Global creative audio network Squeak E. Clean Studios has promoted Rob Barbato to executive creative director following six years as a creative director with the company. Additionally, creative director Justin Hori will transition from the Chicago shop to the Los Angeles studios to head up the West Coast.
Barbato will oversee the company’s creative direction and presence, fusing his composing and producing expertise. Taking the reins in L.A., Hori will continue to bolster the studio’s slate of award-winning work for clients including Apple, Reebok, Adidas, Volkswagen and Budweiser.
Having made headway with landmark ads in tech and culture–for clients including Apple, Lexus, Canon, Cadillac and Beats by Dre–Barbato collaborated on spots like Netflix’s lauded “We Watched It All” pandemic-era short and “Beautiful Dreamer” for Canon’s “Inspired” spot, which earned awards including an Emmy, D&AD Pencils, AICP awards, Cannes Lions and The One Show accolades. Hori’s legacy with the studio led to tracks like the famous “Da Diddy Da” for Apple’s iPad campaign, and the anthem for Adidas’ “Your Future is not Mine,” which earned him a Cannes Gold Lion for Best Use of Original Music.
A composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist, Barbato has toured and recorded as a sideman of the critically acclaimed singer-songwriter Cass McCombs, as well as being a member of the seminal U.K. post-punk band The Fall. Barbato has produced records for artists such as Bleached, Kevin Morby and La Sera, and composed music for Nickelodeon’s Sanjay and Craig, IFC’s Maron, and the main title sequence for Comedy Central’s The Gorburger Show. Barbato ‘s commercial portfolio also includes original compositions for Apple, Lexus, Nike, Honda, Facebook and Target, and he has scored two feature-length films.
Hori launched his career at the ripe age of 13 as a DJ in Chicago’s hip-hop and underground electronica music scenes, before taking his first part-time job slinging records at the legendary Gramaphone Records. After studying music theory and composition at Columbia College, he pursued stints at Comtrack and Comma Music, eventually moving to open their Los Angeles office. Hori scored the dark comedy feature film Big Gold Brick, his first independently scored feature film, starring Andy Garcia, Lucy Hale, Megan Fox and Oscar Isaac. The film will premiere in 2022.
James Earl Jones, Lauded Actor and Voice of Darth Vader, Dies At 93
James Earl Jones, who overcame racial prejudice and a severe stutter to become a celebrated icon of stage and screen — eventually lending his deep, commanding voice to CNN, "The Lion King" and Darth Vader — has died. He was 93.
His agent, Barry McPherson, confirmed Jones died Monday morning at home in New York's Hudson Valley region. The cause was not immediately clear.
The pioneering Jones, who was one of the first African American actors in a continuing role on a daytime drama and worked deep into his 80s, won two Emmys, a Golden Globe, two Tony Awards, a Grammy, the National Medal of Arts, the Kennedy Center Honors and was given an honorary Oscar and a special Tony for lifetime achievement. In 2022, a Broadway theater was renamed in his honor.
He cut an elegant figure late in life, with a wry sense of humor and a ferocious work habit. In 2015, he arrived at rehearsals for a Broadway run of "The Gin Game" having already memorized the play and with notebooks filled with comments from the creative team. He said he was always in service of the work.
"The need to storytell has always been with us," he told The Associated Press then. "I think it first happened around campfires when the man came home and told his family he got the bear, the bear didn't get him."
Jones created such memorable film roles as the reclusive writer coaxed back into the spotlight in "Field of Dreams," the boxer Jack Johnson in the stage and screen hit "The Great White Hope," the writer Alex Haley in "Roots: The Next Generation" and a South African minister in "Cry, the Beloved Country."
He was also a sought-after voice actor, expressing the villainy of Darth Vader ("No, I am your father," commonly misremembered as "Luke, I am your father"), as... Read More