In 2008, Andrew Renzi, then 22, lost his father to cancer. The experience inspired his award-winning short film Karaoke!, a deeply personal piece exploring the denial and anxiety associated with imminent loss. On the heels of completing his first narrative feature (The Benefactor, starring Richard Gere, Dakota Fanning and Theo James, released by Samuel Goldwyn Co.), Renzi now makes his spot debut with a City of Hope project created via IW Group and produced by ContagiousLA. In addition to helming Above and Beyond, done in Mandarin with English subtitles, Renzi directed Half Man, Half Baby, an English-language spot conceived by the filmmaker and executed with the support of agency and client. Both spots focus on Alex Tung, who survived a rare form of Leukemia thanks to an umbilical cord stem cell transplant - a procedure offered at City of Hope.
I would be hard-pressed to say there's another project I've done that's been more satisfying, said Renzi, who shot the English-language piece first, interviewing Alex in English, filming as his subject relaxed and the conversation became more intimate. It was a trust exercise in a way, Renzi recalled of the closed-set shoot. This was something very personal for both Alex and myself, so he let his guard down. Renzi then moved on to the Mandarin script and filmed the original commercial as planned. IW Group Associate Creative Director Ting Lin guided the Mandarin content.
This was an ideal situation as a first spot project, Renzi said. Obviously, I don't have to connect so personally with every assignment, but I was incredibly moved by Alex's story and the progress that's been made in the several years since I lost my father to the same illness. Renzi, who has a knack for attracting celebrity talent, added that his rapport with Alex was so strong and positive, the issue of non-actor' never became a thing. We just talked and were both very comfortable. "Andrew and his crew treated my mom and I with such professionalism," Tung recalled. He made me feel completely at home. It was an honor to work with such a talented director.
I haven t met such a sensitive artist in a long time, or one so mindful of his craft and his presence on set, said CLA Partner/Executive Producer Natalie Sakai. Renzi came to CLA with a passion to excel as a technical director and as an emotional storyteller. He's equally gifted at both, and he's well on his way.
Renzi's upcoming projects include a thriller he is co-writing with The Place Beyond the Pines scribe Ben Coccio; Gun City, a 1980s New York heist drama developed with producer Jay Schuminsky; and a Heat-like LA crime film co-written with Korean American L.A. noir authoress Steph Cha (Dead Soon Enough). Additionally, Renzi recently co-wrote the Janis Joplin biopic, Janis, with director Sean Durkin.
About Andrew Renzi
Writer/Director Andrew Renzi's first narrative feature, The Benefactor, which he wrote and directed, stars Richard Gere as a philanthropist who meddles in the lives of a newly-married couple (Dakota Fanning, Theo James) in an attempt to relive his past. The film was developed as a Sundance Labs project and will be released by Samuel Goldwyn Co. in 2016. His first short, The Fort, premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. The Philadelphia-born filmmaker, who studied Literary Arts at Brown University, followed up his Sundance debut with Karaoke!, the recipient of the Panavision Future Filmmaker Award. Renzi next directed the feature documentary Fishtail, a collaboration with Christie s Western American Art Specialist, William Abbott, and narrated by the iconic Harry Dean Stanton. The doc premiered at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival, won the Artistic Vision Award at the Big Sky Film Festival and was acquired by Netflix. As a producer, Renzi's credits include Sympathy for Delicious . He has produced and directed music videos for bands such as Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Blondfire, Prodigy, and Zeds Dead, among many others.
About ContagiousLA (CLA)
ContagiousLA is presided over by Executive Producer/Partner Natalie Sakai. The directorial roster is comprised of Andrew Laurich, Jeff Jenkins, Adriano Falconi, Ben Ketai and Andrew Renzi. Spot work for brands like Carhartt, Farmer's Insurance and Mercedes is complemented by projects such as the award-winning short film Art & Corny - starring advertising luminaries Lee Clow, Gerry Graf and Jeff Goodby - and A Reasonable Request, which recently screened at SxSW and Sundance, becoming one of the most lauded comedy shorts of the year.
Project Credits
Client: City of Hope
Spot Title(s): Above and Beyond , Half Man, Half Baby
First Air Dates: ( Above and Beyond ) 3/14/2016
( Half Man, Half Baby TBD)
Agency: IW Group
Executive Creative Director: Stan Toyama
Associate Creative Director: Ting Lin
Senior Art Director: Stone Shih
Executive Producer: John Author
Producer: Mikko He
Production Company: ContagiousLA
Director: Andrew Renzi
Executive Producer/Producer: Natalie Sakai
Director of Photography: Patrick Jones
Editor: Patrick Murphree
Color: Company3
Producer: Alexis Guajardo
Colorist: Bryan Smaller
Audio: LIME Studios
Audio Engineer: Tom Paolantonio
###
Most recent headlines
04/08/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, is excited to announce Santiago Solanas as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO)....
03/06/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, a...
29/04/2024
(L-R) Mark Gatiss and Polly Walker on set
Monday 29 April 2024 Further casting is now confirmed for Bookish (6x70), a brand-new drama created by Emmy Award-wi...
29/04/2024
A groundbreaking initiative offering training and mentoring to 30 women journali...
29/04/2024
Even though we've been doing this for over 40 years, a spark of excitement r...
29/04/2024
L3Harris is delivering manpack radios to U.S. Army CH-47 Chinooks as part of the Air-to-Ground Networking Radio program, providing seamless, resilient communica...
29/04/2024
He writes in Defense One: Despite the near-universal acknowledgement throughout the U.S. government and defense industrial base of the criticality of resilient ...
29/04/2024
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({ content_source:......
29/04/2024
Codemill aims to revolutionize media workflow efficiency at this years NAB Show by introducing Just-In-Time (JIT) playback technology in Accurate.Video Validate...
29/04/2024
April 29, 2024
-- TF1 Chooses Broadpeak to Power Targeted Advertising for New...
29/04/2024
LOS ANGELES Allen Media Group (AMG) has partnered with LG Electronics to bring 223 Local Now FAST channels to LG's free streaming service, LG Channels, avai...
29/04/2024
OTTAWA Ross Video has announced the introduction of Raiden, a data-driven weather graphics software that combines data gathering, processing, and visualization ...
29/04/2024
Panalux, a leading rental provider of lighting and power solutions for the motion-picture industry and part of Panavision's end-to-end service offerings for...
29/04/2024
Cobalt Iron Inc., a leading provider of SaaS-based enterprise data protection, today announced that it has received a patent on its technology for dynamic autho...
29/04/2024
SDVI, the leading platform provider for cloud-native media supply chains, today announced that Rally Access Workstation, a fully managed solution for editing in...
29/04/2024
Premier Sports, a premium sports broadcaster, has selected QuickLink's Remote Commentary solution for introducing professional, high-quality remote commenta...
29/04/2024
Glookast has chosen Jigsaw24 Media as the only UK channel partner to represent their portfolio of ingest and workflow optimisation products. The agreement, sign...
29/04/2024
Clear-Com played a pivotal role in the seamless coverage of the recent solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. Leveraging its cutting-edge Eclipse HX Digital Matrix i...
29/04/2024
PlayBox Neo will promote its complete range of television channel management, graphic branding and playout solutions to EMEA region media content owners and bro...
29/04/2024
Lingo, RuPaul's word-twisting game show, returns for season two on CBS Friday, May 24. Two episodes air that night, and stream on Paramount Plus, too....
29/04/2024
ESPN and Amazon Prime Video are reportedly close to scoring television rights to the National Basketball Association, according to published reports....
29/04/2024
Judge Judy and Hot Bench, CBS Media Ventures' genre-leading court shows, have been renewed through the 2025-26 TV season in more than 95% of the country, Gr...
29/04/2024
Premier Sports, an Irish-based premium sports broadcaster, has selected QuickLink's Remote Commentary solution for introducing professional, high-quality re...
29/04/2024
The awards celebrate the craft of behind-the-scenes TV talent and the best programmes of 2023
By Matthew Corrigan
Published: April 29, 2024
The awards cel...
29/04/2024
The team at Milk had to create and deliver the VFX and environment work for the royal residences featured in the drama from scratch
By Jenny Priestley
Publis...
29/04/2024
CEO Bob Bakish is expected to leave the company as early as today, with a new leadership committee likely to run the company on an interim basis
By Jenny Pries...
29/04/2024
Albena Ivanova, director, media and entertainment and strategic products at CHAOS talks to TVBEurope about her route into the industry
By TVBEurope Staff
Pub...
29/04/2024
The acquisition gives Grand Technix the opportunity to expand its footprint in the audio visual and broadcast technology sectors
By Jenny Priestley
Published...
29/04/2024
29 04 2024 - Media release Screen Australia announces James J. Robinson's debut feature First Light
First Light
Principal Photography is underway on Firs...
29/04/2024
Capitol Broadcasting recently became the inaugural company honored with inductio...
29/04/2024
April 29th, 2024 UNINTERRUPTED AND TRIBECA ENTERPRISES PARTNER FOR SECOND-ANNUA...
29/04/2024
Rebrand and refresh: SailGP talks bringing its graphics operations inhouse for a...
29/04/2024
Reflecting on a Storied Career: Sean McManus Looks Back While Keeping an Eye on ...
29/04/2024
Drones Take Flight Inside MSG: How Sky Candy Studios is Upping the Excitement fo...
29/04/2024
Back to All News
Netflix Announces a Diverse Lineup of Polish Titles to Debut i...
29/04/2024
Tonight on Smoke and Mirrors: Fanyana feels embarrassed about his sexual mishapDon't miss Monday, 29 April's riveting episode of South African soapie Sm...
29/04/2024
Talk about commitment. When startup SEA.AI, an NVIDIA Metropolis partner, set out to create a system that would use AI to scan the seas to enhance maritime safe...
28/04/2024
Mediahaus delivers the first SRT live-streaming sports production over 5G with U...
27/04/2024
On April 26, L3Harris Chair and CEO Christopher E. Kubasik joined CNBC's Mor...
27/04/2024
PORTLAND, Oregon Audinate Group Limited, the developer of the Dante AV-over-IP solution, announced significant new additions to Dante Connect, its cloud-based D...
27/04/2024
TORONTO Bell Media has launched 10 English and French-language FAST channels featuring entertainment, factual, news, and sports programming. The new free stream...
27/04/2024
An extensive new analysis of the news segments in the broadcast evening news programs of ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS has found that broadcasters devoted most of their...
27/04/2024
GERMANTOWN, Md. EchoStar's Hughes Network Systems has opened a new manufacturing facility and private 5G incubation center in Germantown, Maryland....
27/04/2024
Harry Pappas, one of three brothers who founded Pappas Telecasting Companies in 1971, died April 24. He was 78 years old....
27/04/2024
ATLANTA and LONDON Mexican telecommunications and broadcast company Televisa has selected Synamedia for an overhaul of its broadcast distribution....
27/04/2024
Participate in the Survey - The Impact of AI on Media and the Creative Industry
Pascal Wagner April 26, 2024
0 Comments
By participating in this surve...
27/04/2024
SDVI Rally Access Workstation Earns Two Top Awards at 2024 NAB Show
Brie Clayton April 26, 2024
0 Comments
SDVI, the leading platform provider for clo...
27/04/2024
Berklee's Music and Health Institute Launches Community Health Musician Cert...
27/04/2024
Charter Communications reported higher first-quarter profits despite continued cord-cutting and competition for broadband customers....
In 2008, Andrew Renzi, then 22, lost his father to cancer. The experience inspired his award-winning short film Karaoke!, a deeply personal piece exploring the denial and anxiety associated with imminent loss. On the heels of completing his first narrative feature (The Benefactor, starring Richard Gere, Dakota Fanning and Theo James, released by Samuel Goldwyn Co.), Renzi now makes his spot debut with a City of Hope project created via IW Group and produced by ContagiousLA. In addition to helming Above and Beyond, done in Mandarin with English subtitles, Renzi directed Half Man, Half Baby, an English-language spot conceived by the filmmaker and executed with the support of agency and client. Both spots focus on Alex Tung, who survived a rare form of Leukemia thanks to an umbilical cord stem cell transplant - a procedure offered at City of Hope.
