TV and feature films have long been integral parts of Anonymous Content’s business model. Steve Golin, managing partner/founder of Anonymous, said that the company currently has some 20 projects in development spanning theatrical motion pictures and television, translating into longer form opportunities for not only filmmakers at production house Anonymous, including those on its commercials/branded content roster, but also helmers, writers and actors handled by Anonymous’ Talent & Lit Management division.
Figuring prominently in this year’s field of primetime Emmy Award contenders is a show developed, packaged and produced by Anonymous: True Detective created by Nic Pizzolatto who wrote all eight episodes of season one. Similarly there’s a singular directorial vision as all eight episodes of the HBO series were helmed by Cary Joji Fukunaga who’s repped by Anonymous for spots and branded fare. Both Fukunaga and Pizzolatto are handled for features and TV by Anonymous Talent & Lit Management.
Golin related that all the elements fell neatly into place for True Detective, which stars Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as Louisiana State Police detectives who in 2012 are called upon to revisit a homicide case they worked in 1995. As the inquiry unfolds in present day through separate interrogations, the two former detectives narrate the story of their investigation, reopening unhealed wounds, and drawing into question their supposed solving of a bizarre ritualistic murder in ‘95. As the detectives are pulled back into a dark world they believed they’d left behind, they learn about the killer–and each other.
“We connected with Nic [Pizzolatto] who had written a book called ‘Galveston,’” recalled Golin. “I read his script for True Detective and I loved it. We optioned the script, hired him to write a second script, then he wrote a bible for the show. At that time he was a staff writer on the second season of The Killing. We hired him.”
Anonymous’ talent management agency also secured Pizzolatto as a client. Golin meanwhile gave Pizzolatto’s script to director Fukunaga. “Cary just seemed like the right guy to tell this story,” said Golin. “He met Nic, they decided to work together, sent the script to Matthew [McConaughey] who came aboard and then he brought Woody [Harrelson] into the picture.”
Anonymous Content shopped its True Detective package to such outlets as HBO, Showtime, Netflix and Starz. “There was a lot of interest but we ultimately decided that HBO was the best option,” said Golin, adding, “It’s hard to quantify the alchemy that goes into a successful series but this [True Detective] just had it.”
Anonymous is looking to recapture that alchemy for several other alluded to projects, including season two of True Detective which will be “completely different” said Golin, citing a new cast, director and storyline. As for other projects on the docket, Anonymous Content has shot a pilot entitled Quarry for Cinemax starring Logan Marshall-Green as a Vietnam war veteran who returns home in 1972 with post traumatic stress. The pilot was directed by John Hillcoat who is handled by Anonymous’ Talent & Lit Management. Hillcoat, whose feature filmography includes The Proposition and The Road, is repped as a commercials/branded content director by Skunk in the U.S. and Stink in the U.K.
Another Anonymous Talent & Lit Management client, director Steven Soderbergh, is directing all 10 episodes of The Knick. Produced by Anonymous Content, The Knick delves into the professional and personal lives of the staff at New York’s Knickerbocker Hospital during the early part of the 20th century. The Knick is slated to debut in August on Cinemax. (Soderbergh’s HBO telefilm Behind the Candelabra won 11 Emmy Awards last year, including for Best Movie or Miniseries and Best Director of a Movie or Miniseries.)
On the feature front, Anonymous has Alejandro González Iñárritu directing The Revenant, a wilderness drama set in the early 1800s and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Iñárritu directs commercials and branded content via Anonymous. He helmed Procter & Gamble’s “Best Job” for Wieden+Kennedy which earned him the DGA Award for best commercial director of 2012. “Best Job” also won the primetime commercial Emmy Award.
Fukunaga incidentally has moved on from True Detective to direct a feature film about child soldiers in Africa. Though Anonymous is not directly involved in the project, the company was helpful in some key respects, including securing Idris Elba, an Anonymous talent agency client, to portray the film’s warlord character. Fukunaga’s prior feature credits include his directing the 2011 film Jane Eyre and writing and directing Sin Nombre, which won a 2009 directing award at the Sundance Film Festival.
Anonymous develops material with clients (from both the commercials and management division) and when appropriate packages them, as well as non-clients. The range of talent spans filmmakers, writers and actors. Golin noted that Anonymous Talent & Lit Management has grown substantially in recent years, now maintaining 22 talent managers representing a wide array of directors, writers, actors and comedians.
Girls
Jesse Peretz began his filmmaking career when, as bassist for the group The Lemonheads, his band mates asked him to direct their first music video. He went on to helm assorted clips for such artists as the Foo Fighters, The Breeders and Teenage Fanclub. His “Learn to Fly” for the Foo Fighters won a Grammy in 2001 for Best Short Form Music Video and earned him an MTV Music Video Award nomination as best director. Peretz also won an MTV Award for best group video on the strength of the Foo Fighters’ “Big Me.” Peretz’s video exploits along with his “Jimmy the Cab Driver” promos for MTV caught the attention of the ad community, translating into quirky comedy spots for Dentyne, Subway, H+R Block, Ikea, Sony PlayStation, Barq’s Root Beer, Old Navy and Verizon, among others. He landed his first Hollywood studio feature, The Ex, a romantic comedy released in 2006 with a cast that included Zach Braff, Amanda Peet, Jason Bateman and Charles Grodin. Peretz’s feature filmography also includes the comedy Our Idiot Brother, a 2011 release starring Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks and Zooey Deschanel.
While his initial foray into series television had him directing multiple episodes of Important Things with Demetri Martin in 2009, Peretz got a major TV break when he thought he was simply offering some career advice to a youngster out of college. Peretz’s wife had met the aspiring college grad, Lena Dunham, who was working at a clothing store and they struck up a conversation. This led to Dunham meeting director Peretz. Shortly thereafter Dunham went on direct and write her lauded feature debut, Tiny Furniture. “Less than 18 months later, Lena had HBO buying Girls and she asked me if I would direct one of the episodes for season one,” recollected Peretz who by that time had directed several episodes of New Girl for his friend Deschanel.
Peretz became a producer on HBO’s Girls and has directed 10 episodes thus far. Among the episodes submitted for Emmy consideration this year is the Peretz-directed “Beach House” in which Marnie (Allison Williams) invites the girls to a beach house, owned by a friend of her mother, for the weekend. While there, Hannah (Dunham) runs into Elijah (Andrew Rannells) and the girls learn a lot about themselves through each other. “We took the whole crew on the road, shooting the episode out on the North Fork of Long Island. It was fun to get everyone away and on location,” related Peretz. “I’m proud of the final result.”
Last year, Girls received five primetime Emmy nominations: Outstanding Comedy Series; Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series (Dunham for the “On All Fours” episode); Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series (Dunham); Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series (Adam Driver); and Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series (casting director Jennifer Euston).
In 2012, Girls won the Emmy for Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series (Euston) and earned four other nominations: Outstanding Comedy Series; Outstanding Directing in a Comedy Series (Dunham for the episode titled “She Did”); Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series (Dunham for the series pilot); and Outstanding Lead Actress (Dunham)
Years back when videos and commercials were his focus, Peretz never envisioned getting involved in television. But that changed as he found himself attracted for the first time since he was a kid to “a whole bunch of TV shows. Television has changed. The quality of the shows has improved dramatically. The work is exciting–especially on cable TV. It’s a really enjoyable space in which to be working. It’s sort of the same feeling I had originally in commercials when I got to direct a lot of great, fun things in America and Europe.”
The U.S. spot work was initially through Crossroads, his company affiliation at the time, while the European fare came through U.K. house Cowboy Films. Today, Peretz’s commercialmaking/branded content roost is RSA Films and he intends to again pursue select ad assignments after wrapping his summer commitment to Girls.
“I still love working in commercials,” he affirmed, noting that his window of availability will open up a bit more this year as he no longer has the commitment of serving as a producer on the Showtime series Nurse Jackie, for which he has directed multiple episodes. Peretz’s other TV series work in recent years includes directing episodes of The Office and The Mindy Project.
On the commercialmaking front, about a month and a half ago–between his being in an editing session on Nurse Jackie and then embarking on another season of Girls–Peretz directed a spot for Cree LED lightbulbs out of agency Baldwin& in Raleigh, NC. This represented a bit of repeat business for Peretz who directed Cree’s first ad a year earlier.
Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
The late astronomer and educator Carl Sagan helped to put wonderment over science into the mainstream public consciousness with the lauded 1980 PBS series Cosmos, which won three Emmys in ‘81: a pair for Outstanding Individual Achievement–Creative Technical Crafts (both for the premiere episode “The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean”); and one for Outstanding Individual Achievement-Informational Programming (For the episode “Blues for a Red Planet”). Among the breakthrough series’ other Emmy nominations was one for Outstanding Informational Series.
Ann Druyan was a co-creator/writer on Cosmos for her late husband Sagan. She struggled for many years to get a new version of Cosmos on the air though a number of networks wanted the series. “Cosmos was kind of a gold standard for science-based entertainment and there was plenty of interest,” related Druyan. “But while people wanted to do it, the didn’t want to put up the kind of money needed to make it as commensurately technically satisfying as the original was for its time. No one wanted to give me complete creative control.”
Then a bit of serendipity took hold when astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who would become host of the new Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey on Fox, introduced Druyan to Seth McFarlane (of Family Guy fame). “Seth had been a big fan of the original series and once he became involved, everything began to gel,” recalled Druyan. “He understood what I wanted to accomplish and took me to the Fox network with his considerable influence there.” She added that Fox execs didn’t even want a pilot–that they considered the original series as pilot enough to demonstrate the viability of a new series. “From that moment on, to the end of postproduction,” noted Druyan, “I never had any interference in making the program we wanted to make.”
Druyan said that the new series–for which she served as a director, writer and executive producer–takes on an added importance given that in recent years people seem to have been more threatened by science when they should instead be embracing it. “When Carl [Sagan] died, there wasn’t that globally recognizable trustworthy voice of science who could explain the most complicated scientific ideas in the most poetic and accessible language,” said Druyan. “He stood up against the crazier ideas that were current when he was alive. He fought for the environment and for our future. Notable scientists have since done public outreach but it hasn’t been quite the same.”
Druyan, though, said she has seen a positive change take hold. “My theory is that the pendulum has already begun to swing back. Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey is a point in the curve. Looking at the Twitter feed on Sunday nights from both coasts [after the show has aired], I see a revelatory excitement from people who never realized that science could be so thrilling, that they felt a sense of uplift from seeing the show, that they were inspired. I was teaching a class of seven and eight year olds the other day. There were 25 kids and I was knocked out by how they seemed so well versed in every episode of the show. We are helping to open a new world to them. We went through a period of retreat from science and exploration and I hope that we are helping to change this.”
She also credited host Tyson who is director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. As an author, his credits include “Space Chronicles” and “The Pluto Files.”
Druyan said, “Neil has done a fantastic job of connecting with people as host. His performance is really exceptional without any snobbery or trying to show people how much he knows. I picked him because he had the same warmth and that desire to connect with people that Carl had. I remember happening upon Carl’s office calendar for 1975 in our archives. There was Neil’s name as he was scheduled to meet with Carl on Saturday, September 20th. The moment I saw that, I had chills. I’ve known Neil for 25 years and we have kept in touch. As soon as I decided I wanted to do a new Cosmos, Neil was one of the first people I called. He immediately sparked to it.”
Besides helping her to access Fox and the necessary financial wherewithal to make Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey a reality, Druyan credited McFarlane, an executive producer on the show, with “giving the gift of Brannon Braga. “Brannon’s friendship and collaboration on the series [as director/executive producer] has been wonderful. He has been absolutely critical to making sure everything really happened when it had to for the show. He is a creative force.”
Braga earned an Outstanding Drama Series Emmy nomination in 1994 for Star Trek: The Next Generation, for which he was a co-producer and writer. Among his other credits are serving as executive producer/writer on 24, Star Trek: Enterprise, and Star Trek: Voyager. He also was a writer on the theatrical features Star Trek: First Contact and Star Trek: Generations.
Braga noted that he was a big fan of the original Carl Sagan Cosmos series. Braga was a teenager when that show came out and “it really changed my life. I guess I didn’t know at the time that I was into critical thinking and science. The show opened my eyes to a new way of thinking. Never in a million years did I think I would get the chance to be involved in such a show.”
Fast forward to adulthood and Braga remembered hearing that his friend McFarlane was involved in a new version of Cosmos. “Just as my jealousy was kicking in,” said Braga, “Seth called me, saying that Ann needed someone with television experience to help her launch this project. I’ve been a huge fan of hers most of my life. I can honestly say that this new Cosmos series has been the only thing I’ve ever worked on that has been a total joy from beginning to end.”
Braga noted that every aspect of the show has been challenging. “I helped Ann with the scripts. She is such a quick writer. I helped where I could with ways to tell stories, using different mediums, bringing animation into the process for recreations. We spent about a year nursing these scripts while at the same time prepping the show. It’s the longest prep I ever had. And we needed that prep in that we would be shooting scenes from three different episodes in one day.”
But the biggest overriding challenge, observed Braga, was recapturing the feeling of inspiration sparked by the original Cosmos. “Carl Sagan ignited a lust for science, helping people understand and appreciate science. At times I remember being moved to tears by the show. Wow, I had tears in my eyes as a teenager for a science documentary. He set the bar so high. For me, Ann was the barometer. She created that Cosmos feeling with Carl. If Ann was happy, I knew our show was working.”
Braga shared that while he “essentially felt prepared” he at the same time was “terrified” given the daunting challenge of living up to the original Cosmos. His years of writing science fiction, though, proved valuable–17 years on Star Trek, producing three different Star Trek TV series and a couple of movies. “My love of science fueled my being a science-fiction writer. I was comfortable with the material. Some of it was new to me, of course. But the chance to now be involved directly in science was thrilling.”
Braga added, “It’s always an important time for science. The space program is dead. There’s a sense of wanting. To have the religious right threatened by facts and ideas is disturbing. Nurturing an appreciation and understanding of science is essential.”
Back in March, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey began its 13-episode run during primetime on Fox each Sunday. The next night viewers got a second chance to catch each episode on the National Geographic channel, with added behind-the-scenes footage and other bonus features. The original 13-episode run concluded on Fox on June 8 and on National Geographic the following evening. On June 10, the series was released on Blu-ray.
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This is the fourth installment in a 12-part series that will explore the field of Emmy nominees and winners spanning such disciplines as directing, cinematography, editing, animation and VFX. The series will run right through the Creative Arts Emmys ceremony and the following week’s primetime Emmy Awards live telecast. In addition to appearing on SHOOTonline and in the SHOOT >e.dition, The Road To Emmy will also have its Part 7 installment in SHOOT’s July 25 print issue.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 12, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 11, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 10, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 9, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 8, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 7, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 6, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 5, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 3, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 2, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 1, click here.
To read Primetime Talent, Pre-Road To Emmy feature 2, click here.
To read Primetime Talent, Pre-Road To Emmy feature 1, click here.
