By Theresa Piti
SHORT CUTS
Los Angeles-based Duck Soup Studios produced and animated "Rollercoaster" for Dean’s Milk and Euro RSCG McConnaughy Tatham, Chicago. The :30 features the spokescharacter Chazz, who’s taken on a wild ride after downing a Dean’s Double Chocolate beverage. Duck Soup credits include director James Murphy, executive producer Mark Medernach, producer Katie Medernach, assistant directors Beth Epstein and Kunimi Terada, 2-D animators David Byers Brown and Dave Kupczyk, 3-D animators Oliver Arnold and Jiannjyh Chen, ink and paint technical director Paul Grant, digital compositor Laura Sasso, and editor Blake Maddox.
Designer Mia Szafran headed a team of editors and effects artists from R!OT, Santa Monica, in creating a 2:00 montage that opens the "Trust No. 1" episode of The X-Files. The sequence of still and moving images recaps the eight-year career of Scully and Muldur, and is accompanied by the narration of a letter written by Scully to her unborn child. The sequence ends with Scully on the platform of a train station, crying over a slain man’s body. Additional R!OT credits include offline editor Tracy Hoff, online editor Jason Frank, and producers Ian Dawson and Diana Young.
Bix Pix Entertainment, Chicago, produced a :30 for NBC’s 75th anniversary. The clay-animated piece features two NBC icons from each decade since the network’s inception. Starting in black and white, and morphing the characters and logos together, the spot journeys through the history of NBC, from the early days of Bob Hope’s radio show to the current Emmy-winning West Wing. The spot was directed by Bix Pix president Kellie Bixler, and produced by Dave Brooks, with Greg Lontkowski as animation director.
MUSIC NOTES
G&E Music, New York, composed music and sound design for VH1’s Top 100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders show. G&E created the opening theme, bumps and credit bed for the special. VH1 producer Hilary Spiegelman asked G&E to create tracks that were "energetic and fun with a bit of a techno twist." G&E came up with three directions, with Spiegelman and her team choosing a track incorporating a gritty Wurlitzer keyboard blended with a melodic synth line reminiscent of ’80s style pop. G&E principal Glenn Schloo used Reason, Korg Electribe, Roland V-Drums, live percussion and electric bass, along with sound design of casino slot machines sound effects to compliment the "Vegas"-type graphics. One the show theme was completed, G&E then created several bumps and loops using Pro Tools 24 MixPlus.
Santa Monica-headquartered HUM Music+Sound Design created music and sound design for Sun Microsystems and JWT & Tonic, San Francisco. The :30s "Wireless," "Supply Chain" and "Supply Chain/Alt." feature graphics and type design by bicoastal Imaginary Forces. Jeff Koz was creative director for HUM, and composer on "Wireless," with Debbi Landon as executive producer. Sound design was by Marc Levisohn, who also composed the track for "Supply Chain/Alt." Jason Steele composed the music for "Supply Chain."
After 20 Years of Acting, Megan Park Finds Her Groove In The Director’s Chair On “My Old Ass”
Megan Park feels a little bad that her movie is making so many people cry. It's not just a single tear either — more like full body sobs.
She didn't set out to make a tearjerker with "My Old Ass," now streaming on Prime Video. She just wanted to tell a story about a young woman in conversation with her older self. The film is quite funny (the dialogue between 18-year-old and almost 40-year-old Elliott happens because of a mushroom trip that includes a Justin Bieber cover), but it packs an emotional punch, too.
Writing, Park said, is often her way of working through things. When she put pen to paper on "My Old Ass," she was a new mom and staying in her childhood bedroom during the pandemic. One night, she and her whole nuclear family slept under the same roof. She didn't know it then, but it would be the last time, and she started wondering what it would be like to have known that.
In the film, older Elliott ( Aubrey Plaza ) advises younger Elliott ( Maisy Stella ) to not be so eager to leave her provincial town, her younger brothers and her parents and to slow down and appreciate things as they are. She also tells her to stay away from a guy named Chad who she meets the next day and discovers that, unfortunately, he's quite cute.
At 38, Park is just getting started as a filmmaker. Her first, "The Fallout," in which Jenna Ortega plays a teen in the aftermath of a school shooting, had one of those pandemic releases that didn't even feel real. But it did get the attention of Margot Robbie 's production company LuckyChap Entertainment, who reached out to Park to see what other ideas she had brewing.
"They were very instrumental in encouraging me to go with it," Park said. "They're just really even-keeled, good people, which makes... Read More