Animators/graphics designers Eric Hochstein and Mark Levy have joined Flite 3 Studios, Baltimore. Hochstein was previously a graphic artist with the 3M Corporation. He will be offering design and graphic services for the firm’s corporate, educational and advertising agency clients. Levy worked as a graphic artist at Patuxent Publishing. He will be specializing in the design and execution of 3-D graphics. Flite 3 Studios is a full service film, video and new media production facility, which includes two sound stages, multi-camera location productions and digital linear and nonlinear editing, audio production and postproduction services.….Michael T. Nicolaou has been added to the staff of Blur Studio, Venice, Calif. He will serve as general manager for the visual effects, animation and design studio. Previously, Nicolaou worked at Boxx Technologies, a developer and manufacturer of Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Linux-based hardware and software solutions based in Austin, Texas. He has also served as a regional director for technology solutions provider Intergraph Corporation, Huntsville, Ala. While at Intergraph, Nicolaou introduced Windows and Linux solutions to numerous animation houses in the entertainment industry. Blur Studio provides computer animation and visual effects production services for feature films, episodic television series and television commercials….Troika Design Group, Hollywood, has added senior designer Reid Thompson. Earlier in his career, he had worked as a broadcast designer at now defunct Pittard Sullivan, where his clients included ABC, CBS, NBC, FX, Discovery Health, Antena 3 in Spain, and the German TV networks Junior and Kabel 1….
Netflix Series “The Leopard” Spots Classic Italian Novel, Remakes It As A Sumptuous Period Drama
"The Leopard," a new Netflix series, takes the classic Italian novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and transforms it into a sumptuous period piece showing the struggles of the aristocracy in 19th-century Sicily, during tumultuous social upheavals as their way of life is crumbling around them.
Tom Shankland, who directs four of the eight episodes, had the courage to attempt his own version of what is one of the most popular films in Italian history. The 1963 movie "The Leopard," directed by Luchino Visconti, starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, won the Palme d'Or in Cannes.
One Italian critic said that it would be the equivalent of a director in the United States taking "Gone with the Wind" and turning it into a series, but Shankland wasn't the least bit intimidated.
He said that he didn't think of anything other than his own passion for the project, which grew out of his love of the book. His father was a university professor of Italian literature in England, and as a child, he loved the book and traveling to Sicily with his family.
The book tells the story of Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, a tall, handsome, wealthy aristocrat who owns palaces and land across Sicily.
His comfortable world is shaken with the invasion of Sicily in 1860 by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was to overthrow the Bourbon king in Naples and bring about the Unification of Italy.
The prince's family leads an opulent life in their magnificent palaces with servants and peasants kowtowing to their every need. They spend their time at opulent banquets and lavish balls with their fellow aristocrats.
Shankland has made the series into a visual feast with tables heaped with food, elaborate gardens and sensuous costumes.... Read More