Robert Walston, president of Liberty Livewire Corp., Santa Monica-headquartered parent company to a host of post/effects facilities worldwide, has added the title of CEO. He had been serving as acting CEO since April, following the departure of David Beddow. Liberty Livewire’s primary hubs of operation are Los Angeles, New York and London. Before joining Liberty Livewire in June 2000 as president and COO, Walston was chairman/CEO of Four Media Co., which is part of the Liberty family of companies….Redtree Productions, based in New York and Boston, has signed feature filmmaker Brad Anderson and director Mat Kaufman for spot representation…Bicoastal HSI Productions has renewed its strategic alliance with Hollywood-based Bitmax for another year. Per the deal, Bitmax remains the exclusive provider of all digital convergence and distribution for HSI, encompassing such services as putting directors’ work on DVDs and streaming helmers’ reels over the Internet. Bitmax maintains BAM! (Bitmax Asset Manager), an online ordering service that via the Internet connects clients to their digitally archived video files (SHOOT, 4/20, p. 7). This enables clients to order customized reels via the Web. Over the past six months, Bitmax has produced more than 40 DVD runs between 100 and 300 discs each for HSI and its affiliated bicoastal shops, Mars Media and Venus Entertainment….Electra Lang has been named executive producer of Pictures In A Row, the Los Angeles shop featuring director Peter Lang….Sound designer/engineer Eric Pilhofer has joined VoiceWorks Recording Studios, Minneapolis. He was formerly with Minneapolis-based Hi-Wire….
Martin Scorsese On “The Saints,” Faith In Filmmaking and His Next Movie
When Martin Scorsese was a child growing up in New York's Little Italy, he would gaze up at the figures he saw around St. Patrick's Old Cathedral. "Who are these people? What is a saint?" Scorsese recalls. "The minute I walk out the door of the cathedral and I don't see any saints. I saw people trying to behave well within a world that was very primal and oppressed by organized crime. As a child, you wonder about the saints: Are they human?" For decades, Scorsese has pondered a project dedicated to the saints. Now, he's finally realized it in "Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints," an eight-part docudrama series debuting Sunday on Fox Nation, the streaming service from Fox News Media. The one-hour episodes, written by Kent Jones and directed by Elizabeth Chomko, each chronicle a saint: Joan of Arc, Francis of Assisi, John the Baptist, Thomas Becket, Mary Magdalene, Moses the Black, Sebastian and Maximillian Kolbe. Joan of Arc kicks off the series on Sunday, with three weekly installments to follow; the last four will stream closer to Easter next year. In naturalistic reenactments followed by brief Scorsese-led discussions with experts, "The Saints" emphasizes that, yes, the saints were very human. They were flawed, imperfect people, which, to Scorsese, only heightens their great sacrifices and gestures of compassion. The Polish priest Kolbe, for example, helped spread antisemitism before, during WWII, sheltering Jews and, ultimately, volunteering to die in the place of a man who had been condemned at Auschwitz. Scorsese, who turns 82 on Sunday, recently met for an interview not long after returning from a trip to his grandfather's hometown in Sicily. He was made an honorary citizen and the experience was still lingering in his mind. Remarks have... Read More