Chicago-based independent firm Liz Laine Reps has taken on the Midwest and Texas for Los Angeles-based motion graphics/animation house Nylon Motion….Mendy Frohlich has joined the sales team at Fluid, a New York-based original music/sound design/creative editorial studio. She will work directly with Fluid partners David Shapiro and Marc Schwartz, and sales rep Jessica Millington. Frohlich comes over to Fluid from New York independent rep firm Schafler Artists Management…. National Television, a Hollywood-based collective of designers, animators and illustrators, has secured Hot Betty, Inc., an independent rep firm in Chicago headed by Catherine De Angelis and Lily Stefanski, to handle representation in the Midwest. National has also signed Michael Waxman of Venice, Calif.-based MBW Represents to cover the West Coast and Texas…. Jazelle Azami has joined Partos Company, Santa Monica, as a commercial rep….Cinematographer Tobias Schliessler has completed principal photography on Bill Condon’s Dreamgirls and is again available for spots through The Skouras Agency, Santa Monica….Production designer Jeremy Reed is now available through Innovative Artists, Santa Monica, after wrapping duties on the feature Factory Girl for director George Hickenlooper….
A Nomination Tradition: DGA Award, Best Director Oscar Discrepancy Continues
The awards season norm has seen the nearly annual occurrence of at least one difference between the lineups of Best Director Oscar and the DGA Award nominees. In only five of the 77 years of the DGA Awards have the Guild nominations exactly mirrored their Academy Award counterparts. This time around Edward Berger and Coralie Fargeat are in line with the predominant history. Fargeat earned a Best Director Oscar nomination this week for The Substance (MUBI). Berger, who didn’t make the directorial Oscar cut, earned a DGA Award nomination for Conclave (Focus Features). Four of the five directors vying for the DGA Award and the Outstanding Achievement in Directing Oscar are in sync this year: Jacques Audiard for Emilia Pérez (Netflix) Sean Baker for Anora (Neon), Brady Corbet for The Brutalist (A24), and James Mangold for A Complete Unknown (Searchlight). On the flip side of tradition, if Fargeat were to win the directing Oscar, that development wouldn’t be aligned with but rather bucking history. Only eight times has the DGA Award winner not gone on to win the Oscar. That happened most recently in 2020 when Sam Mendes won the DGA Award for 1917 while Bong Joon-ho scored the Oscar for Parasite. Fargeat has already made a bit of history, scoring just the 10th Best Director Oscar nomination ever for a woman. The Substance is up for five Oscars--the other nominations being for Best Picture, Leading Actress (Demi Moore), Original Screenplay (Fargeat), and Makeup & Hairstyling (Pierre-Olivier Persin, Stephanie Guillon, Marilyne Scarselli). Even without a Best Director nomination, Conclave tallied eight Oscar nods--for Best Picture, Leading Actor (Ralph... Read More