About half of Nightmare Alley (Searchlight Pictures) had been shot when director Guillermo del Toro decided to shut down production as the global COVID-19 pandemic took hold. Though he wasn’t yet mandated to halt filming, del Toro didn’t want to risk the health and well-being of his filmmaking family. But the nightmare pandemic, paradoxically, gave a new life to Nightmare Alley . What turned out to be a six-month shutdown was hardly downtime. Rather del Toro and his compatriots used the stretch... Read More 

Today (1/27) Peter Sciberras picked up his first career American Cinema Editors (ACE) Eddie Award nomination. It came in the best edited dramatic feature category for his cutting of writer-director Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog (Netflix), adding to an awards season momentum for him which also includes making the BAFTA Best Editing longlist for the film and being recognized by various film critics’ associations. The Power of the Dog marked Sciberras’ first time working with Campion, whom... Read More 

LOS ANGELES -- The field of feature film nominees for the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Awards is set. Nominees for the DGA honor for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Theatrical Feature Film for 2021 are: Paul Thomas Anderson for Licorice Pizza ; Kenneth Branagh for Belfast ; Jane Campion for The Power of the Dog ; Steven Spielberg for West Side Story ; and Denis Villeneuve for Dune . Campion becomes only the second woman to be nominated twice for the honor, the first nod coming for The Piano (1993... Read More 

LOS ANGELES -- The Directors Guild of America has unveiled the nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Television, Commercials and Documentary for 2021. And we already know the winner--kind of--in one marquee category as episodes of Succession swept all nominations for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Series. The director nominees for Succession are Kevin Bray for the “Retired Janitors of Idaho” episode, Mark Mylod for “All the Bells Say,” Andrij Parekh for “What It Takes,” Robert... Read More 

LOS ANGELES -- The Producers Guild of America (PGA) announced nominations in the motion pictures and television categories for the 33rd Annual Producers Guild Awards to be held on Saturday, March 19, 2022 at the Fairmont Century Plaza. The Producers Guild Awards are often a bellwether for the Oscars. Since its inception, the PGA has predicted 22 of the past 32 winners of the Academy Award for Best Picture. This time around the nominees for the marquee Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of... Read More 

LOS ANGELES -- SMUGGLER topped the production house tally with two directors scoring nominations today (1/26) for the DGA Award recognizing Outstanding Directorial Achievement For Commercials in 2021--Kathryn Bigelow and Henry-Alex Rubin. Both are first-time DGA spot nominees but Bigelow is no stranger to Guild honors. She won the DGA Award in 2010, taking the marquee feature prize for The Hurt Locker . Three years later she was nominated for Zero Dark Thirty . Bigelow’s first commercial nomination came for... Read More 

LOS ANGELES -- The American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) has named its annual Outstanding Achievement Award nominees in the categories of feature film, documentary and television cinematography. Winners will be announced during the 36th ASC Awards on March 20, 2022. The ceremony will be a hybrid event, both in person and live streamed, at the historic ASC Clubhouse in Hollywood. Nominated for the marquee feature film honor are: Bruno Delbonnel, ASC, AFC for The Tragedy of Macbeth , Greig Fraser, ASC, ACS... Read More 

LOS ANGELES -- American Cinema Editors (ACE) has unveiled the nominations for the 72nd Annual ACE Eddie Awards, recognizing outstanding editing in 14 categories of film, television, and documentaries. The winners will be announced during the ACE Eddie awards on Saturday, March 5, 2022, at the Theater at the ACE Hotel, with an after-party to be held at the historic Clifton’s Republic. Nominated in the dramatic feature film category are: Belfast, Dune, King Richard, No Time to Die and The Power of the Dog . In... Read More 

LOS ANGELES & NEW YORK -- Writers Guild of America West (WGAW) and Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) have unveiled the nominations for outstanding achievement in screenwriting during 2021. Winners will be honored at a joint 2022 Writers Guild Awards virtual ceremony on Sunday, March 20, 2022. In the running for the Original Screenplay honor are: Being the Ricardos, Don’t Look Up, The French Dispatch, King Richard and Licorice Pizza . Adapted Screenplay contenders are CODA, Dune, Nightmare Alley, tick...tick...Boom!... Read More 

Dakota Johnson is having a big year. Not only is she part of one of the season's big awards contenders in "The Lost Daughter," but she's also just debuted her company's first two films at the Sundance Film Festival, "AM I OK?" and "Cha Cha Real Smooth," which she produced and stars in, too. The projects are quite different: In "AM I OK?" she plays a character in her early 30s in Los Angeles who is questioning her sexuality and figuring out who she is and wants to be, and in "Cha Cha Real Smooth... Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) -- Rarely have past and present mingled in a documentary the way they do in "Descendant," a nonfiction account of the last known ship to bring African captives to the American South for enslavement. Margaret Brown's "Descendant," which recently premiered at the virtual Sundance Film Festival, chronicles the discovery of the ship, a 90-foot-long wooden schooner that was secretly burned and sunk near Mobile, Alabama, after it was used to illegally take and enslave 100 Africans on a trip across the... Read More 

Boxing legend Oscar De La Hoya wanted to make a documentary about his 1996 fight against Julio César Chávez. It was coming up on 25 years since the "Ultimate Glory" showdown and he figured the time was right to look back. So he asked Eva Longoria Bastón, his friend of 20 years, if she'd be interested in directing. "I was like, 'Oh, God, no. No, no, no,'" Bastón laughed. "The last thing I wanted to do was a boxing doc with stats and jabs." She remembered the night of the bout, of course. "You... Read More 

NEW YORK -- Mal Ward, managing director of Arts & Sciences, will serve as chairperson of the 2022 AICP Show: The Art & Technique of the Commercial. “We’re delighted to have Mal serve as this year’s chairperson for the AICP Show,” said Matt Miller, president and CEO of AICP. “From its start, he and his company, Arts & Sciences, have been actively involved with AICP and its programs and initiatives, and their history of producing award-winning work speaks to their commitment to creativity and... Read More 

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. -- The Art Directors Guild (ADG, IATSE Local 800) has unveiled nominations for the 26th Annual Excellence in Production Design Awards in theatrical motion pictures, television, commercials, music videos and animation features. Winners will be honored at the ADG Awards ceremony, returning to a live-in person ceremony at the InterContinental Hotel Los Angeles Downtown Hotel on Saturday, March 5, 2022. Nominated in the Period Feature Film category are The French Disptach, Licorice Pizza, Nightmare... Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) -- A month after "Encanto" debuted in theaters, Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote the movie's Colombia-inflected songs, took a long vacation. By the time he returned, something almost as extraordinary as the enchanted home of the movie had transpired. "Encanto" became the first movie soundtrack since 2019 to reach No. 1 on the Billboard charts earlier this month. The film's most popular song, "We Don't Talk About Bruno," became the highest-charting song from a Disney animated film in more than 26... Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) -- Dale Dickey tends to get "those crusty roles," as she heard someone once call them. A familiar, craggy face from films like "Winter's Bone" and "Hell or High Water," Dickey has long been a riveting supporting player in rural dramas. But in the Sundance entry "A Love Song," Dickey, long a standout character actor, finally takes the lead. Even for her, it felt a little strange. "I don't do leads in films. I do, you know, scary supporting roles that pop in and out with chainsaws and rifles and... Read More 

Richard Davis was a bankrupt pizzeria owner when he got the idea for a bulletproof vest in 1969 Michigan. Body armor was nothing new, of course, but Davis had an inkling that he could make something lighter that could be worn, undetected, under clothes. Kevlar, he'd discover, was the answer. And to prove that his invention actually worked, Davis, a former Marine and born showman, went to some extraordinary lengths: He shot himself over 190 times. Somehow, that's not even the wildest part of his... Read More 

It was 2017 when filmmaker Paula Eiselt started seeing articles about rising maternal mortality rates in the United States. She'd had traumatic experiences giving birth to her four children, but didn't realize that the problems were widespread and disproportionately affecting Black women. Tonya Lewis Lee, in her travels and conversations promoting infant mortality awareness, had also begun hearing stories about people's sisters, friends and cousins who had died after childbirth. Though neither... Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) -- Can a music scene still develop the way grunge did in 1990's Seattle or hip-hop did in the Bronx in the 1970s? Or has the digital makeover of music made such geographical-based explosions obsolete? It's a question that hovers over the Sundance Film Festival documentary "Meet Me in the Bathroom," a vivid and shambolic time capsule of early 2000s New York when bands like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV on the Radio, the Strokes, Interpol and LCD Soundsystem made the city — and Brooklyn in particular —... Read More 

LONDON -- Director Andzej Gavriss is joining Stink Films’ commercials and music video roster in Europe, the U.S. and Asia. (He continues to be handled by production company HALAL in Amsterdam.) Gavriss’ films and commercial projects plunge into an array of cinematic worlds uniquely his own--viewers are thrust into delirium in Bangkok, hypnotic dance sequences depicting societal struggles for the LGBTQIA+ community in Eastern Europe, and the fight to combat homelessness in Los Angeles. Born into block-... Read More 

NEW YORK -- Devika Bulchandani has been promoted to global president of Ogilvy. Bulchandani, who joined Ogilvy last year as global chairwoman of advertising and CEO of Ogilvy North America, will expand her global responsibilities to encompass all five Ogilvy business units: Advertising, PR, Experience, Health, and Growth & Innovation. She will partner with leaders across Ogilvy’s global network to continue modernizing the agency’s capabilities while helping to ensure ideas are delivered that create... Read More 

NEW YORK -- Lisa Topol has joined purpose-driven advertising agency OBERLAND in the new role of managing partner and executive creative director. Together, Topol and OBERLAND co-founder and chief creative officer Bill Oberlander will steer the eight-year old agency in partnership with co-founder and CEO Drew Train and managing partner and chief strategy officer Kate Charles. “Lisa’s stellar creative career on Madison Avenue as one of the best writers and creative leaders will bring a whole new level of... Read More 

BROOKLYN, NY -- Director Angie Bird has signed with bicoastal production company Curfew for spot representation in the U.S. Bird was most recently repped by Chelsea Pictures. Bird broke onto the scene in 2016, winning the Cannes Young Director Award for her work with the homeless advocacy non-profit Raising the Roof. More recently, she won several Cannes Lions for her Gillette “First Shave” campaign--out of Grey Canada-- depicting trans community members’ experiences with shaving. Bird just released her first... Read More 

NEW YORK -- Deutsch New York has made two key creative appointments: Miriam Franklin, whose first day as EVP, head of integrated production will be February 7; and Melatan Riden, who has already started as EVP, head of art and design. Franklin and Riden have both spent the past few years working full-time as part of the freelance gig economy, with Franklin consulting under the moniker of Miriam Produces and Riden under Not an Office. “In today’s battle for smart, innovative, can-do business minds we are... Read More 

LOS ANGELES & NEW YORK -- Interrogate, a bicoastal production company that focuses on everything from film to branded content, has added director Tom Brown to its roster. This marks his first official signing with a production house in the U.S. He continues to be repped by Unit9 in the U.K. Having honed his craft working at leading post houses in Soho, London, Brown has already earned a reputation as a director whose forte includes comedy and action. His work has gained recognition including two Digital Impact awards, a... Read More 

SAN FRANCISCO -- Independent agency Erich and Kallman has bolstered its sr. leadership team, naming Kati Haberstock as executive head of production and operations, and Sarah Holbrook Bolding as director of brands. Haberstock now leads and manages Erich and Kallman’s production department including business affairs. She is a seasoned production leader with more than 25 years of international experience producing cutting-edge creative work. Prior to joining Erich and Kallman, Haberstock was the director of... Read More 

LOS ANGELES -- The Visual Effects Society (VES) has elected its 2022 board of directors officers. Lisa Cooke was re-elected board chair, and is the first woman to hold this role since VES’ inception. And for the first time in the Society’s 25-year history, the five-member executive committee of officers is comprised of an all-women group of industry professionals. “It is my honor and privilege to continue to chair this society of outstanding artists and innovators and I appreciate the trust placed in me,”... Read More 

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. -- The Cinema Audio Society has unveiled its nominees for the 58th Annual CAS Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for 2021 in seven categories, as well as 10 Outstanding Product nominees. Live-action feature nominations went to Dune, No Time to Die, Spider-Man: No Way Home, The Power of the Dog and West Side Story. One-hour TV series in the running are Squid Game, Succession, The Morning Show, The White Lotus and Yellowstone . After a virtual event in 2021, the 58th Annual Cinema... Read More 

STUDIO CITY, Calif. -- The Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE) unveiled the nominees for the 69th Annual MPSE Golden Reel Awards. Nominees represent the work of the world’s most talented sound artists and their contributions to the past year’s most outstanding feature film, television, animation, computer entertainment, and student productions. “It’s been a fantastic year for sound and we look forward to celebrating the incredible work sound editors have performed for movies, television, games, documentaries and... Read More 

LOS ANGELES -- Nominees are set for the 24th CDGA (Costume Designers Guild Awards) celebrating excellence in film, television, and short form costume design. Winners in the eight categories will be announced live on Wednesday, March 9. The annual awards ceremony will take place for the first time at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica. Among the features garnering nominations are Cyrano, Dune, House of Gucci, In The Heights, No Time to Die and Spider-Man: No Way Home . This year’s host, presenters and honorees... Read More 

After spending one weekend in second place, "Spider-Man: No Way Home" proved it still had some fight left. Sony's superhero juggernaut swung back to first place in its sixth weekend in theaters and became the sixth highest grossing film of all time, globally. The film topped the North American charts with $14.1 million, according to studio estimates on Sunday. Globally, it's now grossed nearly $1.7 billion, passing the total earnings of both "Jurassic World" and "The Lion King." And in North... Read More 

A father and son rekindle their relationship, bonding over a bottle of Coca-Cola in this spot directed by Yves Geleyn of mixed media/animation studio Hornet. However, the playful, heartfelt scenario isn’t between people but rather tigers, celebrating the Lunar New Year which is now the Chinese year of the tiger. For the piece depicting a family gathering of tigers, Geleyn drew inspiration from traditional Chinese folklore, illustration and sculpture. Read More 

375 years in business is a long time. So, to commemorate that huge anniversary, the Norwegian Postal Service looks back at the history of Norway through the lens of a sweet and naive postman. Jumping from century to century, the narrator is placed in the middle of Norwegian landmark events with very clear reference to a certain movie classic. Hint: “My mama always said: Life was like a postbox; you never know what’s inside.” The film is directed by Jakob Marky of production house Bacon, Oslo... Read More 

Part of the “Where Now Meets Next” campaign, this FedEx spot directed by Noam Murro of Biscuit Filmworks for BBDO New York shows how even the littlest of things can impact a small business in a BIG way. Like when NFL star running back Derrick Henry accidentally tags a small business on social media instead of his loyal Tennessee Titans fans. The business trends up so drastically that the internet breaks. Good thing FedEx has the e-commerce solutions to help small businesses handle the onslaught... Read More 

BBH London debuted this action-packed, CGI-rich 60-second film for Samsung Electronics’ System LSI Business, heralding the new era of grown-up mobile gaming enabled by its Exynos 2200 ‘next generation’ mobile processor. Until now, high-quality immersive gaming experiences have been restricted to console-based game play. The Exynos 2200, however, is billed as revolutionizing the quality, speed, and sophistication of mobile games when the processor chip is built into next generation mobile phones... Read More 

In 2008, amid a successful snowmobiling career, Mike Schultz was involved in a crash that led to the amputation of his left leg below the knee. A standard prosthetic leg helped Schultz get back on his feet, but it wasn’t built for the action sports he loved. So Schultz designed and built his own prosthetic leg from scratch, not only getting himself back into competition but also eventually transforming the high-tech idea into a successful business. Today Schultz is a U.S. Paralympic Gold... Read More 

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