Connecticut State Reorganization Nets New Home, Name, and New Director

Connecticut has a new Commission, and because of that, the office formerly named the Connecticut Film, Television and Media Office has a new name and a new home.

As of January, 2005, the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism (CCT) will oversee issues regarding art, tourism, film and history in the state, which will be administered by individual divisions. 

The Film Division serves as the state film office based in Hartford, with an office in Rocky Hill. The Division provides customer service to more than 200 production companies in a typical year –-TV shows, feature films, TV commercials, corporate videos and commercial photography shoots.  In 2004, the division attracted a number of lucrative productions to the state, including the Steven Spielberg film WAR OF THE WORLDS starring Tom Cruise and the CBS prime-time reality show “Wickedly Perfect.” The productions served by the Film Division spend millions of dollars in Connecticut each year.

John Courtemanche, Director of the new Film Division, reports directly to Jennifer Aniskovich, Executive Director of the Connecticut Commission. Together, the Commission and the Division hope to attract additional productions to Connecticut, to ensure the highest level of customer service to the production industry and to represent the state’s media community to this industry at large. 

Courtemanche asserts, "We need to be proactive in promoting Connecticut as a production location, both to the $5-billion-dollar New York metropolitan market, and to the rest of the market.  We can do this by promoting the high level of service our office provides."

Dave DuPuy Joins Finish Editorial in Boston

David DuPuy has recently joined Finish Editorial in Boston as Account Executive.

Dave’s background is as a producer in Los Angeles, where he had success with Division I Entertainment, a company he co-founded and still is partners in. During his active tenure in Los Angeles his company produced the feature film TELLING YOU that was then sold and released by Miramax Films. A slice of life film in which two college graduates find themselves stuck behind the counter of a pizza parlor while their friends struggle to find a new direction for their lives. In addition Dave has optioned and worked on development of a large number of film projects for the company, before coming back home to Boston.

“We’re excited to have Dave here,” reports C.O.O/Founder Don Packer.  “Dave brings a deep background and a very level film head to our crazy business and I’m looking forward to the kind of work that I think he’ll bring to our facility.”

Finish is a full service postproduction facility in Boston featuring Avid, Film to Tape Color Correction, and Fire and Smoke on-line finishing with full HD capability.

Dave can be contact at: david.dupuy@finishedit.com.  Google “Finish Editorial” at www.imaginenews.com for other Finish Editorial stories.

CrewStar Reports Significant Increase in Worldwide TV Crew Usage

Boston-based CrewStar, Inc.,  reported a 51% rise in worldwide crew bookings under its CrewStar SHOOTS division since the final quarter of 2004. The full service company attributes the increase to several services, economic and environmental factors.

Lily Maiella is the President of CrewStar Inc. She believes treating everyone on their crew list with respect nets great results worldwide. Photo courtesy of CrewStar, Inc.

"The dynamics behind this trend are understandable,” notes Lily A. Maiella, CrewStar President & CEO. "As reported recently in Business Travel News, many corporations are continuing to develop or more strictly enforce travel policy restrictions. That's one reason why more producers are using local crews. Secondly, while 2005 budgets remain tight, programs still need to be done - so it's more cost effective to buy services locally than pay travel costs. Plus, airlines are cutting back, so routes and numbers of flights are more limited. Finally, we're seeing more "single body" business - as CrewStar is one of the few agencies that will book a single technician to a fully equipped team. This gives producers more flexibility and low-cost options. The result is we're busier than ever with crew bookings all over the world!"

CrewStar SHOOTS maintains a comprehensive, worldwide database of production resources as well as solid, respectful relationships with their production teams. "It's one thing to have a crew list", said Joe Maiella, Sr. VP, Marketing & Sales. "It’s far more valuable to have a relationship with crew members who are actually doing the work. This makes us fully confident that our teams will perform in outstanding fashion, and can back-up our guarantee for client satisfaction. We also know how our crews feel about doing business with CrewStar. We treat them with respect.

In turn, they respect our business model, our pricing, and how we create value for all parties involved. Again, this makes a big difference in how well our professional crews perform."

CrewStar, Inc. also provides record payroll services for production crew and talent as well as international production crew and equipment booking services to corporate, commercial production, broadcast, cable, and organizational clients. For more information, visit www.crewstar.com.

Jewishfilm.2005: From Auschwitz to America and Israel, March 31 to April 10  

The National Center for Jewish Film at Brandeis University in association with The Consulate General of Israel to New England will present The National Center for Jewish Film’s 8th annual spring film festival: Jewishfilm.2005: From Auschwitz to America and Israel, from March 31 to April 10.

A scene from Elinor Kowarsky's work in progress, IDF: THE MUSICAL, a toe-tapping look at the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), musical bands and entertainers. Photo courtesy of Jewishfilm 2005.

The 10-program festival will include 4 USA premieres and 4 Boston premieres.

The festival will host 6 visiting filmmakers and Pearl Gluck (’93). All films will be followed by a speaker, either the filmmaker or an invited guest.

To commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, many of the films in this year’s festival deal with issues of survival, both collective and individual.

In different ways, these films explore how individuals learn to cope with trauma, big and small, including death, war, exile, family schism, and emigration. 

Zeva Oelbaum will present the Boston premiere of her new film, RENE AND I: FROM AUSCHWITZ TO AMERICA, the amazing story of resilience by Irene and her twin brother Rene, who survived, from the age of six, three years of experimentation at the hands of Josef Mengele at Auschwitz. Dutch filmmaker Willy Lindwer will bring to the USA the premiere of his very personal documentary, GOODBYE HOLLAND: THE EXTERMINATION OF THE DUTCH JEWS, which focuses on Dutch complicity in the deportation of Holland’s Jews and Volker Kühn premieres his remarkable resurrection of doomed artists in DANCE OF DEATH: CABARET IN THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS.

A snap shot from RENE AND I: FROM AUSCHWITZ TO AMERICA. One of the producers is a Brandeis Grad, Zena Oelbaum. The film just won the audience prize at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival. Photo courtesy of Jewishfilm:2005.

Two films are set amid the ghosts of the Holocaust: the Boston premiere of METALLIC BLUES, a road-movie that Variety calls an “Offbeat, largely comic treatment of present-day German/Jewish relations” and Pearl Gluck’s documentary DIVAN, about the retrieval of a turn-of-the-century family heirloom from Hungary.

Jewishfilm.2005 will feature four Israeli films, reflecting the diversity, richness, and challenges of life in Israel. Orna Ben Dor will present the USA premiere of her new documentary WIDOWED ONCE, TWICE BEREAVED, about five women whose families were killed in a suicide bomb in Haifa, Israel, and Elinor Kowarsky will present the USA premiere of the first two hours of a work in progress, IDF: THE MUSICAL, a toe-tapping look at the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) musical bands and entertainers. The festival will also screen last year’s highest-grossing Israeli feature film TURN LEFT AT THE END OF THE WORLD and the Boston premiere of IN STAMAR’S CUSTODY, a controversial documentary about the anti-Zionist, United States-based Hasidic sect, the Satmar.

The Boston premiere of IN STAMAR'S CUSTODY, a controversial documentary about the anti-Zionist, United States-based Hasidic sect, the Satmar, is one of 10 programs you can see during Jewishfilm: 2005 at Brandeis University. Photo courtesy Jewishfilm: 2005.

Jewishfilm.2005’s opening program, offered in celebration of the Jewish community’s 350th anniversary in America, is the Boston premiere of the newly restored and subtitled 1940 Yiddish feature AMERICAN MATCHMAKER (Amerikaner Shadkhn). Starring Leo Fuchs “the Yiddish Fred Astaire” in an art deco romantic comedy set on New York’s Upper West Side, this clash between the urbane, slick manners of the new country and the old, busybody, communal ways of the shtetl, offers a satisfying combination of humor, music and schmaltz.

All screenings will take place on the Brandeis University campus, Waltham, MA in the Edie and Lew Wasserman Cinematheque and Sachar International Center. For more information, email: jewishfilm@brandeis.edu, www.jewishfilm.org

Gravity Sings through Winter

There is a very nice wrinkle in this piece. See if you can find it.

Gravity recently produced a 15-minute piece for the City of Medford as it began its Medford Square Revitalization Project. Photo courtesy of Gravity,LLC

In December, Gravity completed a 15-minute piece for the city of Medford titled Visions of Medford Sq. currently getting a lot of airtime on Medford's local TV-3. Shot in 24p and in 16:9, the piece features local area businesses describing their vision of the Square as Medford begins it's revitalization of the Square. A central feature in the video was the night that Medford broke the Guinness Book of World Records for the most Christmas carolers singing in one place at the same time. Appropriately enough, they sang "Jingle Bells" written in Medford Square circa 1890!

Last November, Gravity was contacted by WBZ to produce and shoot its annual Children’s' Telethon Promo ad. Director/Cameraman Steven J. Eliopoulos collaborated heavily with Senior Producer Tiffany Middleton-Riva at CBS4 Boston (as they are now officially known). Eliopoulos suggested that this year's promo should somehow incorporate the World Series Champion Red Sox, especially since sports anchor Bob Lobel in the reindeer suit is always the centerpiece of these annual promos. Middleton-Riva wrote the copy based on Eliopoulos' visual suggestion that this year should feature all the anchors around Lobel in front of a make-up room vanity mirror. The vanity mirror and set was wonderfully built and assembled by CBS4's Mike Nosel. Eliopoulos says: "I was really going for this Moulin Rouge sort of look by shooting everything into the makeup mirror..."

Gravity is a fresh player in New England area film, video and digital media production. Offering a crisp and energetic alternative to today’s advertisers, Gravity’s agile production approach realizes the creative for any project. You can Google IMAGINE site www.imaginenews.com for other Gravity project stories.

Bob Colman’s FOLLOW THE BROCCOLI Gets DVD Release

FOLLOW THE BROCCOLI is the story of a young songwriter, Arthur Ibbet, who becomes obsessed with a woman, and in order to win her heart, he sets out to become a bingo champion. (She comes from a long line of bingo champions). The film will now get its DVD release later this month.

PulseMedia authored the DVD and the last of the SAG consent forms have been signed!  Director Bob Colman told IMAGINE he expects the DVD will be available through the web with CustomFlix.com by mid-to-late March. 

An IMDBpro commentator named phelpskm recorded this user comment "It's NOT about the MONEY." In his first full-length film, director ROBERT COLMAN successfully weaves together musical talent, comedy and a deeper message. FOLLOW THE BROCCOLI ("FTB") -- a film that is only just beginning to gain the true recognition that it deserves -- examines the collective angst of the generation that was not quite "Gen-X" in its search for meaning. Arthur Ibbit's rise to fame in the ultra-competitive bingo world and the mixed emotions that accompany his success reflect a clash of values inherent in the rat race of today's high tech world. The search for Joe King, as the key to it all, lends an epic quality to the film. Outstanding performances by actors Barlow Adamson, Rose Carlson and Glen Phillips bring a funny and innovative script alive. In yet another quirky independent film to come out of the Boston area, Colman makes use of the Charles, the Common and the Capital as backdrops to Arthur Ibbit's search for meaning in life that is at once witty and self-reflective.

FOLLOW THE BROCCOLI is a hip and wacky examination of a young singer-songwriter's life at the end of the twentieth century -- and a must see!”

Chris Sparling Wraps BALANCE in Rhode Island

Writer, director and actor Chris Sparling on the set of AN OUZI BY ANY OTHER NAME. Photo by David Ciolfi.

Chris Sparling serving as writer, producer, director and actor wrapped his new film BALANCE in Rhode Island last month. The film used Providence and Little Compton, RI as locations. The story is about a father who exacts revenge against his homosexual son's lover for knowingly giving his son HIV. The film stars Craig Handel, Kevin Centazzo, Sandy Laub, and Chris himself. Raymond Lepre served at the Director of Photography

Vin Fraioli featured Chris’ movie AN OUZI AT THE ALAMO in the Dec/Jan 04 issue of IMAGINE. That film is set for premiere in April.  BALANCE marks the second project for Sparling’s Rhode Island based production company, Scarred Heel Productions.