The American Cinematheque presented the 31st American Cinematheque Award to five-time Oscar nominee (Junebug, Doubt, The Fighter, The Master, American Hustle) Amy Adams at the Cinematheque’s annual benefit gala on Friday night (11/10) at The Beverly Hilton.
Adams was the unanimous choice of the Cinematheque Board of Directors selection committee. Since 1986, the organization has annually honored an extraordinary artist in the film industry, who is fully engaged in his or her work and is committed to making a significant contribution to the art of the motion picture. For many years, the event was known as the Moving Picture Ball. Funds raised benefit the year-round programming of the non-profit cultural organization, the American Cinematheque (founded in 1981 by Gary Essert and Gary Abrahams).
Presenting the honor to Adams–after some of her most memorable movie scenes played before the gala audience–were a succession of notables including Tom Hanks, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon, Kristen Stewart, Natalie Portman, Justin Timberlake, Chris Messina, and Denis Villeneuve who directed Adams in Arrival.
Previous American Cinematheque Award honorees include: Eddie Murphy (1986), Bette Midler (1987), Robin Williams (1988), Steven Spielberg (1989), Ron Howard (1990), Martin Scorsese (1991), Sean Connery (1992), Michael Douglas (1993), Rob Reiner (1994), Mel Gibson (1995), Tom Cruise (1996), John Travolta (1997), Arnold Schwarzenegger (1998), Jodie Foster (1999), Bruce Willis (2000), Nicolas Cage (2001), Denzel Washington (2002), Nicole Kidman (2003), Steve Martin (2004), Al Pacino (2005), George Clooney (2006), Julia Roberts (2007), Samuel L. Jackson (2008), Matt Damon (2010), Robert Downey Jr. (2011), Ben Stiller (2012), Jerry Bruckheimer (2013), Matthew McConaughey (2014), Reese Witherspoon (2015), and Ridley Scott (2016).
Meanwhile, another notable, director Christopher Nolan, earlier in the evening at the Cinematheque festivities presented the 3rd Annual Sid Grauman Award to Richard Gelfond and Greg Foster on behalf of IMAX for their outstanding contribution to theatrical exhibition.
Cinematheque chairman Rick Nicita said of Gelfond and Foster, “Their leadership of IMAX has resulted in a breathtaking expansion of not only box office grosses around the world but in a quantum leap forward for the excitement and enjoyment of the movie-going audience. There is no better way to see a movie than on the big screen and IMAX gives us the biggest screens of all.”
Nolan deployed IMAX cameras for his latest lauded feature, Dunkirk, which is very much in this season’s Oscar conversation. Nolan was actually one of the first directors to use IMAX cameras on a feature to great effect, yielding The Dark Knight.
SCHROM x Yacht Club and Be Electric Studios Launch Electric XR for Virtual Production
SCHROM x Yacht Club, a full-service live-action, tabletop, and postproduction company, has teamed with Be Electric Studios, a soundstage, equipment rental, and virtual production company, to launch Electric XR, a virtual production collective.
Industry veteran Thomas Rossano will lead the new venture, which provides advanced virtual production solutions across multiple facilities. He brings over 25 years of experience in live-action, tabletop, postproduction and talent curation to enhance Electric XR’s offerings as a resource for brands and agencies, as well as other production companies in need of virtual production solutions. Additionally Rossano continues to serve as EP at XR New York (XR-NY), a role he’s held since December 2022. SCHROM x Yacht Club originally established XR-NY to help provide XR services for third-party rentals. While XR-NY will continue to function independently for SCHROM X Yacht Club, it now operates under the Electric XR umbrella.
Rossano’s expertise spans producing live-action commercials, branded content, interactive and experiential content. In addition to leading Electric XR, he holds responsibilities at SCHROM x Yacht Club which include driving business development, collaborating with sales reps and expanding the company’s creative talent network. Rossano’s career includes serving as an exec producer at Hungry Man for about 11 years, right from that company’s inception. He then went on to become a partner at Station Film where he also had a lengthy tenure. Later he was a partner at PRISM. Then after the pandemic hit, he became a freelance EP for nearly two years, looking into opportunities in virtual production, which led him to XR NY and now Electric XR. Over the years, he has produced high-profile... Read More