Creative postproduction boutique Uppercut has brought Steve Cokonis on board as VFX supervisor. The addition of Cokonis rounds out the shop’s six-member VFX team, which is led by head of VFX John Geehreng in NYC. Uppercut has a Los Angeles office opening this fall and the hiring of Cokonis underscores expansion and a rapidly growing team on the West Coast. Cokonis began cultivating his love for graphic design and video production in his native Philadelphia before relocating to Los Angeles in 2006 to deepen his craft. Two years later, he landed a job at The Mill as a Flame assistant, working his way up through the ranks to become a lead Flame artist in 2013. In the summer of 2016, Cokonis supervised 300 VFX shots for director Brian Buckley’s feature film Pirates of Somalia, starring Al Pacino, Melanie Griffith, and Evan Peters. Cokonis continued to broaden his postproduction suite of skills, earning a promotion to VFX supervisor in 2017 while at The Mill. After deciding to spread his wings and freelance, Cokonis split his time working with several award-winning studios, including KEVIN, Framestore, Jamm, and The Mill. He recently collaborated with director F Gary Gray on the 2022 Super Bowl Halftime Show trailer for Pepsi. Over the course of his career, Cokonis has collaborated on notable commercial projects including “Web” for Skittles with director Wayne McClammy, “Jane” for HP with Lance Acord, “Tiempo De Ser Heros” for Nike with Loren Denis, “Two Worlds” for Acura by Mark Jenkinson, “Recycle the Dollar” for IBM by Fredrik Bond, and “Sea Captain” for Old Spice by Tom Kuntz. Cokonis’ work on music videos spans a variety of genres, including collaborations with Pharrell Williams, director Edgar Wright, Bonobo, and Run the Jewels….
Carrie Coon Relishes Being Part Of An Ensemble–From “The Gilded Age” To “His Three Daughters”
It can be hard to catch Carrie Coon on her own.
She is far more likely to be found in the thick of an ensemble. That could be on TV, in "The Gilded Age," for which she was just Emmy nominated, or in the upcoming season of "The White Lotus," which she recently shot in Thailand. Or it could be in films, most relevantly, Azazel Jacobs' new drama, "His Three Daughters," in which Coon stars alongside Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as sisters caring for their dying father.
But on a recent, bright late-summer morning, Coon is sitting on a bench in the bucolic northeast Westchester town of Pound Ridge. A few years back, she and her husband, the playwright Tracy Letts, moved near here with their two young children, drawn by the long rows of stone walls and a particularly good BLT from a nearby cafe that Letts, after biting into, declared must be within 15 miles of where they lived.
In a few days, they would both fly to Los Angeles for the Emmys (Letts was nominated for his performance in "Winning Time" ). But Coon, 43, was then largely enmeshed in the day-to-day life of raising a family, along with their nightly movie viewings, which Letts pulls from his extensive DVD collection. The previous night's choice: "Once Around," with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus.
Coon met Letts during her breakthrough performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" on Broadway in 2012. She played the heavy-drinking housewife Honey. It was the first role that Coon read and knew, viscerally, she had to play. Immediately after saying this, Coon sighs.
"It sounds like something some diva would say in a movie from the '50s," Coon says. "I just walked around in my apartment in my slip and I had pearls and a little brandy. I made a grocery list and I just did... Read More