NEW LOBBYING FIRM FOR IPA. The Illinois Production Alliance has hired The Illinois Governmental Consulting Group to convince the Illinois legislature to extend the wage tax credit bill to a full five years from the one-year extension it got last December.
IGCG representatives are chief lobbyist Brian Hynes, who knows the film business through his Teamsters clients, and Elgie Sims, Jr. Meanwhile: IPA legislative committee, chaired by DGA’s Dan Moore, is finalizing the legislative agenda to present to the spring session.
ESSANAY LIGHTS UP A MOVIE for Cornerstone Pictures, shooting a feature called “Retirement” starring James Earl Jones in Miami, New Orleans and Las Vegas. Essanay won the lighting package rental against national lighting companies Paramount, Panavision and Paskal. Local Power House provided the generators; Rick Thomas is gaffer.
GOING GANGBUSTERS IN HD is Film & Tape Works. Latest project is a fund-raising capital improvement video for Sigma Chi Fraternal Foundation, via Fergus Peters Group of Des Plaines. Producer/director Adam Marton says the 20-day, two-camera shoot took place in eight locations outside of Chicago, picking up local crews on location; Greg Steinbrecher was cameraman. Film & Tape owns a Panasonic Varicam and has an HD edit site where hi-def specialist Jessica Argyelan edited the video.
THERE’S TALK that the 37-year old Jeff Awards honoring Equity theatre might return to downtown venue, and return to TV, next November. Venues under consideration are the Loop’s Goodman or Reskin theatres. The ceremony was held at Skokie’s North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in past years. The show would be a produced-for-TV special with edited highlights from the awards presentation.?JA
MOVIE/TV STARS LIGHT UP SPRING. “Kill Bill” star Vivica A. Fox speaks at the 13th annual V-103 Today’s Black Woman Expo March 12-13 at McCormick Place … Award-winning comedian Dana Carvey performs at the Jewish United Fund’s Stand Up Chicago April 13 at the Auditorium Theatre. Call 312/553-3530 for tickets … Jim Belushi and the Sacred Hearts Band headline the 16th annual Bozo Ball at Navy Pier May 7, hosted by WGN and benefiting the Off the Street Club and WGN-TV Children’s Charities … “Will & Grace’s” Megan Mullally will sing, backed by her own band, at the annual Women’s Board of the Goodman Theatre gala dinner May 21 at the Fairmont.
CHICAGO HOSTS the annual National Alliance for Musical Theatre conference March 18-19. Guests are producers and artistic directors representing 70-plus companies. On March 16, 11 Chicago composer-lyricist teams, including Richard Rogers Award winners David Hudson and Paul Libman, will perform at the New Work Summit at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. The conference and Summit are open only to members, but since new works are often as good as Broadway musicals you might want to snag seats by calling NAMT membership director Sam Levy at 212/714-6668, ext. 15.?JA
MEDIA PROCESS GROUP has moved into its new condo offices at 1327 W. Washington; phone’s the same, 312/850-1300.
FACES, FACES, FACES?over 700 in all were shot by Columbia College TV instructor and freelance cameraman Brian Reed for the faces video on Millennium Park’s Crown Fountain. He produced and was lead cameraman operating a Sony HDW-F900 HD over most of the faces shot over 39 days. He also designed and built the lighting, based on HDW-950 test shots made in the college’s studios the previous summer. Key production members from Columbia were artist-in-resident John Banks who color-corrected and got the actual images ready for display; writer Sara Livingston, who found the right mix for the monumental blowups, and director Lauren Targ, who cued each person to make “the fish face.”
