SUNDANCING FROM CHICAGO this week are producer Christine Vrotsis, Columbia College’s Bruce Sheridan, The White House’s Melissa Thornley, producers Sandy Gordon, Carrie Kolt Delama and Steve Vladem, and funder Matt Keepman.
The IFO’s departing director Brenda Sexton, incoming director Betsy Steinberg and staffers Todd Lizak and Julie Morgan will host events throughout the week. Their guests, film critic Richard Roeper and John Cusack will be on hand to help promote business in Chicago.
OUT AT NAPTE in Las Vegas this week, only two Chicago producers are there pitching their shows: Carey Lundin and the Pixel Brothers. Lundin frequently finds herself the only Chicagoan in attendance at national production conferences.
OUR MAN IN TEXAS, former IFO deputy director Bob Hudgins, head of the Texas Film Commission, reports 2006 production there topped $221.9 million from movies, TV and animation, the state’s highest total in a decade. (Take a bow, Bob!)
Production included eight studio pictures and 29 indie features. Plus, “Prison Break” and “Friday Night Lights” are filming in Dallas and Austin, respectively.
COMEDY CENTRAL tapped Second City alums Peter Grosz and Rich Talarico to write for two new series, “The Naked Trucker,” and “T-Bones Show,” featuring Dave Koechner, Pat Finn and Renee Albert, also former Second Cityites.
Time Out Chicago put Grosz at number 13 on its list of Top 20 Chicagoans to watch in 2007.
WHO’S NEW. Cramer-Krasselt hired group CD Ken Erke, formerly with Y&R ? Journalist/filmmaker Carol Marin was awarded a fellowship in the Peter Jennings Project for Journalists and the Constitution ? Rep Maureen Butler added Original Film of Beverly Hills to her roster.
DOC MAKERS KARTEMQUIN received a $5,000 grant from the Sundance Documentary Fund to complete their film, “Terra Incognita,” about stem cell research.
ACTOR RICHARD ROUNDTREE — you know him as “Shaft” — appears at Columbia College “Conversations in the Arts” Feb. 15 at the Dance Center. College president Warrick L. Carter hosts a private VIP reception in Roundtree’s honor.
ROCKER PETER FRAMPTON kicks off Ch. 11’s fourth “Soundstage” with a two-part concert, airing Jan. 25. The season, running through March 1, includes New York Dolls, Feb. 1; Lee Ann Womack, Feb 8; folk/rocker Jewel, Feb. 15; singer/songwriter Rickie Lee Jones, Feb. 22 and rock legend Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers March 1 from Gainesville, Florida.
A TRUE CRIME STORY is being developed by TV producer/filmmaker Jim Lichtenstein’s 360 West Productions and George Tillman Jr. and Bob Teitel’s State Street Productions to be filmed here.
The story, a decade in the development, about the twists and turns of prominent local high profile criminal lawyer Kathleen Zellner, whose client serial killer Larry Eyler confessed 21 murders to her and then wanted her killed.
WISCONSIN FILM INCENTIVE PACKAGE, considered one of the best in the biz, could be enacted effective immediately, we hear. The package was signed by the governor last summer but pre-election partisan politics pigeon-holed it.
AN ARTISTS SOIREE at casting director Claire Simon’s office Jan. 29 features the art of actress-artist Jennifer Joan Taylor, whose freehand painting decorating one of Simon’s walls was a thank you for winning a recurring role on “Prison Break.”
Simon says the soiree offers “a wonderful opportunity to support local artists, and enjoy their work, have a glass of wine, an appetizer from Filippo’s restaurant and see Jennifer’s work.”
COMMENTS APPRECIATED! Global game design company EA’s head Peter Nguyen reports that the number of job applicants “increased dramatically” after ReelChicago ran the story about EA opening here.
Point being: We have the readers to inspire action. Got a good story? Send it along to Ruth@ReelChicago.com. Photos always welcome, too.
