummer. The new venture will specialize in creating design-oriented Web sites, DVDs, motion graphics and interactive online experiences….Director David Emery has joined bicoastal Treat for spot representation….ARF & Co., Hoboken, N.J., has signed director Ross Whitaker…cccp ny has added director Paul Riccio to its roster…. Los Angeles-based animation house Duck Soup Studios has signed Evil Cat Land, a directing team consisting of Walter Santucci, Pete Doan, Seth Strong and Layron DeJarnette. The directorial ensemble is named after the Evil Cat character, star of several Santucci-directed underground films which toured internationally as part of Spike and Mike’s Sick and Twisted Festival…. Director Cadmo Quintero has joined Metro Pictures, Marina del Rey, Calif….Flame artist Joe Wenkoff has come on board Red Car New York…..Marty Orzio, a co-executive creative director at Merkley Newmam Harty & Partners, New York, on the Mercedes-Benz account has left the agency to pursue other options. His duties will be assumed by Randy Saitta and Andy Hirsch, co-executive creative directors on the Mercedes business…. Minneapolis-headquartered agency Fallon is expanding globally. The shop is set to open offices in São Paulo, Brazil, Singapore and Hong Kong. The agency also has offices in New York and London…. San Rafael, Calif.-based Autodesk has finalized its deal to acquire Media 100’s software product line for $16 million cash. The streaming media software solutions from Media 100 figure to enhance the content creation product portfolio of Autodesk’s Montreal-headquartered division Discreet, meaning that Discreet customers will be able to create, distribute, re-purpose and publish media content for consumption via the Internet, corporate Intranets and IP-enabled devices such as cell phones and PDAs…..
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