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Commercial News
Peter Sillen
Sillen is traveling from New York to Shanghai, London, and Cork, Ireland, documenting for Apple Inc. what happens when a customer places an order. The Apple shoot comes on the heels of Sillen’s around-the-world shoot for Starwood Hotels, highlighting their resorts worldwide, including Bora Bora.
Braden King
Sundance Institute has released a statement listing the winners of the 2008 Sundance/NHK International Filmmaker Award—an honor that highlights new projects from Europe, Latin America, the United States, and Japan. Four winners were selected, one from each region, including director Braden King for his project, Here. The winners receive a cash prize, as well as a guarantee of international distribution upon completion of their project.
Tom Schiller
Schiller directed a comedic opening video for the 2008 O’Toole awards that featured Jesus, Darwin, Freud, and the Wright Brothers, in addition to Chuck Porter (Crispen Porter), Steve Hayden (Ogilvy) and Rob Biaocco (Grey).
Randy Hackett
Hackett is currently shooting for a 2008 campaign for Motel 6, featuring people of different demographics in humorous situations when they need to pull over and get a room for the night.
Theater News
Alex Ross
Alex Ross, classical music critic for The New Yorker, has joined the WSA Readings & Lecture roster. His first book, The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, was one of the New York Times' 10 Best Books of 2007; also on best-of-the-year lists in the Washington Post, Amazon.com, the LA Times, New York (also voted Best Non-Fiction Book), Time, The Economist, Slate, and Newsweek.
UPDATE: Announced April 7th, Ross was nominated as a Pulitzer Prize finalist in the General Non-Fiction Category for The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century.
Danny Hoch
Solo performer Danny Hoch premiered his new solo piece, Taking Over, at Berkeley Rep. In a series of monologues looking at modern gentrification as it relates to colonialism and “neo-feudalism” in the new millennium, Hoch’s performance is conquering critics and audiences alike.
“The remarkable Danny Hoch lights up the stage like a dynamo, illuminating the entire Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg through nine impeccably drawn, vividly diverse characters (including himself) in an angry, funny, nuanced and provocative 100-minute look at the perils, complexities and injustices of gentrification. Sharply staged by Tony Taccone for its world premiere, Hoch’s latest solo tour de force is hard-hitting, riveting, gritty and irresistible.” —San Francisco Chronicle
Doug Bost
Diminished Capacity, written by Doug Bost, premiered at Sundance 2008. Produced by Plum Pictures, the film was directed by Terry Kinney and stars Matthew Broderick, Alan Alda, and Virginia Madsen.
Film News
Lush Life wins 2008 Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards, recognizing distinguished achievement and meritorious public service by TV and radio stations, networks, producing organizations, individuals and the web, have honored director Robert Levi, Washington Square Films and ITVS for Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life, an expansive portrait of Duke Ellington’s musical collaborator.
The winners, chosen by the Peabody board as the best in electronic media for 2007, become a permanent part of the Peabody Archive in the University of Georgia Libraries, one of the nation’s oldest, largest and most respected moving-image archives. Other 2008 winners include Frontline, The Colbert Report, Mad Men, Art:21 and 30 Rock.
Talent Management
Jennifer Esposito
The series debut of “Samantha Who?” on ABC stood as TV’s No. 1 new comedy premiere of the season, beating all other networks in both Total Viewers and Adults 18-49. In fact, “Samantha Who?” qualified as the most-watched comedy telecast on all of television in 8 months (since 2/26/07).
Dulé Hill
USA Network recently announced that it will be picking up “Psych” for a third season.
Kerry Washington
Kerry Washington has begun principal photography on Lakeview Terrace, opposite Samuel L. Jackson and Patrick Wilson, in a film directed by Neil LaBute. In it, an LAPD officer (Jackson) stops at nothing to force out the interracial couple who have just moved in next door.