Established this past summer as a postproduction, sound design/ mixing and visual effects holding company, New York-headquartered Burning Suits has changed its name in light of the Sept. 11 tragedy. The new moniker is Creative Content Studios (CCS), with holdings that consist of New York houses Super Dupe, East Side Video, Lower East Side Studios, Arc Light, Crush and Post Perfect. Each shop retains its own name and identity under the CCS brand. CCS CEO Steve Hendricks explained that Burning Suits NYC was originally chosen as a name "to connote the spark of creative thinking and outstanding talent. We feel the same message can be conveyed as Creative Content Studios."……MTV Commercials, New York, has been shut down as part of the network’s consolidation….Director/cinematographer Carolyn Chen has joined bicoastal/international Believe Media for exclusive spot representation. Her former directorial roost was Picture Park, Boston and Santa Monica. She continues to be repped as a DP by ICM….Key artists and support personnel from Santa Monica-based 525 Studios are headed for digital studio R!OT, Santa Monica. In tandem with this infusion of talent into R!OT, plans call for 525 to curtail operations by year’s end. Both R!OT and 525 are members of the Liberty Livewire Pictures Group…..Director Scott Young and producer Todd Young, who had both been freelancing, have teamed to launch Addiction Films. Currently housed in interim space in Venice, Calif., the new venture is in the process of lining up sales representation….Director Tony Kaye is being repped as a composer through Amber Music, New York and London….NFL Films, Mount Laurel, N.J., has signed director Pier Nicola D’Amico….Executive producer Dick Gillespie has departed Spoke Films, Los Angeles and Chicago….Writer/director Linda Hassani has joined Steel Productions, New York…J. Walter Thompson San Francisco has merged with Tonic 360, a San Francisco shop that provides Internet-based services for its clientele. The new entity is called JWT & Tonic. Tonic 360 had been operating as a separate JWT unit ever since it was bought by the multinational agency in Oct. 2000. That acquistion took place after JWT’s New York office and Tonic 360 teamed to make a successful pitch for the Sun Microsystems account….Chuck Meehan and Tricia Ting have joined Los Angeles-headquartered ad agency davidandgoliath as associate creative director and art director, respectively. Meehan, who will play a principal role in spearheading work on the Universal Orlando acount, comes over from Publicis & Hal Riney, San Francisco, where he served as a senior writer. Ting was most recently an art director at Leagas Delaney, San Francisco….
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