Washington Square Films has signed directing duo Spielbergs (Alex Karpovsky and Teddy Blanks) for their first commercial representation. The twosome has already co-directed three music videos with the support of Washington Square Films, including videos for Tanlines (“Palace,” starring Natasha Lyonne of Orange Is The New Black) and RAC (“Back of the Car,” starring Sasheer Zamata, Saturday Night Live). Spielbergs’ music video for Kopecky (“Talk to Me,” starring Michael Ian Black, Wet Hot American Summer) was released earlier this week.
The Spielbergs duo initially met on Lena Dunham’s breakthrough indie feature Tiny Furniture in 2010. Karpovsky played the male co-lead for the film while Blanks created titles and composed the score. Tiny Furniture went on to win Best Feature at SXSW, an Independent Spirit award and a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award.
With a shared sense of humor and lively approach to production, Spielbergs’ collaboration draws upon Karpovsky’s background as an actor to evoke subtleties in performance and Blanks’ experience as a designer to curate a stylized visual aesthetic. Spielbergs’ work fuses absurd, surrealistic visuals with dynamic character driven storytelling, as demonstrated by their work on the forthcoming Amazon series, The New Yorker Presents.
“I’m a big fan of the work Alex and Teddy have done independently. I loved Alex’s film Red Flag, and Teddy created absolutely brilliant graphics on two films we produced: Listen Up Phillip and Queen of Earth,” said Washington Square Films founder/president Joshua Blum. “As a team they have great chemistry. They are both smart, witty and creative, and their shoots are lots of fun.”
Jonathan Schwartz, Washington Square Films’ director of sales and marketing/managing director, said, “I’m excited about their enthusiasm for advertising and branded content. Alex is a former editor and Teddy has created graphics for advertising, so they have experience with clients and agencies, and since they are both talented writers, they bring a wealth of ideas to the table.”
In addition to being an accomplished singer and songwriter, Blanks is co-founder of the Brooklyn-based design studio CHIPS. He has designed and produced title sequences for over 50 films and television shows, including Still Alice, Love & Mercy and HBO’s Togetherness, as well as book covers for Kim Gordon and Lena Dunham. Karpovsky has directed five feature-length films and an episode of the HBO comedy series Girls, on which he plays the role of Ray Ploshansky. He has also acted in over 30 films, including the last two written and directed by the Coen Brothers: Oscar-nominated Inside Llewyn Davis and the upcoming Hail, Caesar!
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