New York-based Mechanism Digital Effects has added Abby Okin to its staff as executive producer. He began his career at H. Aoki Studio, an effects/motion control/model shop in New York. Okin then entered the digital arena as an effects producer at Image Design, New York, and later joined the staff of now defunct Cyclotron as head of production/executive producer. Mechanism Digital Effects produces animation, graphics and visual effects for commercial and broadcast clients….VT2 Media Design & Communications, Houston, has added Charlie Wan and Jacqueline Tieu to its staff. Both had been the founders of Suka Inc., an Austin, Texas-based design company. Wan will serve as creative director of VT2, while Tieu has been named creative director of VT2’s Digital Media division….Digital artist/designer Nico Puertollano has joined the staff of Rhinoceros Visual Effects and Design. He had worked freelance for the New York-headquartered facility over the past two years. Puertollano’s credits include spots for Empire Blue Cross, Phoenix Mutual, Arby’s and Ben Gay, as well as projects for Sony, USA Networks and Samsung….Kodak has unveiled VISION2 500T Color Negative Film 5218/7218, the first in a new family of color motion picture films that the company claims offers superior image structure, more highlight and shadow detail, improved color and skin tone reproduction, less grain, clean telecine transfers, seamless special effects and more flexibility in both film and digital postproduction. VISION2 500T is available in 16mm, 35mm and 65mm formats….
Stage and Film Actor Tony Roberts Dies At 85
Tony Roberts, a versatile, Tony Award-nominated theater performer at home in both plays and musicals and who appeared in several Woody Allen movies โ often as Allen's best friend โ has died. He was 85.
Roberts' death was announced to The New York Times by his daughter, Nicole Burley.
Roberts had a genial stage personality perfect for musical comedy and he originated roles in such diverse Broadway musicals as "How Now, Dow Jones" (1967); "Sugar" (1972), an adaptation of the movie "Some Like It Hot," and "Victor/Victoria" (1995), in which he co-starred with Julie Andrews when she returned to Broadway in the stage version of her popular film. He also was in the campy, roller-disco "Xanadu" in 2007 and "The Royal Family" in 2009.
"I've never been particularly lucky at card games. I've never hit a jackpot. But I have been extremely lucky in life," he write in his memoir, "Do You Know Me?" "Unlike many of my pals, who didn't know what they wanted to become when they grew up, I knew I wanted to be an actor before I got to high school."
Roberts also appeared on Broadway in the 1966 Woody Allen comedy "Don't Drink the Water," repeating his role in the film version, and in Allen's "Play It Again, Sam" (1969), for which he also made the movie.
Other Allen films in which Roberts appeared were "Annie Hall" (1977), "Stardust Memories" (1980), "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy" (1982), "Hannah and Her Sisters" (1986) and "Radio Days" (1987).
"Roberts' confident onscreen presence โ not to mention his tall frame, broad shoulders and brown curly mane โ was the perfect foil for Allen's various neurotic characters, making them more funny and enjoyable to watch," The Jewish Daily Forward wrote in 2016.
In Eric Lax's book "Woody... Read More