Drafthouse Films’ Evan Husney Departing Creative Director Post

Drafthouse Films‘ Evan Husney is stepping down from his post as Creative Director after nearly three years at the upstart distribution label. New York-based Husney, 27, will be shifting focus to producing and is working with directors Jason Eisener (Hobo With A Shotgun) and Todd Rohal (The Catechism Cataclysm) on their next features. Husney helped develop the specialty distro arm of Austin-based Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas from the ground up when company founder Tim League tapped him to run creative ops in 2011. Shortly thereafter Drafthouse Films scored an Academy Award nomination with one of its first acquisitions, director Michaël R. Roskam’s Belgian drama Bullhead, which vied for Best Foreign Film at the 2012 Oscars. Last year Husney and the Drafthouse team mounted their second Oscar campaign in three years for Best Documentary nominee The Act of Killing, director Josh Oppenheimer’s critically-acclaimed documentary about Indonesian death squad leaders.

Related: Drafthouse Films Embracing Risks With Genocide Doc ‘Act Of Killing’

Since its inception the label has acquired a variety of specialty releases spanning genre, action, drama, comedy, foreign, and repertory titles, plucking often-challenging fare from the lineups of Austin’s Fantastic Fest (which League founded) and SXSW. “When [Drafthouse Films] started we wanted to acquire movies we loved and films we thought are great, utilize our backgrounds as programmers and approach distribution with a curatorial quality – a real cinephiles for cinephiles label,” Husney told me. Those include Bullhead, The Act of Killing, Danish comedy Klown and docu The Ambassador, horror anthology The ABCs of Death, Quentin Dupieux’s Wrong, Kim-Ki Duk’s Pieta, punk docu A Band Called Death, Ben Wheatley’s A Field In England, and E.L. Katz’s Cheap Thrills as well as rep titles from the vaults like 1971′s Wake In Fright, Abel Ferrara’s Ms. 45, and the 1987 martial arts actioner Miami Connection.

Prior to Drafthouse Films, Husney brought microbudget cult discovery Birdemic: Shock and Terror to niche distributor Severin Films and served as the company’s Director of Public Relations and acquisitions Marketing Consultant. Drafthouse Films will now look to fill the vacated Creative Director position; here’s a first look at their official job listing for those up to the challenge:

Alamo Drafthouse is looking for a talented, passionate, and highly motivated individual to join our marketing and creative team at Drafthouse Films. The ideal candidate will have experience in at least two of these three areas: marketing (both traditional and social) & promotion, sales, and technical (web development, design, video editing and data analysis). Candidates must have a minimum of three years experience successfully marketing independent films. This is a full time position with benefits.

General qualifications
• Understand the Alamo Drafthouse and Drafthouse Films brands and voice
• Work collaboratively with a small team
• Function and communicate effectively in a remote office setting
• Thrive under pressure
• Organize multiple, complex workflows effectively

Marketing and Promotion Responsibilities
• Assist the VP of marketing in brainstorming, and executing innovative media and marketing ideas to maximize revenue on theatrical, VOD, digital, home entertainment and direct-to-consumer platforms
• Oversee Drafthouse Films social media. Develop a strong brand voice and increase following on our social channels. Brainstorm and execute innovative social media campaigns. Distill and share insights and trends from social media campaigns
• Lead art direction and creative asset creation for select titles. Manage deadlines and creative review process with both the Drafthouse Films team and filmmakers
• Continuously help the Drafthouse Films team brainstorm, source and grow new partnerships to augment our marketing campaigns

Sales Responsibilities
• Manage and grow Drafthouse Films’ direct-to-consumer channels and Alliance subscription plans. Retain existing subscription base. Strengthen relationships with existing customers. Grow new subscribers. Research and adopt world-class subscription marketing strategies. Leverage and analyze data to increase subscriber sales, consumption of content and ROI of paid media campaigns
• Conceive and produce compelling merchandise packages for select Drafthouse Films releases
• Leverage Alamo’s extensive promotional platforms and passionate fans to drive increased subscriptions

Tech Responsibilities
• Work proficiently with Final Cut Pro or Premiere, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Excel and DVD authoring software
• Understand industry standard codecs and tools for exporting, transcoding, converting video files and general post-production to finish a film (balancing audio, color correcting, fine-tuning cuts, etc.)
• Produce or oversee production of all DVD special features, trailers, film clips, promotional featurettes and other video assets
• Use Adobe Creative Suite to create print and web advertisements and other marketing assets (postcards, flyers, etc)

Application Instructions
Please send a resume and cover letter to james.shapiro@drafthouse.com.

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