For the second year in a row, Effie Worldwide has named BBDO Worldwide the most effective agency network in the world based on the results of its 2015 Effie Effectiveness Index. The Index results are driven by performance in more than 40 global, regional and national Effie programs around the world. This is the network’s third win in the five years since the Index was established in 2011. Sancho BBDO in Colombia was the world’s most effective individual agency, also for the second year in a row, and the third time in five years…..
Agency R&R Partners’ nine offices are being divided into two groups, which will report up through two sr. VPs/group managing directors. Fletcher Whitwell and John Wells have been promoted to these new roles. Whitwell will oversee Las Vegas, Denver, Salt Lake City, and the Washington, DC/Maryland office. His previous role was sr. VP, media & measurement. Wells will oversee Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin, and the office in Mexico City, along with Carlos Arambula, VP, Hispanic marketing. Wells’ previous role was VP, brand management/managing director-Los Angeles. Additionally former Nevada Congressman Steven Horsford has entered into a joint partnership with R&R Partners. R&R Partners and Horsford’s company, Resources+, will join forces in Washington, D.C. to establish a full-service agency with integrated services, specializing in diversity marketing, media training and corporate communications, workforce and vendor/supplier engagement and international affairs. In this capacity, Horsford will serve as sr. VP of strategic integration and partnerships for R&R’s nine offices throughout the United States and Mexico City. He will also serve as managing director of the agency’s Washington, D.C. office….
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More