Search Results for: rEvolution

When ’60s furniture expert Judyth Jacobs invites you to have a seat, she really means it.

Her company, propshopchicago, has 2,000-pluh tables and chairs for set rentals, contained in a massive 20,000-sq. ft. River North loft space. “It’s the only one of its type in the area,” said Jacobs, whose mother founded the parent company nearly 50 years ago.

What makes it unique are original modern design pieces from 1929 Bauhaus to the Scandinavian furniture revolution of the late ’60s and early ’70s to current trends in furnishings showcased in the vast studio loft.

Dan Halperin of Epiphany Pictures is producing Craig Harris’ feature adaptation of Harris’ 2003 TV drama “Skin Complex” that garnered five Midwest Emmys, among other awards.

A Chicago native based in Los Angeles, Halperin is shopping “Skin Complex” to studio as well as actor- and director-affiliated production companies.

Wolfgang Bodison (“A Few Good Men”) starred in the TV version of “Skin Complex,” as an African American professor contemplating a revolutionary, irreversible “race change” operation. It aired nationally on WGN and PAX.

BAM Studio’s Brian Reed is a persistent cuss. It took him five years, never doubting, to achieve his goal of getting major music libraries to join in his quest for a better delivery service to audio houses like his.

The result is the BAM Dream Server, a revolutionary search engine for the Midwest’s largest music and effects library.

Twelve terabytes of content?500,000 music cuts and 200,000 sound effects?are contained on the Dream Server, in which media files, storage, database and efficient network have been fluidly integrated.

Short film production and sales is a genuine revolution?an opportunity for filmmakers to exploit an enormous market for 60-second to half-hour films.

This new market exists through a perfect storm of rapid bandwidth improvements, increasingly media-friendly delivery venues and a globalized network of sales outlets.

Hordes of well-known film and television production companies are stepping into the Online and Cell Cinema markets, but they can’t satisfy these new content demands on their own.

IPA, The Editing House, the little post house on Webster St. that for two decades catered to independent producers has been closed for five years now, but don’t tell Scott Jacobs, its founder and former president.

On Sunday, Sept. 18, Jacobs and his partners will hold a 25th anniversary of former employees, clients and friends at The Wishbone Restaurant.

“This isn’t a wake, this is a celebration,” Jacobs said.

A heavy dose of hard-hitting politics joins the staples of transgressive and experimental cinema at the 12th Annual Chicago Underground Film Festival, which runs Aug. 18-25 in its new home at the Music Box Theatre.

CUFF 12 includes 13 narrative features, nine documentary features, 18 narrative shorts, 29 documentary shorts, 89 experimental shorts, and six animations.

Six filmmakers will each contribute a short documentary about a different Chicago neighborhood to “Chicago360,” production collective Split Pillow’s first foray into non-fiction films this winter.

“We want to try to reflect the Chicago landscape,” said Jason Stephens, founder and executive director of the nonprofit Split Pillow, which runs the annual Memorial Day speed filmmaking Challenge and the “Cliffhanger” series of collaborative features.

The makers of products that revolutionized postproduction are doing it again. And to promote and sell its newly-engineered GenerationQ systems, Quantel has signed an exclusive sales partnership with Fletcher Chicago.

Fletcher now represents Quantel’s GenerationQ post systems in 13 Midwest states, an alliance that necessitates an immediate expansion of Fletcher’s sales department.

This is the first time in Fletcher Chicago’s 18-year history that it will sell dedicated postproduction equipment, and the first time that it represents Quantel products.

At the conclusion of the successful fund-raiser for Chicago Film Archives, guest speaker Haskell Wexler turned to founder Nancy Watrous and said, “This is just the start…”

Watrous, buoyed by the enthusiasm of the more than 200 guests who attended the May 13 event at the Cultural Center, happily agreed.

The fund-raiser, for which guests paid $100 a ticket, will cover general overhead expenses for CFA’s office at 329 W. 18th St. and to continue the cataloging process.

Just three days before the 1968 Democratic National Convention was to convene in Chicago, a riotous Viet Nam war protest erupted at Grant Park.

Mike Gray, then a spot producer, shot 7,000 feet of film over three days that resulted in shot the provocative documentary, “American Revolution II” and changed his life.

Gray’s “Revolution” and equally important “The Death of Fred Hampton,” are part of the Chicago Film Archives collection of 5,000 16mm films.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Chicago improv that had its genesis in the legendary Compass Players, which in turn spawned The Second City.

Paying homage to that revolution in comedy, Chicago Improv Festival’s subtitle is “From the ?Compass’ to the World, Celebrating 50 years of Improvisational Theater.”

In 1955, University of Chicago alums Paul Sills and David Shepherd founded the pioneering comedy of the Compass Players in a converted storefront cabaret theatre near the U of C.

The first Second City revue show premiered in 1959.

Kartemquin Films is teaming with Tribune music critic Howard Reich to document the life of Reich’s mother, Holocaust survivor Sonia Reich.

Howard Reich approached Kartemquin a year ago about adapting his 2003 Trib series, “Prisoner of Her Past,” into a documentary of the same name.

“There was some resistance at first because of the subject matter of the Holocaust,” said Kartemquin development director Joanna Rudnick, who is producing “Prisoner of Her Past” with Reich.

While his “Ray” colleagues wait to see if the movie wins Best Picture and Jamie Foxx is acclaimed best actor, Harry J. Lennix is hanging out on the North Shore.

The native Chicagoan and “Ray” co-star is taking a break from his busy movie career to star in Northlight Theatre’s riveting production of Thomas Gibbons’ drama “Permanent Collection” through March 6.

Transcending his everyday self and disappearing into roles is something that Lennix has been doing on stage since his days at Northwestern University in the early 1980s.

More than 300 persons attended funeral services Jan. 3 for admusic composer/producer Steve Shafer, 52, who was hailed as a visionary who revolutionized commercial music production through his early use of synthesized music.

Mr. Shafer, 52, died Dec. 30 at Northwestern Memorial Hospital after a long battle with kidney cancer that began last January.

He had been a founding partner in award-winning Spank!Music and Sound Design (with composers Greg Allan and Mat Morse) in 1997.

Let’s take a step back in time in order to bring perspective to Catherine Rategan’s interview with Tony Lorenz, founder/president of 12-year old ProActive, Inc., a business communications company with a staff of 30.

Decades before the digital revolution, Chicago flourished “as the 16mm capital of the world” by virtue of producing more industrial films, or “trips through the factory,” than any other film market in the country, as tracked by Eastman Kodak.

Six filmmakers who have created films on Macs and edited on Final Cut Pro will be featured in a new Film Week program of shorts, July 19-23, in the theater at The Apple Store at 679 N. Michigan Ave.

The films, ranging in length from 10 minutes to more than an hour, were made by directors Gary Adcock, Dave Skwarczek, John Borowski, Steve Ordower, Tom Trinley and editor Billy Sheahan, who will field questions after the screening of their films. As a bonus, Roger Ebert will discuss the revolution of digital cameras during Film Week.

THE WAGE TAX CREDIT BILL (HB 5180) is en route to a five-year extension, having passed the Illinois house and is now under consideration by the state senate. Originally a sunset bill, it was due to end Dec. 31.

NOBLE BBDS’ new EVP/CD is Allyson Hunter, who left Leo Burnett after 17 years where she worked on McDonald’s, P&G, Kraft et al.

VP STRIPES for DDB’s Mike Schif, CD on Home Depot.

THE TRIBUNE’S search for a new agency is down to Burnett, DDB, Draft and Y&R.

IFO assistant director Bob Hudgins is “cautiously optimistic” about the possibility of three Hollywood features spending all or some time this winter.

While “The Weather Man” has not been officially greenlighted by Sony Pictures and Escape Artists, is proceeding along as if it were. Several departments have settled in and an office is pending. Nicolas Cage is set to star in the screenplay by Lakeview resident Steven Conrad and directed by hot, hot Gore Verbinski (“Pirates of the Caribbean”). Budget is $22 million.

Two features are in the “excellent possibility” column.