Sara Iversen has joined Alkemy X’s NY team as VP of business development. She formerly served as head of sales/EP at BANG Music + Audio Post. Alkemy X is a creative content company offering strategy, ideation, live action, branded content, design, high-end VFX, and post services. The teams at Alkemy, with offices in Philadelphia and NYC, work cross-discipline in commercials, network creative, integrated marketing, social/digital series, longform TV, and features….ICM Partners is now representing cinematographer Ryan Carmody for commercials and feature films exclusively….DP Philippe Rousselot has wrapped principal photography on the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them for director David Yates and is now available for commercial work via Marie Perry and Pattie Sueoka at The Gersh Agency…..DP Noah Greenberg, whose credits include director Robert D. Siegel’s Cruise, has signed with Dattner Dispoto and Associates (DDA) for representation as have editor Andrew Dickler (Netflix’s Mascots) and line producer Michael D. Jones (Cabin Fever from IFC Midnight)….DDA has also booked DP Maryse Alberti to lens the David Frankel-directed feature Collateral Beauty (New Line Cinema), DP Jon Joffin on the Syfy network TV show Aftermath, production designer Jason Fijal on the Adult Swim show Dream Corp., editor David Leonard on the AMC series Broke (Lionsgate TV), costume designer Caroline Cranstoun on the TV Land show Impastor, and costume designer Mary Claire Hannan on the feature The Etruscan Smile (directors Mihal Brezis and Oded Binnun)…..iZotope, Inc., Cambridge, Mass.-based makers of tools for audio production, has added John Bigay as chief marketing officer. Bigay will lead the strategic development and execution of global marketing, e-commerce, and education initiatives to accelerate company growth….
Review: Rachel Morrison Makes Feature Directorial Debut With “The Fire Inside”
"The Fire Inside," about boxer Claressa "T-Rex" Shields, is not your standard inspirational sports drama, even if it feels like it for the first half of the movie.
There's the hopeless dream, the difficult home life, the blighted community, the devoted coach, the training montages, the setbacks and, against all odds, the win. We've seen this kind of story before, you might think, and you'd be right. But then the movie pulls the rug out from under you: The victory is not the end. "The Fire Inside," directed by Rachel Morrison and written by Barry Jenkins, is as much about what happens after the win. It's not always pretty or inspirational, but it is truthful, and important.
Sports dramas can be just as cliche as fairy tales, with the gold medal and beautiful wedding presented as a happy ending. We buy into it time and time again for obvious reasons, but the idea of a happy ending at all, or even an ending, is almost exclusively for the audience. We walk away content that someone has found true love or achieved that impossible goal after all that work. For the subject, however, it's a different proposition; Life, and all its mundanities, disappointments and hardships, continues after all. And in the world of sports, that high moment often comes so young that it might be easy to look at the rest of the journey as a disappointing comedown.
Claressa Shields, played by Ryan Destiny in the film, was only 17 when she went to the 2012 London Olympics. Everything was stacked against her, including the statistics: No American woman had ever won an Olympic gold medal in the sport before. Her opponents had years on her. She was still navigating high school in Flint, Michigan, and things on the home front were volatile and lacking. Food was sometimes scarce... Read More