Bicoastal Assembly has added director Samuel Bennetts to its roster. Previously repped by Acne, Bennetts has a body of work spanning commercials, music videos and short films.
Originally from Sydney, Australia, he now resides in Los Angeles. His spot for The Road and Traffic Authority is one of the longest running in Australia while his debut short What They Don’t Know was the opening film at the St. Kilda Film Festival and won at Sydney’s Flickerfest.
After directing his first short, Bennetts quickly fell into creating dozens of music videos for bands such as Rouge Traders, INXS, Grinspoon, and his childhood friends–Bluejuice. It was working on the visual for an INXS track remixed by Rouge Traders that catapulted him into working with VFX and established his reputation in this arena.
VFX is one of Samuel’s most treasured storytelling tools. His command of the medium combined with strong performance direction is highly sought after, having worked with brands such as Volkswagen, McDonald’s, Johnson & Johnson, Castrol, Ebay, Powerade, and Canon.
“From what I have seen, Assembly creates films that people love and are excited by,” said Bennetts. “They really cultivate their directors, pushing us on creative projects and experiences. I’m excited to further explore my character and emotion-driven work with Assembly, and ultimately create films that are distinctive and that are going to motivate people too.”
Havas Study Finds Resilience, Optimism In Time of Global Crisis
Havas has released the 2024 edition of its Global annual Meaningful Brands™ study, revealing newfound resilience and optimism during a period when global crisis has become the norm. Havas has measured Meaningful Brands™ annually since 2009, furthering a commitment to bringing data science, insights, and an understanding of people to the core of its strategic methodology across businesses, brands, and markets. “We have been investing in our landmark Meaningful Brands™ study for more than 16 years, and these insights now take on even greater prominence in our work for clients through our shared Converged strategy and operating system. We launched Converged to transform our client experience by building even more strategic bridges between creativity, media, production, and technology, and a shared understanding of today’s consumers is essential to this vision and to unlocking more meaningful growth for our clients and their brands,” said Yannick Bolloré, chairman and CEO, Havas. Commissioned with YouGov, “The Rise of the Change Makers” surveyed more than 156,500 respondents, finding that while 70% of people feel the world is going in the wrong direction globally, 69% won’t let the tough times keep them down. Across 24 markets and more than 2,600 brands, 67% of respondents reported being happy today and 59% feeling optimistic about the future. In 2022, The Collins Dictionary named ‘polycrisis’ its word of the year, but, as 2024 comes to a conclusion, ‘permacrisis’ is a more apt descriptor for a landscape where climate change escalates, the cost of living continues to soar, political differences are dramatized amidst the biggest democratic election year in history, and conflict, violence and humanitarian crises affect millions around... Read More