Alkemy X has added commercial and film director Dean Blumberg to its roster for U.S. commercial representation. Living in Johannesburg, South Africa, but shooting globally, Blumberg has a body of work which showcases his affinity for eliciting strong performances from actors on spots for such top brands as KFC, Virgin and Toyota, as well as campaigns with celebrity talent including Sir Ben Kingsley and William Shatner. Blumberg started his career directing short films which garnered him honors at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005. He then entered the competitive commercial directing world. Before long he won his first Ad of the Year for Creative Circle with his Ford “Together” spot and that his 1st for Women “So Backwards” piece made the Gunn Report’s 100 Most Awarded Commercials List—something he repeated in 2015 with his Student Flights’ “Grandpa.” He’s gone on to win various Cannes Lions, Clios, Midas, London International, and One Show awards. Blumberg has won Creative Circle’s Ad of the Year twice, as well as 2nd and 3rd places in alternating years. Outside of advertising, Blumberg has continued to work on his feature film and television endeavors throughout the entirety of his career. He has penned three feature film scripts, two of which he sold early on, and is regularly invited to lecture and give workshops on narrative direction. He is currently in development on his first feature film for Netflix, Splitsville, which is slated to begin production in 2023….
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