Industry vet Chris Miller has joined forces with executive producer Steven J. Levy and his N.Y. company Habana Avenue to form Spots & Content, a full service production company for brands and ad agencies. Miller is exec producer of the new venture. which is the first of a number of planned companies being launched under the Habana Avenue Network of Companies as part of Habana’s expanded offering of integrated production services. Habana Avenue is best known for producing national broadcast opens, commercials, live events, corporate long form films & national sales meetings. Spots & Content represents the vehicle through which Habana more aggressively diversifies into the advertising industry. Spots & Content opens with a roster of eight directors: Billy Kent, Kohl Norville, Art Haynie, Rob Markopoulos, Doug Coleman, Mary Boss, Bo Mehrad and David Palmer. Spots & Content will also represent “& Company,” a visual effects firm. Miller has spent the greater part of the last decade running sales and marketing for commercial production companies Highway 61 and Bridge Street Films….License To Thrill Music LLC, an independent music publisher providing one-stop music synchronization and licensing for advertising, films, television, radio, movie trailers, video games and new media, has entered into a music publishing partnership with Canadian composer Michael McCann. License To Thrill Music will represent original works by McCann available for use in advertising, film, TV and other media productions. McCann’s music credits range from national branding spots, (BP, The Gap/Old Navy); title music for multiple television series including ReGenesis (nominated for Best TV Theme at the Hollywood Music Awards); film and videogame trailers (Tom Clancy’s EndWar, The Law of Enclosures); full game scores (including his award-winning music to Ubisoft’s Splinter Cell: Double Agent); and original/licensed music for TV programs from VH1, LifeTime TV and Alliance Atlantis….Digital Intermediate (DI) colorist Scott Gregory, whose credits include such films as Twilight, Lakeview Terrace, Disturbia and The Bucket List, has joined Ascent Media’s Company 3. Gregory will be based out of Company 3’s facility in Santa Monica, where he will focus exclusively on DI work for feature films. His first project will be The Mad Cow, an independent feature from directors Jamie Bradshaw and Alexander Doulerain. Gregory spent the past year at PostWorks, Los Angeles, Previously, he spent four years at Technicolor Digital Intermediates….
Oscar Winners “I’m Still Here” and “Emilia Pérez” Shed Light On Latin America’s Thousands of People Who’ve Disappeared
If there is a still open wound in Latin America, it is that of the tens of thousands of disappeared people and decadeslong pain that has accumulated in parts of the region such as Mexico and Colombia.
Two visions of the trauma had a central role at the 97th Academy Awards: the Brazilian film "Ainda Estou Aqui" ("I'm Still Here"), which tells the drama of the family of a leftist former congressman who disappeared in 1971 at the height of the military dictatorship; and the musical "Emilia Pérez," about a fictional Mexican drug lord who leaves a life of crime to become a transgender woman and searcher for the disappeared in Mexico.
"We hope that in this way the society will be sensitized," said activist Indira Navarro, who directs the Guerreros Buscadores de Jalisco collective in Mexico and has been searching for her brother, who disappeared in the northern state of Sonora nine years ago.
The Academy Awards' recognition of the films, both of which were nominated in multiple categories, was an unparalleled opportunity to make the problem visible, Navarro said.
"I'm Still Here," by Brazilian Walter Salles, won the Oscar in the category of best international film. "Emilia Pérez," by renowned French director Jacques Audiard, was this year's most-nominated film and won in the categories of best original song and best supporting actress for Zoe Saldaña.
Salles and Audiard's films also had a common denominator of disappearances in Latin America: impunity.
The story behind "I'm Still Here"
"I'm Still Here" was inspired by the book "Ainda Estou Aqui" by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, son of the disappeared former congressman Rubens Paiva. More than five decades after he was taken from his Rio de Janeiro home and... Read More