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    STREET TALK

    By SHOOT StaffUpdated:No Comments1651 Views
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    Despite a devastating fire which gutted its Canoga Park, Calif., headquarters last week (8/23), special effects firm The Character Shop—which specializes in animatronics, makeup effects, puppets and robotics—is back up and running, having secured temporary quarters. According to its Web site, The Character Shop has already lined up some permanent workspace. The company has increased its crew to set up those new accommodations and simultaneously work on projects. The cause of the blaze was being investigated at press time. A Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman estimated the loss at $150,000 for structural damage and $400,000 for the contents. Headed by effects artist Rick Lazzarini, The Character Shop draws about half of its business from commercials. It is responsible for such creature creations as the Foster Farm chickens, the Budweiser frogs in the most recent series of ads for the brewer, and the blue alien Plato for Sony Walkman. "Spaceship," part of the Sony Walkman campaign, earned SHOOT Top Spot recognition earlier this summer. It was directed by Phil Morrison of bicoastal Epoch Films for Young & Rubicam, New York….Doug Harper, former senior producer at Young & Rubicam, Chicago, has embarked on a directing career, joining Santa Monica-based The Joneses….Version2 Editing, New York, has signed a deal to exclusively rep Red Square Editing, London, and cutters Tim Fulford, Rick Waller and Alex Hagon, in the U.S. Version2’s editing staff stateside includes Lin Polito, Mark Nickelsburg, Tina Mintus and Kevin Chicken, as well as owner Vito DeSario…. MTV Commercials, New York, has signed a deal to work on select spots with design house Psyop, New York…. Commercial production house Cognito Films—the Santa Monica house founded by executive producer Alan Landau—is about to embark on principal photography for its first feature film, Barstow 2008, directed by spot helmer Bob Morrow. The mockumentary is being produced via Cognito’s recently created independent feature film division….

    Category:Street Talk



    Jules Feiffer, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Cartoonist and Writer, Dies At 95

    Tuesday, January 21, 2025

    Jules Feiffer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist and writer whose prolific output ranged from a long-running comic strip to plays, screenplays and children's books, died Friday. He was 95 and, true to his seemingly tireless form, published his last book just four months ago.

    Feiffer's wife, writer JZ Holden, said Tuesday that he died of congestive heart failure at their home in Richfield Springs, New York, and was surrounded by friends, the couple's two cats and his recent artwork.

    Holden said her husband had been ill for a couple of years, "but he was sharp and strong up until the very end. And funny."

    Artistically limber, Feiffer hopscotched among numerous forms of expression, chronicling the curiosity of childhood, urban angst and other societal currents. To each he brought a sharp wit and acute observations of the personal and political relations that defined his readers' lives.

    As Feiffer explained to the Chicago Tribune in 2002, his work dealt with "communication and the breakdown thereof, between men and women, parents and children, a government and its citizens, and the individual not dealing so well with authority."

    Feiffer won the United States' most prominent awards in journalism and filmmaking, taking home a 1986 Pulitzer Prize for his cartoons and "Munro," an animated short film he wrote, won a 1961 Academy Award. The Library of Congress held a retrospective of his work in 1996.

    "My goal is to make people think, to make them feel and, along the way, to make them smile if not laugh," Feiffer told the South Florida Sun Sentinel in 1998. "Humor seems to me one of the best ways of espousing ideas. It gets people to listen with their guard down."

    Feiffer was born on Jan. 26, 1929, in the Bronx. From... Read More

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