A week before the Presidential Inauguration, "U2 3D" producer Peter Shapiro surprised Sara Yule with a call asking her company, Wiggle Puppy Productions, to provide Chicago foot...

Hollywood editor Michael Matzdorff returns to his native Wisconsin to direct his first feature, "Feed the Fish," on his family's Door County farm this February. "Feed the Fis...

With the production of the 5-minute comedy web series "Sexperts," Columbia College's Television Department launches its new Internet and Mobile Media concentration. "Sexperts...

Filmmakers Ines Sommer and Kathy Berger are seeking entries for Evanston's Talking Pictures Film Festival, May 1-3, billed as a celebration of films "with a unique voice and poi...

It isn't everyday that a legendary cinematographer visits Chicago, so it was no surprise that the workshop Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC will conduct in Chicago on Feb. 8 was instantly s...

Selected by PBS because of his reputation as an expert in children's advertising, director Don Hoeg and the Radar Studios' team created a promo for the national Jan. 23 launch o...

ACTRESS HELEN HUNT was in Chicago last weekend with Chelsea Pictures/L.A. to direct a 60-second spot for Frito-Lay's new TrueNorth healthy snack brand that will air on the Osc...

While it might appear that Hollywood films are a relatively recent part of my 30 years of Chicago coverage, features actually have been thriving for decades ? and without the ne...

IFP HAS NAMED RYAN JEWELL, fresh from two years as Cinema/Chicago's managing director, as its new executive director, a position that's been vacant for four months. At C...

Fears of an impending SAG strike was the big reasons why the number of Hollywood studio features that shot in Chicago in 2008 dropped precipitously from the strong year before. ...

One of the five highest-grossing foreign films of 2008 - French import "Tell No One," grossing more than $6.1 million ? was released nationally by local specialty film distribut...

The 2008 winners of IFP/Chicago's Production Fund, writer/director Miguel Silveira and producer Andrew Eick of Pangea Media Productions, are in preproduction on their short film...

While mindful of an uncertain economy but deeming it "a necessity" to open a new market, Comma music partners Bryan Rheude and Larry Pecorella officially opened Comma L.A. Jan. ...

Zacuto USA founder Steve Weiss is happy to find himself back in the director's chair after a seven-year hiatus as co-producer/director on a series of up-close-and personal discu...

NATHYN MASTERS is in pre-production on his apocalyptic martial arts feature Divinity: Mark of the Antichrist," a follow-up to his "4th Beast: Mask of the Antichrist," released b...

VETERAN ACTOR TONY SHALHOUB, best known as the title character in the popular "Monk" detective series on TNT, was part of the ribbon-cutting ceremonies that officially opened ...

With his acceptance into the prestigious American Society of Cinematographers (ASC), Tom Fletcher has become ASC's only Midwest-based associate member. Fletcher, the owner/VP...

The 6th annual Motion Graphics Festival, now through Jan. 25, expects to host 900-1,200 attendees from throughout the region, who will hear some 40 leading graphics artists and ...

Just like big post companies that have added production services to their menus, Chicago's Goliath TV show producer, Towers Productions with more than 100 staffers, has gone int...

This month marks my 30th year as chronicler of Chicago's visual media industry. I'm told that I'm the longest-running film trade writer in the business. It isn't what I planne...