Yessian Music, a music and sound design company with studios in New York, Detroit, Los Angeles and Hamburg, has brought Matt Nelson on board as executive producer in its NY studio. Nelson has extensive experience in audio postproduction, music supervision, film/TV score production and supervision, advertising agency music supervision and radio production.
Brian Yessian, partner and chief creative officer at Yessian, recalled, “We’ve had the opportunity to work with Matt when he was on the agency side (as a music producer) at JWT (NY) many years ago and have kept in touch since. Matt brings with him broad expertise in music, production, organization and fresh ideas that gel with our team as we continue to expand our audio offerings around the world.”
Though Nelson is based in New York, he will work across all of Yessian’s studios and collaborate with the teams in their work for commercials, live shows, immersive media and themed entertainment. Prior to joining Yessian, he had most recently served as head of production at Found Objects Music Productions,
Career highlights for Nelson include score production for M. Night Shyamalan’s film Old, Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Swan Song on Apple TV+ starring Mahershala Ali, Heidi Ewing’s I Carry You With Me (winner of both the NEXT and Audience awards at Sundance), music supervision for Olympic Dreams starring Nick Kroll and Alexi Pappas, and One Cambodian Family, Please for My Pleasure for TNT/R29’s Shatterbox Anthology.
On the advertising front, Nelson’s credits include producing music for the #WannaSprite Cranberry commercial starring DRAM and LeBron James, producing and music supervising YouTube’s Life in a Day Super Bowl promotion, music supervising the international Nintendo Wii U launch, and producing all national audio assets for Burger King from 2016-2017.
Nelson said he’s been an admirer of Yessian’s work for years, sharing, “I look forward to helping the company push the boundaries of audio production even further as they continue to produce best in class music and audio around the world.”
First-Time Feature Directors Make Major Splash At AFI Fest, Generate Oscar Buzz
Two first-time feature directors who are generating Oscar buzz this awards season were front and center this past weekend at AFI Fest in Hollywood. Rachel Morrison, who made history as the first woman nominated for a Best Cinematography Oscar---on the strength of Mudbound in 2018--brought her feature directorial debut, The Fire Inside (Amazon MGM Studios), to the festival on Sunday (10/27), and shared insights into the film during a conversation session immediately following the screening. This came a day after William Goldenberg, an Oscar-winning editor for Argo in 2013, had his initial foray into feature directing, Unstoppable (Amazon MGM Studios), showcased at the AFI proceedings. He too spoke after the screening during a panel discussion. The Fire Inside--which made its world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival--tells the story of Claressa “T-Rex” Shields (portrayed by Ryan Destiny), a Black boxer from Flint, Mich., who trained to become the first woman in U.S. history to win an Olympic Gold Medal in the sport. She achieved this feat--with the help of coach Jason Crutchfield (Brian Tyree Henry)--only to find that her victory at the Summer Games came with relatively little fanfare and no endorsement deals. So much for the hope that the historic accomplishment would be a ticket out of socioeconomic purgatory for Shields and her family. It seemed like yet another setback in a cycle of adversity throughout Shields’ life but she persevered, going on to win her second Gold Medal at the next Olympics and becoming a champion for gender equality and equitable pay for women in sports. Shields has served as a source of inspiration for woman athletes worldwide--as well as to the community of... Read More