Clubhouse, a directorial team consisting of Ross Finkel, Trevor Martin, and Jonathan Paley–has joined production company Process. Founded in 2009 and renamed Clubhouse in 2014 for their content and commercial work, the directorial team still goes by its original name Guagua Productions for feature films. Clubhouse (Guagua Productions) brings a “docu-journalist” ethos to its work. In 2012, Clubhouse directed Ballplayer: Pelotero, a hard-hitting documentary about Major League Baseball’s relentless and often-ruthless pursuit of young baseball players in the Dominican Republic. The film follows two teenagers as they attempt to navigate the recruitment process and make their major league dreams a reality. The film was a hit at film festivals around the country and received a nationwide theatrical release. It has since been broadcast on Fusion and HBO Latino, and is currently available on Netflix. The sequel, The Miguel Sano Story–a story about the fine line between Superstar and Never Was, tracking baseball’s top prospect from the barrios of the Dominican Republic all the way to the Big League–is due out in theaters in 2015. In 2013, Clubhouse brought Schooled: The Price of College Sports to the Epix television channel. Examining the NCAA’s treatment of college athletes through the lens of human rights and economics, Schooled broke several national news stories and was featured on the front webpages of ESPN, CBS Sports, and Sports Illustrated. Clubhouse has also directed commercial work for the likes of Goodwill Industries International, Stanford University, Drew University, Tenet Healthcare, Scion, Adobe, Bankstreet College, Success Charter Networks, Roadside Food Projects, and Ellipse Technologies…..
Joining the executive team at Modern Videofilm are Scott Avila as CEO, Cooper Crouse as president and Roxanna Sassanian as CFO. In tandem with their arrival, longtime executives Bill Watt, president of Digital Media Services, Mark Smirnoff, president of Creative Services, and Jon Johnson, executive VP/sales, will take on added managerial and operational responsibilities. Departing the company are Moshe Barkat and Hugh Miller, previously CEO and CFO, respectively. Under its new leadership, Modern VideoFilm will seek to broaden its ties to studio clients, independent producers and content distributors, and work more closely with them to implement new workflows, production technologies and modes of media distribution. Avila, Crouse and Sassanian arrive from similar positions with The Culver Studios where they oversaw a major expansion of studio operations. Modern VideoFilm’s headquarters in Burbank features a fully file-based infrastructure encompassing both its postproduction and content management divisions. Its post-production division, which includes operations in Burbank and a state-of-the-art facility in Santa Monica, provides editorial, color grading, visual effects, restoration and dailies services. Its content management division offers complete digital solutions for content distribution along with its longstanding system for physical distribution. It covers encoding, transcoding, meta data, quality control, content access, storage and delivery and maintains over 200,000 physical elements. The division is currently serving all major studios and independent content owners worldwide with delivery to all broadcast and VOD platforms. The company has recently expanded its 4K infrastructure for supporting motion picture and television post production projects. In addition, it has added 4K VOD platforms for ultra HD content distribution. Modern VideoFilm is actively investing and developing workflows to support high dynamic range (HDR) imagery….
Rom-Com Mainstay Hugh Grant Shifts To The Dark Side and He’s Never Been Happier
After some difficulties connecting to a Zoom, Hugh Grant eventually opts to just phone instead.
"Sorry about that," he apologizes. "Tech hell." Grant is no lover of technology. Smart phones, for example, he calls the "devil's tinderbox."
"I think they're killing us. I hate them," he says. "I go on long holidays from them, three or four days at at time. Marvelous."
Hell, and our proximity to it, is a not unrelated topic to Grant's new film, "Heretic." In it, two young Mormon missionaries (Chloe East, Sophie Thatcher) come knocking on a door they'll soon regret visiting. They're welcomed in by Mr. Reed (Grant), an initially charming man who tests their faith in theological debate, and then, in much worse things.
After decades in romantic comedies, Grant has spent the last few years playing narcissists, weirdos and murders, often to the greatest acclaim of his career. But in "Heretic," a horror thriller from A24, Grant's turn to the dark side reaches a new extreme. The actor who once charmingly stammered in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and who danced to the Pointer Sisters in "Love Actually" is now doing heinous things to young people in a basement.
"It was a challenge," Grant says. "I think human beings need challenges. It makes your beer taste better in the evening if you've climbed a mountain. He was just so wonderfully (expletive)-up."
"Heretic," which opens in theaters Friday, is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, co-writers of "A Quiet Place." In Grant's hands, Mr. Reed is a divinely good baddie — a scholarly creep whose wry monologues pull from a wide range of references, including, fittingly, Radiohead's "Creep."
In an interview, Grant spoke about these and other facets of his character, his journey... Read More