Welcome to Blog entry #2! I know you’ve been eagerly waiting for it, and quite frankly, I can’t blame you. Since we last met, I have massaged my ego (with Mallomars-- their medicinal properties are formidable) and am ready to tell you more about our directors who make me look like Dullsie McDullserton.
First up, James Mangold!
James is feature director extraordinaire, and luckily for us his ego isn’t as big as the blockbusters he’s shot. (Maybe he eats Mallomars too?) His movies include: Walk the Line, 3:10 to Yuma, Girl Interrupted, Identity, Cop Land, Heavy… and most recently Knight and Day with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. It’s an action-comedy with ample explosions. Yeah, it’s an understatement to say that James has a bit of a range. Which is great, as the commercial world tends to pigeon-hole people into one specific genre. But not our James, he’s a genre-bucker! (Note: “Genre-bucker” copyright 1/14/2010, Sara E Eolin.) Take a look at the latest trailer for Knight and Day and you’ll be happy to see Tom Cruise looking cool again without a glimmer of a his former couch-jumping self.
Next up, Jason Farrand, who is the only Aero director with a faux-hawk. Probably the only one that can pull it off, too.
He’s a delightful Brit (read: good accent) who got his directorial start in commercials and then moved into TV. He directed and EP’ed the series Head Case on Starz with Alexandra Wentworth (so he’s 1 degree separated from Oprah. OPRAH!!!!) Ali portrayed a therapist to the stars and actual stars would come on the show as themselves and improv 30 minutes of hilarity. If you think it’s easy to direct celebrities to “just be themselves” you’d be incorrect. After all, an actor’s job is to be other people and they usually have writers making them clever. But Jason has magical powers that encourage even the unfunny to be hilarious. (I guess that’s called talent, or maybe it’s the faux hawk? I’m not sure…) He just finished some Chevy work with Howie Long (not sure WHAT you call his hair-do… “alert”?) and has worked with HP on web series featuring Shawn White (“red mane”?) and Mike Rowe (um, “baseball cap.”)
Sam O’Hare is another delightful Brit (you got it, good accent!). He doesn’t have a clever hair-do but the brain underneath that hair is quite extraordinary.
Sam’s a CGI artist, VFX supervisor and director… Basically, it means he knows how to do a lot of math, as well as being creative. (And because he’s English, he calls it “maths.” Plural! So cute!) Anyhoo, he went to school for architecture and decided that building things on the computer was much more exciting and less dusty than dry wall. He has a remarkable eye and his visual creations are just stunning… and you’d never know they weren’t “real.” (I think he’s part of the Matrix, but that’s unconfirmed.) He recently shot and created the animation for Lunesta with Deutsch NY. Aero Post handled all the VFX in NY with Sam’s team. He’s also an avid photographer that you can follow on Flickr or look for Aero tweets for his “picture of the day.”
Newbie to Aero, Gary McKendry has pretty much the same hair cut as Sam but he mixes it up a bit with an Irish brogue. (Can you tell I bring the estrogen to Aero?)
Gary can and has done it all. He started his career as an agency art director, and was a storyboard artist as well. Needless to say, his shooting boards are pretty kick-ass. His work can make you laugh (Ikea, Budweiser) or tug at your emotions and make you cry (Barnardos). He’s a genre-bucker too! (NOTE AGAIN: copyright 2010 Sara E Eolin) He’s shot monologue, dialogue, visual storytelling, short films, and has a feature in the works. He’s also quite adept at making snowmen, and is the hit of the neighborhood teens as said snowmen come complete holding a can of beer. You can take the boy out of Belfast, but you can’t take Belfast out of the boy….
Stay tuned for the next blog entry when we feature… (drum roll…) The Klaus Cam!! Imagine if Klaus were a camera, and that pretty much sums it up, but I don’t want to give away all our secrets yet. In the meantime, I’m going to work on the paperwork for that copyright…
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What can I say, Gary McKendry is THE MAN. I've been lucky eneough to have both met and worked with him on 'The Killer Elite' (albeit a very small part)Excellent guy and excellent to work with. Great vision, I listened intently (in the hotel bar in Cardiff)as he explained how he wanted to shoot a scene on The Killer Elite and I tell you, honestly, the hairs on my arms stood up on end. This will be a great movie.
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