Jay Shapiro has joined The Corner Shop as an executive producer. Shapiro, who has a track record of working with leading commercial directors, will work closely with managing partner/EP Anna Hashmi and producer Jessica Miller at The Corner Shop……
Trailer Park, a full-service agency specializing in content creation and entertainment marketing, has formed a strategy division named Marquee. The new division provides next-gen insights and advisory services to entertainment clients looking to navigate today’s complex media landscape. Marquee is led by Jake Katz, sr. VP of strategy, and launches with two new additions to the team–Cristina Lucero as director of trends research, and Peterson Berg as a multi-platform strategist. Marquee will tap into a national and real-time panel of leading-edge media consumers that will function like an advisory board. Panel insights, combined with additional consumer research and behavioral data, will expand Trailer Park’s capabilities in providing clients with dynamic creative, campaign optimization and intelligence around platform monetization. The new division also distributes a series of products on an ongoing basis, including weekly insights-led editorial, and provides next-gen entertainment workshops and client residences that provide onsite consulting and strategic planning services. Katz joined Trailer Park last year and has a strong background in strategy, marketing and insights, especially when it comes to generational behavior. Prior to Trailer Park, he was VP of audience insights & strategy at REVOLT, where he was responsible for consumer and distributor strategy. Prior to REVOLT, Jake was GM of youth insights firm Ypulse, and held innovation roles at MTV and NBCUniversal. As director of trends research, Lucero will develop consumer intelligence around the future of entertainment and emerging best practices in how content should go to market. In addition, she will lead Marquee’s advisory panel. Prior to joining Trailer Park, Lucero was the director of consumer research & insights at Awesomeness TV. In his role as multi-platform strategist, Berg will provide social and digital strategy to Trailer Park’s media and entertainment clients. Prior to joining the team, he held the role as strategist, business development at Fullscreen Media. Lucero and Berg join Katz and Ashleigh Edwards, the team’s brand strategy lead. Edwards’ brand experience is a fast-growing commodity among entertainment clients, who are increasingly challenged by consumers watching content across many platforms and services without associating their fandom with the responsible publisher and its brand….
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