Optimus plays a part in Pitchfork Music Fest

ONE AT OPTIMUS for the fourth year is the official partner of the Pitchfork Music Festival, showcasing more than 40 of the best independent bands and artists at Union Park July 16-18.

Optimus’ audio engineer Joel Anderson leads the Optimus team in coordinating, shooting and producing live video feeds of the performances and crowds. The content will be projected on jumbotrons and streamed live on Pitchfork’s website.

All live audio is being handled by CRC’s American Mobile, headed by CRC general manager Chris Shepard.

Optimus also created original video content to promote the festival and will run two such pieces on the screens between bands during the festival.

SAG PRESIDENT KEN HOWARD will be in town July 29 to talk to AFTA/SAG members in the unions’ on-going “Conversation with…” program. The event is open to all members, at the Kaufherr Center at 7 p.m.

VINCE VAUGHN AND KEVIN JAMES will host “Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show,” a night of stand-up and sketch comedy, Friday, July 23 at Park West at 9 p.m. National comedians Richie Minervini, Steve Byrne and Bill Burr and surprise special guest stars will be part of the show.

RADAR EXPANDS its Los Angeles office with the addition of director Danny J. Boyle and West Coast rep Sherry Howell of Sherry & Company. Doyle specializes in children’s commercials. His first campaign for Radar were spots for Playskool/Uproar, New York.

Boyle is Radar’s second L.A. director. Walter Robot, the team of Bill Barminski and Christopher Louie, joined earlier this year.

10-YEAR OLD PURE IMAGINATION of Batavia this weekend expands into larger space in a building it bought at 12 E. Wilson St. in the suburb. The marketing agency will occupy 4,000-sq. ft., which includes a 1,000-sq. ft. studio, and an editing room with two editing suites.

“THE BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL” head writer Kay Alden is expected to head for New York after 35 years of writing soaps from Chicago, that she’s selling her 4,700-sq. ft. four bedroom penthouse at 247 E. Chestnut, but not without difficulty. Unsold at its original listing of $1.95 million, it will be sold at auction July 27, starting with a suggested opening bid of $600,000.

Alden started writing for “The Young and the Restless” in 1975, and later for “The Bold and the Beautiful,” co-created by William Bell, the late husband of broadcaster Lee Phillip .

The penthouse features 360-degree lake and city views, and has a gourmet kitchen, wine cooler, a billiard and game room, a music room, office, a master suite with spa, sauna, and steam room, and a rooftop. Sounds like it’s still a bargain at the $1.55 million Sudler Sotheby’s listing.

DID YOU KNOW that July is “National “Transfer Your Home Movies to DVD Month?” Didn’t think so. The guys at Bitter Jester Creative will keep old family films from rotting in the dark by transferring 8 and mm, Super 8, Hi-8, digital-8, beta, VHS, cassette and reel-to-reel tapes to DVD or CD “before it’s too late!” they warn.

DIRECTOR ESAI MELENDEZ’ compelling doc, “Immigrant Nation: The Battle for the Dream,” will premiere at the HBO New York International Latino Film Festival, July 29 and Aug. 1, at noon, at the Chelsea Theatres, 7th and 8th Streets in Manhattan. Melendez is a producer at WYCC, Ch. 20.

INTEGRATED MARKETING AGENCY TargetCom, an MDC Partners Company, hired a four-person team from imagineThat to provide a full range of digital design, strategy management services. Derek Bonney, imagineThat’s chief strategy officer, is VP in charge of TargetCom’s digital brand work; Tracy Ahern, digital creative director; media planner, Kate Wilson and associate animation director is Kevin Maas.

DIRECTOR RON LAZZERETTI’S FEATURE, “Something Better Somewhere Else,” was so popular when it played at the Gene Siskel Film Center in May, that it gets a full encore week at the Center, starting Friday, July 16.

REEL MICHIGAN. Seven studio movies will dominate Detroit now through October. Four are currently film in the Detroit area and three others are slated also to start this month and August.

The lineup: “Real Steel,” the big-budget robot boxing film starring Hugh Jackman; “A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas” comedy, shot in 3D comedy, starring Kal Penn, and John Cho and Neil Patrick Harris; “The Double,” an espionage thriller whose cast includes Richard Gere, Martin Sheen and Topher Grace; “Machine Gun Preacher, starring Gerard Butler and Wes Craven’s “Scream 4.”

Upcoming: “LOL,” starring Demi Moore and Miley Cyrus as a mother and daughter; Michael’s Bay’s “Transformers 3” and the vampire-themed “Vamps,” starring Sigourney Weaver and Alicia Silverstone