Art director Jon Lorenz and digital effects supervisor Jeff Willette have joined Timber, the VFX house headed by creative directors/co-founders Jonah Hall and Kevin Lau.
Lorenz is no stranger to Timber, having freelanced on projects with the company for the past year. Over the years he has also worked with such shops as Buck, Royal, Modus Operandi, Big Block, Troika, Mocean, and Oishii Creative. Lorenz has been on staff at Shilo as a designer/compositor, and as art director at King and Country (including a leadership role in the Motel 6 “Metamorphosis”campaign). He has also collaborated directly with clients on projects for H2/History Channel for “Rise Against the Machines/Hangar 1” and Vivint; and on projects for Lime TV via agency Just Knight and with T3 via agency Dark Horse.
Willette joins Timber also having experience at notable studios including Mirada, Method, Asylum, Sony Pictures Imageworks and a52, having started his career at Traveling Pictures Animation in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Notable projects for Willette include: “Fallout 4” opening cinematic for Mirada, the Jameson “Fire” commercial for Method Studios, Terminator Salvation and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button feature films, both for Asylum. Willette’s work has garnered a series of awards and nominations including VES, HPA, Addy and Clio awards. He collaborated on HBO’s Carnivale, which garnered an Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Design.
Timber has just completed a film project for The Google.org Impact Challenge, and is in the midst of commercial campaigns for Southwest Airlines, Chipotle and T-Mobile.
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