Brooklyn-based Greenpoint Pictures has infused its roster with directorial talent, adding Evan Dennis, Logan Roos (a company in-house editor and DP for many years), We Are Not Pilgrims (Chaddy Chad and Sam Sneed), Va$htie, Olivier Agostini, the duo of Tank + Bunker (Judah Lev-Dickstein and Justin Liberman), Alyesa Young, and Alex 2tone. These directors join a Greenpoint lineup which continues to feature such helmers as The Hudson Dusters, Jacob Lincoln, Philip Knowlton, Nico Carbonaro and Benjamin Leavitt. Greenpoint Pictures was founded in 2002 by Michael Kuhn, with fellow partner and executive producer Jacob Lincoln joining in 2010….Detour Films, headquartered in Santa Monica, Calif., has signed director Tony Benna for exclusive commercial representation. Benna unites his unique stop motion background with live action narratives to create heartfelt films for the commercial world and beyond. His projects include a series of docu-style films for Dove Men as well as a series of beautiful vignettes filmed while driving across America to promote the Sh-100 camera for Samsung. The mini-documentaries for Samsung were created and produced by Mekanism. Benna also co-directed a Pepsi spot for last year’s Superbowl. The flipbook-inspired ad was made up of user-submitted photographs, which flashed forward seamlessly to launch the halftime show…. Seattle and L.A.-based agency WONGDOODY has hired Dennis Lee as associate creative director. Lee will work out of the L.A. office, and will develop creative initiatives for clients including Scion, VIZIO and Epson, working closely with exec creative director Pam Fujimoto. Prior to joining WONGDOODY, Lee was associate creative director at Ogilvy & Mather, L.A. During his previous six-year tenure at WONGDOODY, he contributed to projects for ESPN College GameDay, ESPN2, ESPYs, Autodesk, Epson, Carl’s Jr. and Mercury Insurance….
Steven Soderbergh Has A Multi-Faceted “Presence” In His Latest Film
Steven Soderbergh isn't just the director and cinematographer of his latest film. He's also, in a way, its central character.
"Presence" is filmed entirely from the POV of a ghost inside a home a family has just moved into. Soderbergh, who serves as his own cinematographer under the pseudonym Peter Andrews (his father's name), essentially performs as the presence, a floating point-of-view that watches as the violence that killed the mysterious ghost threatens to be repeated.
For even the prolific Soderbergh, the film, which opens Friday in theaters, was a unique challenge. He shot "Presence" with a small digital camera while wearing slippers to soften his steps.
The 62-year-old filmmaker recently met a reporter in a midtown Manhattan hotel in between finishing post-production on his other upcoming movie ("Black Bag," a thriller Focus Features will release March 14) and beginning production in a few weeks on his next project, a romantic comedy that he says "feels like a George Cukor movie."
Soderbergh, whose films include "Out of Sight," the "Ocean's 11" movies, "Magic Mike" and "Erin Brockovich," tends to do a lot in small windows of time. "Presence" took 11 days to film.
That dexterous proficiency has made the ever-experimenting Soderbergh one of Hollywood's most widely respected evaluators of the movie business. In a wide-ranging conversation, he discussed why he thinks streaming is the most destructive force the movies have ever faced and why he's "the cockroach of this industry."
Q: You use pseudonyms for yourself as a cinematographer and editor. Were you tempted to credit yourself as an actor for "Presence"?
SODERBERGH: No, but what I did is subtle. For the first and... Read More