Veteran business and media executive Sarah Chase has been named COO and executive producer at Wild Bill, a creative content production company and commercial agency jointly run by co-founders Samantha Hart and James Lipetzky. Chase spent much of her career working under the close mentorship of actor Alan Alda. Prior to joining Wild Bill, she served as COO at Alda Communication Training Company (ACT), teaming with Alda to build it into a multi-million dollar company that was structured as a one-of-its-kind private-public partnership with the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University. All of ACT’s profits were contributed to the Alda Center to further enhance research and innovation in STEM communication.
Chase also served as executive producer and voiceover artist for Alda’s award-winning podcast, “Clear+Vivid®.” Chase helped Alda and co-executive producer Graham Chedd develop the podcast for Stitcher. Chase produced over 100 episodes for the podcast, which has since had over 11 million downloads. Notable guests she worked with directly include Tom Hanks, Paul McCartney, Julie Andrews, Madeleine Albright, Tina Fey, Michael J. Fox, Judge Judy, Isabella Rossellini and Sarah Silverman.
Alda said, “Sarah has been COO of my company and executive producer of my podcast, ‘Clear+Vivid®,’ for the past four years, and I’ve seen her skill and ingenuity in full bloom. Wild Bill is lucky to have landed her. I think all of us who have worked with Sarah will boast one day that we were smart enough to choose her.”
Hart commented, “In a time when so few companies are hiring, we are confident that it’s a valuable investment to enlist Sarah Chase’s immense talents. We were drawn to her enormous breadth of experience in communication-focused businesses. Her track record with Mr. Alda’s company is impressive–having helped develop and build it into a multi-million dollar entity. She’s also launched several media ventures, digital start-ups, cable networks, and podcasts. Sarah is an incredibly passionate and articulate woman, who immediately connected with the unique culture and spirit of Wild Bill.”
Chase said. “From my first meeting with Samantha, I totally understood her vision for the future of content creation and immediately related to the creative vibe. Coupled with James’ directing talent, visual perspective, and storytelling passion, we will forge ahead, no matter what is happening in the world, to navigate Wild Bill into this newly emerging world of ultra-connected, authentic storytelling and purpose-driven content production.”
Specializing in authentic stories for nonprofits, brands and start-ups, Wild Bill has created content for United Way, American Express, The Benjamin Marshall Society, Microsoft, and the L.A.-based non-profit A Place Called Home, to name a few. License to Operate, their 2015 feature documentary about reformed gang members in Los Angeles won Best Documentary Feature at the Highland International Film Festival. The agency is now expanding its 2019 short on the life of famous Chicago architect Benjamin Marshall into a pilot for a series with producer Valerie Gobos, and Hart’s literary memoir, “Blind Pony” will be released this fall.
Review: Writer-Director Aaron Schimberg’s “A Different Man”
Imagine you could wake up one morning, stand at the mirror, and literally peel off any part of your looks you don't like — with only movie-star beauty remaining.
How would it change your life? How SHOULD it change your life?
That's a question – well, a launching point, really — for Edward, protagonist of Aaron Schimberg's fascinating, genre-bending, undeniably provocative and occasionally frustrating "A Different Man," featuring a stellar trio of Sebastian Stan, Adam Pearson and Renate Reinsve.
The very title is open to multiple interpretations. Who (and what) is "different"? The original Edward, who has neurofibromatosis, a genetic disorder that causes bulging tumors on his face? Or the man he becomes when he's able to slip out of that skin? And is he "different" to others, or to himself?
When we meet Edward, a struggling actor in New York (Stan, in elaborate makeup), he's filming some sort of commercial. We soon learn it's an instructional video on how to behave around colleagues with deformities. But even there, the director stops him, offering changes. "Wouldn't want to scare anyone," he says.
On Edward's way home on the subway, people stare. Back at his small apartment building, he meets a young woman in the hallway, in the midst of moving to the flat next door. She winces visibly when she first sees him, as virtually everyone does.
But later, Ingrid (Reinsve) tries to make it up to him, coming over to chat. She is charming and forthright, and tells Edward she's a budding playwright.
Edward goes for a medical checkup and learns that one of his tumors is slowly progressing over the eye. But he's also told of an experimental trial he could join. With the possibility — maybe — of a cure.
So... Read More