Nic Seresin, an award-winning Flame artist and VFX supervisor, has returned to Smoke & Mirrors, his professional home for many years before leaving to go freelance in 2010. Seresin has worked with a long list of top-shelf directors, including Michel Gondry, Tim Burton, Jonathan Glazer, Frank Budgen, Rupert Sanders, Stacy Wall, Tony Kaye, Spike Lee, Traktor, and Ulf Johansson. Seresin has also worked on several features, including 12 Monkeys, Sweeney Todd, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and the James Bond film, The World Is Not Enough…. Entertainment creative agency mOcean has added Brumby Boylston as group creative director, entertainment marketing, and David Kleinman as managing director of entertainment marketing. Kleinman arrives at mOcean following a six-year tenure as executive producer at Blind Visual Propaganda. Prior to Blind, he served as R&D Unit Manager at Lightstorm Entertainment, collaborating with filmmaker James Cameron and VFX supervisor Rob Legato to develop technologies and new workflow methodologies for the 2009 feature film “Avatar.” He entered the entertainment industry working on the live-action side as executive producer/head of production at Crash Films. Boylston was previously co-founder/creative director at National Television, a bicoastal production company specializing in design, animation, and live-action for brands and network clients, including American Express, ABC, Volvo, ING, ESPNU, SyFy and Disney. Prior to launching National Television, he was a writer/creator at The Walt Disney Company….
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