WWW May 2003
Contributors include: Matt Bouldry, Niki Hebert, Erika Hahn, Michael Kusek, Sandra Sullivan, Lisa Muldowney, and Guy Holt.
Winners
BY THE SEA is Nominated for Imagen Awards
This just in as we go to press: Imagine has learned that BY THE SEA, has been
nominated in the "Best Picture Category," "Best Actress Category", and "Best Supporting Actor Category” for the Imagen Awards to be held at the Beverly Hilton on May 29th.
For the Best Picture Category BY THE SEA will be competing with films like FRIDA, TUCK EVERLASING, CITY OF GOD, etc. For the Best Actress, Elena Aaron will go against Jennifer Lopez, Alexa Vega, Alexis Bledel, Salma Hayek and America Ferrera. For Best Supporting Actor, Chris Rivaro will compete with Luis Guzman.
BY THE SEA screens at the Boston Comedy and Movie Festival, at the Boston Hatch Shell on May 9th at 7 PM. Dean Huh produced this movie, which has received considerable coverage in IMAGINE in the past. Check out www.imaginenews.com.
The Imagen Foundation is a non-profit organization founded in 1985 to encourage and recognize the positive portrayal of Latinos in all media, and to increase Latino representation at all levels of the entertainment industry.
For more information about the Imagen Awards, go to www.imagen.org.
VICTORY BELLS RING IN WATERTOWN FOR SOUP2NUTS
Boston area animation production house, Soup2Nuts Inc., brought home the bacon last month, as their hit series, Home Movies, won two major international animation awards at the 2003 Cartoons on the Bay Festival in Positano, Italy. Home Movies beat out five other critically acclaimed animated contenders for the 'Best TV Series for Teenagers & Adults' Award including MTV's Clone High USA, Antefilm Production's Funky Cops, Cartoon Network's Samurai Jack and the Animation Band's Spaghetti Family. Home Movies airs in Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block.
A total of 262 entries from 31 countries applied for the Cartoons on the Bay's Pulcinella Awards competition; of these, only 35 programs from 12 countries were selected to compete. While every program in the competition is eligible to receive the 'Best Character Of The Year' Pulcinella Award, it is given to the program with the most impressive character/s and is selected by the Festival's panel of industry judges. Home Movies' array of delightful characters charmed the festival; the entire cast of characters took home the 'Best Group of Characters of the Year' Award to the delight of fans around the world.
Soup2Nuts has no desire to rest on its laurels however; Home Movies has also been nominated by the 2003 Annecy Awards International Animated Film Festival where it will compete in the Best TV Series category. The Annecy Festival is the top ranking international animated film festival, and is being held June 2nd-7th in Annecy, France.
In addition to airing in the U.S. on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, Home Movies has a large international following and is televised in Australia, Croatia, Finland, France, India, Ireland, Japan, Malta, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, Portugal and Spain.
Home Movies is an animated comedy that focuses on a budding filmmaker and pint-sized third grader, Brendon Small, who enlists his neighborhood friends to create short films of not-quite-epic proportions. Through his work, Brendon sorts out the issues that plague his troubled, eight-year-old mind.
Cartoon Network, currently seen in 82.1 million U.S. homes and 145 countries around the world, is Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.'s 24-hour, ad-supported cable service offering the best in animated entertainment. Since its launch in 1992, the network has remained one of ad-supported cable's highest-rated networks. Cartoon Network's web site is located at CartoonNetwork.com (AOL Keyword: Cartoon Network). Fans can check out more information about Home Movies and other Soup2Nuts shows at www.soup2nuts.tv.
Works
A BUZZ THAT GOES BIGTIME
New York filmmaker Sally Roy and her husband Peter Nelson, D.P. came to open their film PIPE DREAM at the Regal Nickelodeon Cinema in Falmouth April 27th. It was the final selection in The Woods Hole Film Festival 2003 Winter Film Series hosted by Festival Director Judy Laster. The charming feature length romantic comedy stars Martin Donovan as a handsome but nondescript NYC plumber who devises a plan to meet women by holding a casting call as a director. He purloins his shorts from a woman scriptwriter he knows and asks a friend to be the casting director. Unexpectedly a buzz is generated about the film, the movie gets financing and hilarity results as first time filmmakers are thrown into the big time. After the film's opening audience members attended an after party at The Nimrod Restaurant in Falmouth to talk with the filmmakers. PIPE DREAM will be available in VHS/DVD on June 17th from Lions Gate Video.
C.P. CASTING's LATEST and GREATEST Projects
C.P. Casting recently held auditions for the role of "Audrey" for an ABC Television pilot starring Lenny Clarke. The pilot is "Still-Untitled" and has been referred to as the "Untitled Chuck Ranberg Pilot" -- Also starring Reid Scott, Maggie Lawson, John Benjamin Hickey, and Chris Sieber -- It follows a man (Scott) whose parents (Clarke, and the still TBD "Audrey") are very conservative and his girlfriend (Lawson), is the daughter of a gay couple.
Atlantic Television in New York also hired hired C.P. to cast background for a television campaign for the Royal Bank of Scotland. And C.P. cast five new corporate projects for Fleet Telephone Banking, and Fidelity
C.P. Casting also recently held auditions for another ABC television pilot. Carsey/Werner is teaming up with Tim Allen to produce. Tom, Bud, Rick and Carl basically act out the plot to "Bye Bye Love" as they deal with kids, divorce, girlfriends and poker games. We hear that Tim Allen is Exec. Producer and Writer, and will do narration for the show, but not appear on camera. It also stars Patrick Warburton, Jsu Garcia, and Currie Graham.
AND, C. P. also cast a large number of background extras for the pilot episode of a new CBS television show from David E. Kelley called "The Brotherhood of Poland, New Hampshire”. The pilot was filmed in Plymouth, New Hampshire, (but the rest of the show will be filmed in California, rats!) The show stars Randy Quaid, John Carroll Lynch, Mare Winningham, Elizabeth McGovern, Ann Cusack, Angela Goethals, Megan Henning, Cleo King, and Brian Haley. The show revolves around three brothers in their late 30s and early 40s in a fictional town in New Hampshire. One brother is the town's mayor (Lynch) and another a police officer.
SHOOTING ON 16mm: The Choice is Yours
On April 21, an eclectic mix of cutting-edge independent filmmakers gathered at New York City’s French Institute to discuss breakthroughs in technology that are making Super 16 an attractive and viable option for low budget productions. Panelists included producers Robert May (THE STATION AGENT), Lemore Syvan (PERSONAL VELOCITY), Peter Schnall (six-time Emmy winning documentarian), writer-producer-director Victor Nunez (ULEE’S GOLD, COASTLINES), and cinematographer Oliver Bokelberg (THE STATION AGENT).
Pat Thomson, contributing editor to American Cinematographer magazine for the past six years, moderated the evening’s panel discussion in front of an audience of nearly 400.
The panelists offered insights on choosing Super 16 mm for aesthetic and economic reasons. They shared their own experiences of using 16 mm within a budget, from production through post and the final print. The panelists’ experiences demystified the actual costs associated with using Super 16 mm versus video.
“From a producing standpoint, you have to ask ‘what is the material and what does it mean,’” Syvan explained when asked about making the decision to shoot on 16 mm. “As a producer, you have to choose what’s right for the movie and what sensation you want the audience to get when they watch it.”
Bokelberg added, “What you put into the camera is what you get out.”
The biggest reaction of the night came from the audience upon hearing some of the more famous film titles shot on Super 16: list that includes LEAVING LAS VEGAS, BEST IN SHOW, A MIGHTY WIND, STEVIE, WAITING FOR GUFFMAN, MONSOON WEDDING, and RAISING VICTOR VARGAS.
The discussion, sponsored by the Eastman Kodak Company, included demonstrations of how the convergence in advances in film and digital postproduction technologies are providing new creative and financial flexibility. The audience also saw a demo of the new Kodak Vision2 film 7218, a high-speed emulsion with a fine grain structure. The 500-speed film is optimized for efficient conversion to video files in telecine suites and also during scanning for digital film mastering applications.
“This is an exciting time to be a filmmaker,” says Ann Turner, regional vice president for Kodak’s Entertainment Imaging division. “There is a whole new range of possibilities for shooting on a nominal budget without sacrificing film aesthetics.”
BOSTON FILM & VIDEO FOUNDATION SEEKS SUBMISSIONS FOR ITS MONTHLY ROUGH CUTS SCREENING SERIES
The Boston Film & Video Foundation¹s (BFVF) Rough Cuts is a monthly screening series of current works in progress by Boston area independent film and video makers. The series provides a unique opportunity for audience members to be directly involved in the filmmaking process, and a part of the dialogue with the filmmaker.
After a short break, BFVF is bringing the Rough Cuts series back and is seeking films to screen. There are no restrictions on genre or length, though all films/videos must be viewed by BFVF before being accepted. For more information, please contact Sandra Sullivan. sandra@bfvf.org.
Previous Rough Cuts screenings have included the award-winning films ORPHANS OF MATHERE, directed by Randy Bell & Pacho Velez; RECONSTRUCTION, directed by Irene Lusztig; MY FATHER, THE GENIUS, directed by Lucia Small; PEACE, PROPAGANDA, AND THE PROMISED LAND, produced by the Media Education Foundation; and LITTLE HEARTS, directed by Stephen Maing.
WRINKLES
COMING SOON: “The Harriman Alaska Expedition Retraced”
There are several wrinkles to be ironed out in this piece coming soon to PBS. On Wednesday, June 11, 2003, Florentine Films/Hott Productions documentary, “The Harriman Alaska Expedition Retraced” will be broadcast nationally on PBS. This film, their 15th to be broadcast on PBS, explores some of the questions, and some he couldn¹t even imagine: Should more wilderness be set aside, or should the state¹s enormous resources be tapped to the utmost? What is the future of the Alaska fisheries? What are the subsistence hunting rights of Alaska citizens? What will tourism do to the coastline, what will global warming do the glaciers?
The two-hour film weaves together four elements, the story of the original
cruise, the biographies of its most compelling characters, the comparison of
Alaska today with the Alaska of 1899, and commentary by scientists on the
cruise of 2001, with a stunning visual survey of the people and land of
Alaska.
“The Harriman Alaska Expedition Retraced” filmmakers Lawrence Hott and Diane started working together on films in 1978 as members of the Florentine Films consortium. In 1981 they formed Florentine Films/Hott Productions Inc. Since then they have received an Emmy, two Academy Award nominations, five American Film Festival Blue Ribbons, ten CINE Golden Eagles, a George Foster Peabody Award and over one hundred national and international awards. Their work has been screened at a variety of major film festivals, including the New York Film Festival, Telluride, and Women in the Director's Chair.
For more information visit www.florentinefilms.org.
WRAPS
Disney's "Piglet's Big Movie" Music Video Featuring Carly Simon
Uses ScreenLight & Grip
Boston based ScreenLight & Grip equipped, and provided production services for, a music video featuring Carly Simon for the EPK and DVD release of Disney's new Winnie the Pooh animated feature PIGLET’S BIG MOVIE. ScreenLight and Grip provided a 10-Ton Lighting and Grip Package and generator for the music video set in the music shed on Carly Simon's farm on Martha Vineyard.
A Le Maitre Fogger was used to smoke the interior of the shed to create dramatic shafts of light from 12k HMI Fresnels outside the windows. A Fisher 11 Dolly, with skateboard wheels, was used to execute smooth fluid camera moves; while large Chimera Light Banks were used to create soft flattering key sources. You can see all the photos at www.screenlightandgrip.com.
