Michael Phillips is joining Eleven San Francisco as director of digital production and creative technology. He will serve as a senior level thought leader for the agency, helping to plan and execute digital strategies for clients as well as to manage the content development process in collaboration with internal and external teams. Phillips will work closely with Eleven’s creative, digital and account teams in leading and identifying opportunities for growth and profit with both new and existing clients. He comes over from Goodby Silverstein & Partners where he led the BETA Group, the agency’s internal creative-technology and digital innovation team. Prior to that, he was an executive producer at GS&P and led digital-production teams on Google, TD Ameritrade, Nintendo, Elizabeth Arden, Specialized Bicycles and Nature’s Way….Veteran digital and social strategy director Mike Chiavetta has joined bicoastal Stardust. He began his career in the tech start-up space, building tech platforms for entertainment brands. He then went to TBWAChiatDay and built out the social analytics department, working on the Nissan, Pepsi Co and Kraft accounts. He has led digital and social strategy for a variety of brands including Amazon, ExxonMobil, GameStop, Monster.com and Sony….
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