International production company Stink Films has added the multi-faceted creative team Assembly to its roster of talent in the U.S. Assembly is an award-winning digital production studio with a core team of directors, filmmakers, concept artists, graphic designers, developers, engineers, VFX specialists, 3D artists, and animators. They combine this range of technical prowess in order to create connections across the broadest range of visual storytelling. This is their first representation.
Based in New Zealand, Assembly is comprised of Damon Duncan, Jonny Kofoed, Matt von Trott, and Rhys Dippie. They use and create technology to build connection and understanding, to provoke, and to craft stories that resonate, inspire, educate, and inform.
Assembly’s eye for design, storytelling, and visual effects has produced award-winning work that explores the intersection between art, music, advertising, and culture. Recent work includes the main titles for the award-winning feature film Jojo Rabbit, all of the VFX in the BBC’s six-part series The Luminaries, the 3D animations for Sony’s Be Moved website experience, and animations for both Burger King and Verizon. They also created an intimate elegy to music legend Tom Petty for his song "Wildflowers," using never before seen footage from album sessions provided by Petty’s family. Other brands and clients they have worked with include Samsung, Audi, VW, Lexus, Singapore Airlines, Pepsi, Skittles, Marvel, Microsoft, Google, Nike, Marc Jacobs, IBM, GE, and Budweiser. Assembly has also collaborated with iconic artists such as Stevie Wonder, Ariana Grande, Pharrell Williams, Zendaya, Coldplay, and Rihanna; and turned out work for agencies like Wieden+Kennedy in Portland, Ore., FCB/New Zealand, Deutsch NY, Clemenger BBDO, Colenso BBDO, and Y&R/New Zealand.
Assembly has been recognized consistently each year, garnering more than 100 international awards across animation, design, and direction, including the Webbys, the ADC, Yellow Pencils at D&AD, and multiple Gold Lions at Cannes.
Assembly head of production Helen Naulls said of Stink, “They understand our brand and our desire to infuse emotion and human connection into all that we do. They get all that we are capable of delivering on collaborations with agencies and brands. We are happy to have their respected name and level of professionalism advocating for us with their well established relationships in the industry.”
Stink Films EP Fran McGivern said of Assembly, “They are an astonishingly talented collective of filmmakers, animators, designers, engineers, and visual effects specialists, full of creativity and innovative thought. With two jobs booked right out of the gate, we’re already creating meaningful work with them and can’t wait to explore more groundbreaking creative opportunities in the U.S. market.”
Review: Director Morgan Neville’s “Piece by Piece”
A movie documentary that uses only Lego pieces might seem an unconventional choice. When that documentary is about renowned musician-producer Pharrell Williams, it's actually sort of on-brand.
"Piece by Piece" is a bright, clever song-filled biopic that pretends it's a behind-the-scenes documentary using small plastic bricks, angles and curves to celebrate an artist known for his quirky soul. It is deep and surreal and often adorable. Is it high concept or low? Like Williams, it's a bit of both.
Director Morgan Neville — who has gotten more and more experimental exploring other celebrity lives like Fred Rogers in "Won't You Be My Neighbor?,""Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain" and "Steve! (Martin): A Documentary in Two Pieces" — this time uses real interviews but masks them under little Lego figurines with animated faces. Call this one a documentary in a million pieces.
The filmmakers try to explain their device — "What if nothing is real? What if life is like a Lego set?" Williams says at the beginning — but it's very tenuous. Just submit and enjoy the ride of a poor kid from Virginia Beach, Virginia, who rose to dominate music and become a creative director at Louis Vuitton.
Williams, by his own admission, is a little detached, a little odd. Music triggers colors in his brain — he has synesthesia, beautifully portrayed here — and it's his forward-looking musical brain that will make him a star, first as part of the producing team The Neptunes and then as an in-demand solo producer and songwriter.
There are highs and lows and then highs again. A verse Williams wrote for "Rump Shaker" by Wreckx-N-Effect when he was making a living selling beats would lead to superstars demanding to work with him and partner... Read More