Melissa Gilbert officially becoming president of the Screen Actors Guild after winning the much publicized rerun election could bode well for the ultimate passage of the deal negotiated last month between SAG and the Association of Talent Agents. The proposed new SAG/ATA franchise agreement would permit ad agencies and certain sized production companies to hold limited ownership stakes in talent agencies…Director Tom DeCerchio and executive producer Tamsin Prigge have launched Incubator Films, Los Angeles. DeCerchio was last affiliated with bicoastal Morton Jankel Zander….Director Tuesday McGowan has signed with Picture Park, Santa Monica and Boston. She was previously on the roster of New York-headquartered Curious Pictures….The Syndicate, a Santa Monica-based visual effects/telecine shop, has opened under the aegis of three partners: colorist Beau Leon, fomerly of R!OT Santa Monica; executive producer Ken Solomon, who was most recently on staff at now defunct Western Images; and director of new business Leslie Sorrentino, who had been at since closed 525 Studios. Additionally, Computer Café has merged its Santa Monica CGI/effects studio into The Syndicate….Editor Cary Gries has joined Version2. Editing, New York. Gries will also work with Liquid Light, Version2’s finishing and design house. Gries joins Version2 from Ghost Light Editorial, New York ….Flipside Editorial has added editors Hank Polonsky, Tracy Hof and Natasha Uppal to its Santa Monica office. Flipside’s San Francisco operation has brought on lead animator Nathaniel Hunter….Andrew Orloff has joined digital visual effects studio Radium as head of CG in its Santa Monica office and will work closely with Andrew Sinagra, who serves as head of CG at Radium, San Francisco. Also, visual effects artist Steve Meyer has come aboard Radium….…Ron Fricke has wrapped second unit directing and shooting for Francis Ford Coppola’s independent feature which has a working title of Megalopolis. Scheduled for release next year, the project was shot on HD. Director Fricke is now again available for commercials via exec producer Mike Brady at bicoastal Believe Media….
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