Mike Nichols has been named Adorama Rental Company's vice president of sales and marketing. In this role, Nichols will be responsible for building a five-year strategy with a focus on growth and expansion of the company. He will identify new areas of revenue which look beyond the transactional rental business as well as develop services for ARC's high-end digital cinema market with a customer service mindset.
In an industry that relies heavily on collaboration to combine technical excellence with inspiring creativity, the last two years have been a unique challenge. The Zeiss cinema lens team, meanwhile, has worked hard to not only continue communications, but to also expand and improve its capabilities across the Americas. Whether it’s from behind masks or monitors they have been actively engaging with the filmmaking community, unveiling new technology, maintaining channels, sponsoring online events and film festivals, and producing their Studies in Cinematography series with the likes of Greig Fraser, ASC, ACS, Matthew Libatique, ASC and Alice Brooks, ASC.
NEP Virtual Studios and Trilith Studios are building a virtual production facility in Atlanta, Georgia. The Prysm Stage at Trilith Studios is being built from the ground up by Cliff Plumer, global president of NEP Virtual Studios, virtual production pioneers Lux Machina Consulting, Trilith Studios president and CEO Frank Patterson, and Trilith Studios director of creative technologies, Barry Williams. The permanent stage facility will offer filmmakers stable and advanced real time workflows and technology, operated by highly experienced virtual production experts.
The Motion Picture Sound Editors association has elected Mark Lanza to a two-year term as president. Additionally, David Barber has been elected to a two-year term as secretary, a position he has held on an interim basis for the past year.
The Colorist Society has launched Colorist Society Hollywood, an exclusive, invitation-only group of color finishing artists. The group’s mission is to advocate for their craft, support diversity initiatives, and create educational opportunities for its members and associated industry partners. They will also seek to deepen CSI’s ties to other industry organizations and the wider entertainment industry.
Virtual production is gaining more traction in the motion picture business. One example? The recent collaboration of several companies came together for both practical and creative reasons to bring the Disney+ feature the Muppets Haunted Mansion to life. “The Muppets and ARwall are a perfect fit,” says Rene Amador, co-founder and CEO of ARwall. His company creates virtual production technology for its own use and in turn markets it to other filmmakers. Its first product is ARFX, a suite of real-time tools developed natively for using real-time in-camera LED effects in scripted filmmaking.
The Association of Moving Image Archivists is premiering its second edition of the Archival Screening Night Roadshow in cinemas around the country this November 18. A veritable treasure from the world's archives and archivists, the ASN Roadshow features 20 astonishing short films and videos in 103 minutes.
Netflix’s Stowaway, starring Anna Kendrick, Daniel Dae Kim, Shamier Anderson and Toni Collette, follows a space mission that is headed to Mars when an unintended stowaway accidentally causes severe damage to the spaceship’s life support systems. Facing dwindling resources and a potentially fatal outcome, the crew is forced to make an impossible decision.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage, marks Tom Hardy’s return to the big screen as the lethal protector Venom, one of Marvel’s greatest and most complex characters, and proves a worthy successor to the hit 2018 original through its imaginative storytelling, outstanding performances, breakthrough visual effects and superb, action-packed soundtrack.
The composing duo of Adam Robl and Shawn Sutta recently scored the original soundtrack for Grasshoppers, award-winning LA-based filmmaker Brad Bischoff’s directorial feature film debut. An Official Selection of the 18th Annual BendFilm Festival in the narrative category, the emotionally charged drama recently made its world premiere at the event. The director, a native of Chicago, shot the film in the city’s suburbs.
