The Filmworkers Club, a Chicago-based digital post house, has added colorist Pete Jannotta and effects editor Jeff Charatz.
Both Jannotta and Charatz came over from Chicago-based Skyview Studios, which closed last month after 10 years in business (SHOOT, 11/19/99, p.8). Jannotta and Charatz were founding partners in Skyview, where Jannotta served as colorist and Charatz was a Fire/online editor before adding visual effects supervisor responsibilities three years ago.
Prior to founding Skyview, both Jannotta and Charatz worked at now defunct Editel/ Chicago. A 13-year Editel employee, Jannotta started in ’76 as an assistant audio mixer and moved into telecine in ’78. Over the course of his career, he has worked for nearly every major Chicago agency, including Leo Burnett Co., for whom he’s recently collaborated on Hallmark and General Mills; DDB Chicago, where his latest credits include Budweiser and Yoplait; Publicis & Hal Riney on Subway; and Ogilvy & Mather on Sears.
After the closure of Skyview, Jannotta said, he examined his options and decided he didn’t want the responsibilities and hassles of running his own shop. Observing that he was tired of lawyers and accountants, he added that he wanted to concentrate on his craft and "enjoy life."
"I asked myself: For what I do, what company focuses on that aspect of the business?" said Jannotta. "Film transfer and color correction seem to be the prime thing that Filmworkers does, and they have the [film processing] lab, which I like. I think it’s important to be involved with a company that has a lab. I wanted that at Skyview, but Jack [Tohtz, former president/founding partner of Skyview] was very fearful of that business. I think the lab brings a lot to this place because it brings a lot of filmmakers to your door, and that’s who I service."
Jannotta said he was also happy to finally be on the same team as Filmworkers principal Reid Brody, whose other colorists, Michael Mazur and Lynette Duensing, are considered to be among the city’s prime talent. "Oftentimes I would be up against Reid, trying to sell a job, and he had a good track record of beating me out. I have a lot of confidence in his ability to service clients, and he’s a good salesperson," Jannotta said.
Brody, another Editel alum, said he was thrilled to be working with Jannotta and Charatz. "I’ve known them for twenty years," said Brody. "They were the first people I worked with in the business, and they’re people I’ve looked up to."
Brody said his relationship with Jannotta and Charatz was recently rekindled when, ironically, they approached him and Filmworkers owner Alan Kubicka in September about buying the troubled Skyview. Brody related that Kubicka—who also owns Chicago Recording Company—made an offer, which was rejected. "We never heard any response," said Brody, "until the liquidators came in."
Brody commented, "What’s really happened over the last few years is that Mazur and Craig Leffel [partner/colorist at Optimus, Chicago] have taken a lot of Pete’s work." Brody added that he believes Jannotta was hampered at Skyview by the older Rank equipment he worked on. "I’m planning to get Pete working on some modern equipment, either the Spirit or the Ursa Diamond, and reinstate him in the marketplace." At Filmworkers, Jannotta has already been booked on jobs for Allstate and Hallmark, both out of Leo Burnett.
To accommodate the addition of Jannotta, Filmworkers will be building a new hi-def telecine suite and acquiring another Spirit, to be operated by Mazur.
Charatz started out at Editel, where he worked for 10 years as an online/effects editor before launching Skyview. Among his recent assignments are spots for Ameritech via Ammirati Puris Lintas, Chicago; Coors via Foote, Cone & Belding, Chicago; Anheuser-Busch via Fusion Idea Lab, Chicago; Subway via Publicis & Hal Riney; and Sears and Mrs. Buttersworth via Ogilvy & Mather.
According to Charatz, he talked to three post houses after Skyview shuttered but opted for Filmworkers, deeming it the best fit. "I decided I wanted to go back to full-time Fire editing, now that I didn’t have to be concerned about management issues," said Charatz. "From my standpoint, Filmworkers gives me access to the greatest universe of people because it’s independent [in that] it doesn’t have creative editorial. It seems like the world comes through here. And it’s got a great reputation; it’s made the investments in people and technology. I met with Reid and Alan and it was just a very comfortable fit."
Filmworkers will be acquiring another Fire for Charatz to work on; Brody said they are purchasing it, as well as another Inferno, from Skyview. The Fire should be in place around the first of the year, said Brody.
In the meantime, Charatz said he is in the process of acclimating himself to the company’s way of working and letting clients know of his new roost. "It seems to be the business in Chicago is alive and well here [at Filmworkers], which is good because I was beginning to wonder," said Charatz. "It’s here; it just wasn’t at Skyview."
Tim Burton Discusses His Dread Of AI As An Exhibition of His Work Opens In London
The imagination of Tim Burton has produced ghosts and ghouls, Martians, monsters and misfits — all on display at an exhibition that is opening in London just in time for Halloween.
But you know what really scares him? Artificial intelligence.
Burton said Wednesday that seeing a website that had used AI to blend his drawings with Disney characters "really disturbed me."
"It wasn't an intellectual thought — it was just an internal, visceral feeling," Burton told reporters during a preview of "The World of Tim Burton" exhibition at London's Design Museum. "I looked at those things and I thought, 'Some of these are pretty good.' … (But) it gave me a weird sort of scary feeling inside."
Burton said he thinks AI is unstoppable, because "once you can do it, people will do it." But he scoffed when asked if he'd use the technology in this work.
"To take over the world?" he laughed.
The exhibition reveals Burton to be an analogue artist, who started off as a child in the 1960s experimenting with paints and colored pencils in his suburban Californian home.
"I wasn't, early on, a very verbal person," Burton said. "Drawing was a way of expressing myself."
Decades later, after films including "Edward Scissorhands," "Batman," "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Beetlejuice," his ideas still begin with drawing. The exhibition includes 600 items from movie studio collections and Burton's personal archive, and traces those ideas as they advance from sketches through collaboration with set, production and costume designers on the way to the big screen.
London is the exhibition's final stop on a decade-long tour of 14 cities in 11 countries. It has been reconfigured and expanded with 90 new objects for its run in... Read More