New York-headquartered production and post company Hayden5 is expanding to Los Angeles. Hayden5’s offerings include Drop Crews™ and Cloud Cuts™ services. Drop Crew provides live viewing of remote productions via local crews, while Cloud Cut enables real-time editing, lightning-fast media delivery, and cloud storage–all executed by its seasoned staff of producers and a curated team of remote editors from around the world. With approximately half of its business coming from companies with a West Coast presence, Hayden5 is now positioned to grow and better serve its client base, which includes Salesforce, Amazon, FCB Health, A&E Networks, and Edelman PR. With the L.A. expansion, Hayden5 also plans to increase its staff by more than 30%, while growing its Originals division, which has produced a number of unscripted content projects, including Long Shot, an Emmy-nominated documentary on Netflix. It is currently in development on Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, a behind-the-scenes look at how video games are made, and American Exile, a 2021 documentary following the experiences of U.S.-born individuals who were deported back to their countries of origin. For the latter, Hayden5 interviewed subjects in places including Mexico, Indonesia, and Ethiopia, relying on its network of local crews while Hayden5 founder/creative director Todd Wiseman Jr. directed from his New York office….
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
The one rule to follow is that... Read More