The 55th annual NAACP Image Awards got underway on Monday with Victoria Monét and Chris Brown leading the list of early winners.
The three-day virtual Image Awards show is hosted by Khloe Thomas. Night 1 featured presenters Bellah (Hulu’s “Queenie”), Da’Vinchi (Starz’s “Bmf”), Danielle Jalade (Disney’s “Saturdays”), Gabrielle Nevaeh (Nickelodeon’s “That Girl Lay Lay”) and Vanessa Simmons (BET+ “Deadly Entanglement”) revealing winners in the recording and literary categories.
Monét had received the most nominations in the recording categories with six nominations, followed closely by Usher who earned five nods, including entertainer of the year. During the virtual ceremony, the “Jaguar II” hitmaker won outstanding new artist and outstanding album — marking her first two NAACP Image Award wins and adding to a trophy case which already boasts three Grammys. Usher won for outstanding male artist, while the female artist prize went to H.E.R. Brown’s wins...
The three-day virtual Image Awards show is hosted by Khloe Thomas. Night 1 featured presenters Bellah (Hulu’s “Queenie”), Da’Vinchi (Starz’s “Bmf”), Danielle Jalade (Disney’s “Saturdays”), Gabrielle Nevaeh (Nickelodeon’s “That Girl Lay Lay”) and Vanessa Simmons (BET+ “Deadly Entanglement”) revealing winners in the recording and literary categories.
Monét had received the most nominations in the recording categories with six nominations, followed closely by Usher who earned five nods, including entertainer of the year. During the virtual ceremony, the “Jaguar II” hitmaker won outstanding new artist and outstanding album — marking her first two NAACP Image Award wins and adding to a trophy case which already boasts three Grammys. Usher won for outstanding male artist, while the female artist prize went to H.E.R. Brown’s wins...
- 3/12/2024
- by Angelique Jackson
- Variety Film + TV
H.E.R., Megan Thee Stallion and Usher were among the winners during Night 1 of the NAACP Image Awards, which were unveiled Monday during a virtual ceremony.
Usher was named outstanding male artist, H.E.R. won the award for outstanding female artist, and Megan Thee Stallion won for outstanding hip-hop/rap song for “Cobra.”
Other winners included Victoria Monét, Tems, Kirk Franklin and Chris Brown.
Khleo Thomas hosted the NAACP Virtual Image Awards show. Non-televised awards in other categories will be handed out in virtual shows on Tuesday and Wednesday. Additional awards will be handed out at a dinner hosted by Sherri Shepherd on Thursday and at a fashion show hosted by Brandee Evans on Friday. Frankie Beverly will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at Thursday’s dinner, while June Ambrose will receive the NAACP Vanguard Award for Fashion at Friday’s Fashion Show.
On Saturday, the 55th NAACP...
Usher was named outstanding male artist, H.E.R. won the award for outstanding female artist, and Megan Thee Stallion won for outstanding hip-hop/rap song for “Cobra.”
Other winners included Victoria Monét, Tems, Kirk Franklin and Chris Brown.
Khleo Thomas hosted the NAACP Virtual Image Awards show. Non-televised awards in other categories will be handed out in virtual shows on Tuesday and Wednesday. Additional awards will be handed out at a dinner hosted by Sherri Shepherd on Thursday and at a fashion show hosted by Brandee Evans on Friday. Frankie Beverly will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at Thursday’s dinner, while June Ambrose will receive the NAACP Vanguard Award for Fashion at Friday’s Fashion Show.
On Saturday, the 55th NAACP...
- 3/12/2024
- by Kimberly Nordyke
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The Hollywood Music in Media Awards (Hmma) today announced the 2023 nominees for scores and songs in film and other visual media categories. The awards will be presented Wednesday, November 15, 2023 at 8:00 p.m. (Pst) at The Avalon, 1735 Vine Street, in Hollywood, CA.
Song nominees include Oscar-winners Billie Eilish and Finneas for “What Was I Made For?” from Barbie, Olivia Rodrigo and Dan Nigro for “Can’t Catch Me Now” from Hunger Games: The Ballard of Songbirds & Snakes. Justin Timberlake, Alan Menken, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Lenny Kravitz, Diane Warren, Metro Boomin, and A$AP Rocky also received nods for their original songs in films.
Composers nominated include Alexandre Desplat, Michael Giacchino, Ludwig Göransson, Laura Karpman, Branford Marsalis, Thomas Newman, James Newton Howard, Daniel Pemberton, John Powell, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, Robbie Robertson, Mark Ronson & Andrew Wyatt, Hans Zimmer (The Creator), among many others.
Films nominated in score, song, onscreen performance, and in...
Song nominees include Oscar-winners Billie Eilish and Finneas for “What Was I Made For?” from Barbie, Olivia Rodrigo and Dan Nigro for “Can’t Catch Me Now” from Hunger Games: The Ballard of Songbirds & Snakes. Justin Timberlake, Alan Menken, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Lenny Kravitz, Diane Warren, Metro Boomin, and A$AP Rocky also received nods for their original songs in films.
Composers nominated include Alexandre Desplat, Michael Giacchino, Ludwig Göransson, Laura Karpman, Branford Marsalis, Thomas Newman, James Newton Howard, Daniel Pemberton, John Powell, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, Robbie Robertson, Mark Ronson & Andrew Wyatt, Hans Zimmer (The Creator), among many others.
Films nominated in score, song, onscreen performance, and in...
- 11/2/2023
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
The highly anticipated addition to the action sci-fi franchise Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts opened in theaters on June 9. According to Deadline, “the movie has pounced on a $110M opening weekend. Combined with domestic, that gives the Autobots and Maximals a global debut of $170.5M, coming in ahead of projections. The Steven Caple Jr-directed franchise reboot was No. 1 worldwide and at the international box office for the frame.” The film’s exciting score is from Jongnic “Jb” Bontemps.
Bontemps is a uniquely modern film composer, harmonizing a classical education with his rich tech background. As a maestro of Silicon Valley he wrote everything from The CW sci-fi series 4400, the Netflix docuseries We Are: The Brooklyn Saints, Dance Dreams: Hot Chocolate Nutcracker, the Netflix and Shondaland-produced documentary about the Debbie Allen Dance Company’s award-winning production of The Nutcracker, and the Netflix documentary Murder To Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story.
Bontemps is a uniquely modern film composer, harmonizing a classical education with his rich tech background. As a maestro of Silicon Valley he wrote everything from The CW sci-fi series 4400, the Netflix docuseries We Are: The Brooklyn Saints, Dance Dreams: Hot Chocolate Nutcracker, the Netflix and Shondaland-produced documentary about the Debbie Allen Dance Company’s award-winning production of The Nutcracker, and the Netflix documentary Murder To Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story.
- 6/12/2023
- by Michelle Hannett
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Cinematographer Mandy Walker has made history as the first female recipient of the Australian Cinematographers Society (Acs) Milli Award.
Prior to receiving the ceremony’s highest award, Walker became the first woman in 102 years to win the prestigious American Society of Cinematographers’ Best Feature Film Award, and was nominated for both a BAFTA and Academy Award for her work on “Elvis.”
“I’m incredibly proud and honored to be the first woman to win this award,” said Walker. “Here’s to all the other glass ceiling breakers who will come after this.”
Randall Park’s Directorial Debut ‘Shortcomings’ Coming to Theaters This Summer
Sony Pictures Classics announced Randall Park’s directorial debut “Shortcomings” is set to premiere in theaters on August 4.
Ahead of its theatrical release, “Shortcomings” made its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance film festival in January and will make its New York premiere at the Tribeca film festival in June.
Prior to receiving the ceremony’s highest award, Walker became the first woman in 102 years to win the prestigious American Society of Cinematographers’ Best Feature Film Award, and was nominated for both a BAFTA and Academy Award for her work on “Elvis.”
“I’m incredibly proud and honored to be the first woman to win this award,” said Walker. “Here’s to all the other glass ceiling breakers who will come after this.”
Randall Park’s Directorial Debut ‘Shortcomings’ Coming to Theaters This Summer
Sony Pictures Classics announced Randall Park’s directorial debut “Shortcomings” is set to premiere in theaters on August 4.
Ahead of its theatrical release, “Shortcomings” made its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance film festival in January and will make its New York premiere at the Tribeca film festival in June.
- 5/6/2023
- by Jazz Tangcay, McKinley Franklin, Charna Flam and Sophia Scorziello
- Variety Film + TV
For some theater fans, the 1936 production of the “Voodoo Macbeth” (as it became commonly known) is the stuff of legend. Funded by the Federal Theater Project, which gave financial aid to the struggling theater community during the Great Depression, the “Voodoo Macbeth” starred a cast of black performers in an imaginative new staging of William Shakespeare’s so-called “Scottish Play,” set in Haiti in the early 1800s.
The show was a mammoth success, critically acclaimed and financially successful, and not for nothing, it was one of the more noteworthy early accomplishments of a 20-year-old thespian and director named Orson Welles.
While Welles’s theater days have been the subject of biopics before, with films like “Cradle Will Rock” and “Me and Orson Welles” dramatizing his imaginative stagings, the new film “Voodoo Macbeth” may be the first to properly depict this particular landmark production. It’s attractively filmed and, mostly, solidly performed,...
The show was a mammoth success, critically acclaimed and financially successful, and not for nothing, it was one of the more noteworthy early accomplishments of a 20-year-old thespian and director named Orson Welles.
While Welles’s theater days have been the subject of biopics before, with films like “Cradle Will Rock” and “Me and Orson Welles” dramatizing his imaginative stagings, the new film “Voodoo Macbeth” may be the first to properly depict this particular landmark production. It’s attractively filmed and, mostly, solidly performed,...
- 10/22/2022
- by William Bibbiani
- The Wrap
The Critics Choice Association awarded “Summer of Soul” the top prize at the sixth annual Critics Choice Documentary Awards, which honors the best achievements in nonfiction released in theaters, on TV, or on major digital platforms. Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s look at the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival took home the most awards of any film, with five in total.
This year’s nominees were led by “Ascension” and “Summer of Soul,” two films by first-time documentarians. Each had six nominations. But “Ascension,” Jessica Kingdon’s look at the pursuit of the Chinese dream, failed to score any prizes November 14.
“Summer of Soul,” which won the top documentary prize and an Audience Award following its Sundance premiere earlier this year, won five of the six awards it was nominated for at the critics awards: Best Documentary Feature, Best First Documentary Feature, Best Editing, Best Archival Documentary, and Best Director, a prize Thompson...
This year’s nominees were led by “Ascension” and “Summer of Soul,” two films by first-time documentarians. Each had six nominations. But “Ascension,” Jessica Kingdon’s look at the pursuit of the Chinese dream, failed to score any prizes November 14.
“Summer of Soul,” which won the top documentary prize and an Audience Award following its Sundance premiere earlier this year, won five of the six awards it was nominated for at the critics awards: Best Documentary Feature, Best First Documentary Feature, Best Editing, Best Archival Documentary, and Best Director, a prize Thompson...
- 11/15/2021
- by Chris Lindahl
- Indiewire
The Critics Choice Association (Cca) has announced the nominees for the sixth annual Critics Choice Documentary Awards (Ccda). This year’s winners will be revealed at a gala on Sunday, November 14, 2021, in Brooklyn, NY. The awards honor the best achievements in nonfiction released in theaters, on TV, or on major digital platforms.
Both films by first-time documentarians, “Ascension” and “Summer of Soul” lead this year’s nominations with six each. “Ascension,” a look at the Chinese dream across social classes, is also up for Documentary Feature, Director (Jessica Kingdon), First Feature, Cinematography, Editing, and Score. Meanwhile, “Summer of Soul” is up for Documentary Feature, Best Director (Ahmir “Questlove’ Thompson), First Documentary, Editing, Archival Documentary, and Music Documentary.
“Becoming Cousteau” and “The Rescue” also picked up five nominations each.
Last year, “Dick Johnson Is Dead” took home the Cca’s top award for Best Documentary as well as the Best Director award for Kirsten Johnson.
Both films by first-time documentarians, “Ascension” and “Summer of Soul” lead this year’s nominations with six each. “Ascension,” a look at the Chinese dream across social classes, is also up for Documentary Feature, Director (Jessica Kingdon), First Feature, Cinematography, Editing, and Score. Meanwhile, “Summer of Soul” is up for Documentary Feature, Best Director (Ahmir “Questlove’ Thompson), First Documentary, Editing, Archival Documentary, and Music Documentary.
“Becoming Cousteau” and “The Rescue” also picked up five nominations each.
Last year, “Dick Johnson Is Dead” took home the Cca’s top award for Best Documentary as well as the Best Director award for Kirsten Johnson.
- 10/18/2021
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
Composers Atli Örvarsson, Mark Mothersbaugh and Mark Isham led the list of winners announced Monday for the annual BMI Film, TV & Visual Media Awards, with the three scorers picking up six, five and four trophies, respectively.
Örvarsson, the Icelandic composer, is now up to 29 BMI honors with the six he adds this week. His new shelf’s worth of awards came for work on “Chicago P.D.,” “Chicago Med,” “Chicago Fire,” “FBI,” “FBI: Most Wanted” and “Defending Jacob.”
Mark Mothersbaugh, of Devo as well as scoring fame, was five-times rewarded for “Dirty John,” “What We Do in the Shadows,” “The Willoughbys,” “The Croods: A New Age” and “Tiger King.”
Mark Isham’s four awards came for “Judas and the Black Messiah,” “Honest Thief,” “Little Fires Everywhere” and “Togo.”
“I’m not that much of an awards guy, but even I’m impressed — four BMI awards,” Isham said in a taped acceptance speech.
Örvarsson, the Icelandic composer, is now up to 29 BMI honors with the six he adds this week. His new shelf’s worth of awards came for work on “Chicago P.D.,” “Chicago Med,” “Chicago Fire,” “FBI,” “FBI: Most Wanted” and “Defending Jacob.”
Mark Mothersbaugh, of Devo as well as scoring fame, was five-times rewarded for “Dirty John,” “What We Do in the Shadows,” “The Willoughbys,” “The Croods: A New Age” and “Tiger King.”
Mark Isham’s four awards came for “Judas and the Black Messiah,” “Honest Thief,” “Little Fires Everywhere” and “Togo.”
“I’m not that much of an awards guy, but even I’m impressed — four BMI awards,” Isham said in a taped acceptance speech.
- 7/12/2021
- by Chris Willman
- Variety Film + TV
The film scoring community continues to find new ways to support emerging composers — especially women and people of color — to the tune of more than $100,000 annually, according to announcements this week by Reel Change: The Fund for Diversity in Film Scoring and the Society of Composers & Lyricists.
Reel Change, a project of Sesac and composer Christophe Beck (“WandaVision”) and administered by New Music USA, has announced the first four recipients of grants averaging $20,000 each for “film projects currently in production, providing additional funding and mentoring to assist composers at a pivotal moment in their careers.”
They are Sultana Isham, a New Orleans-based violinist and ethnomusicologist working on “The Neutral Ground,” a documentary about the removal of Confederate monuments to air on PBS; Cali Wang, Taipei-raised “best score” winner at the L.A. Live Score Film Festival, for “The Island of Lost Girls”; Emer Kinsella, Dublin-born composer (“Sense8”) currently scoring “She...
Reel Change, a project of Sesac and composer Christophe Beck (“WandaVision”) and administered by New Music USA, has announced the first four recipients of grants averaging $20,000 each for “film projects currently in production, providing additional funding and mentoring to assist composers at a pivotal moment in their careers.”
They are Sultana Isham, a New Orleans-based violinist and ethnomusicologist working on “The Neutral Ground,” a documentary about the removal of Confederate monuments to air on PBS; Cali Wang, Taipei-raised “best score” winner at the L.A. Live Score Film Festival, for “The Island of Lost Girls”; Emer Kinsella, Dublin-born composer (“Sense8”) currently scoring “She...
- 5/5/2021
- by Jon Burlingame
- Variety Film + TV
Jongnic Bontemps might just qualify as the unofficial composer of the Black Lives Matter movement.
No fewer than four major documentaries on African American subjects — airing now, or soon, on CNN, Netflix, National Geographic and Amazon Prime — feature scores written by the Brooklyn-born, L.A.-based composer.
“I asked the universe for this,” Bontemps admits. “When the Black Lives Matter protests were happening last summer, I really wanted to be involved with my art, having something to say.” And within a matter of months, it happened.
Perhaps the highest-profile project is “My Name Is Pauli Murray,” the story of the forgotten pioneer of rights for women, people of color and the queer community that was a hit at Sundance and recently sold to Amazon Studios. It’s from “Rbg” filmmakers Betsy West and Julie Cohen.
“We loved the way Jongnic’s evocative music shifted so seamlessly to tell the story...
No fewer than four major documentaries on African American subjects — airing now, or soon, on CNN, Netflix, National Geographic and Amazon Prime — feature scores written by the Brooklyn-born, L.A.-based composer.
“I asked the universe for this,” Bontemps admits. “When the Black Lives Matter protests were happening last summer, I really wanted to be involved with my art, having something to say.” And within a matter of months, it happened.
Perhaps the highest-profile project is “My Name Is Pauli Murray,” the story of the forgotten pioneer of rights for women, people of color and the queer community that was a hit at Sundance and recently sold to Amazon Studios. It’s from “Rbg” filmmakers Betsy West and Julie Cohen.
“We loved the way Jongnic’s evocative music shifted so seamlessly to tell the story...
- 3/12/2021
- by Jon Burlingame
- Variety Film + TV
The Sundance Film Festival’s 2021 virtual Main Street will play host to a series of conversations about music and the movies, hosted by first-time festival partner Film Music House, with Mary J. Blige, Rufus Wainwright and Colin Stetson (pictured above) among those taking part in the streamed chats Jan. 28 through Feb. 3.
Blige will join Nova Wav and DJ Camper in a conversation on songwriting for films. Wainwright will participate in a panel on the music of the film “Rebel Hearts” with veteran music supervisor Tracy McKnight and Ariel Marx. A panel about music auteurs will feature Stetson as well as Bryce Dessner of the National and Alex Somers.
The confab’s keynote conversations will spotlight Mychael Danna, Jeff Beal, Dan Romer, Miriam Cuter and Rob Simonsen.
The full lineup of names and times for Film Music House programs can be found on Sundance’s Village site, here.
Other programs include...
Blige will join Nova Wav and DJ Camper in a conversation on songwriting for films. Wainwright will participate in a panel on the music of the film “Rebel Hearts” with veteran music supervisor Tracy McKnight and Ariel Marx. A panel about music auteurs will feature Stetson as well as Bryce Dessner of the National and Alex Somers.
The confab’s keynote conversations will spotlight Mychael Danna, Jeff Beal, Dan Romer, Miriam Cuter and Rob Simonsen.
The full lineup of names and times for Film Music House programs can be found on Sundance’s Village site, here.
Other programs include...
- 1/14/2021
- by Chris Willman
- Variety Film + TV
In today’s film news roundup, Edgar Ramirez is in talks to play a criminal, Kiersey Clemons is in negotiations to portray a flower arranger and finalists have been announced for Universal’s Film Music Composer Initiative.
Castings
Edgar Ramirez is in talks to portray a career criminal in Netflix’s near-future movie “The Last Days of American Crime.”
The project is based on the Radical Publishing graphic novel by Rick Remender and Greg Tocchini. Olivier Megaton (“Taken 2”) is directing from an adapted screenplay by Karl Gajdusek, whose credits include “Oblivion” and “Stranger Things.”
The story centers on U.S. government plans to broadcast a signal making it impossible for anyone to knowingly commit unlawful acts. Graham Bricke, a career criminal who was never able to hit the big score, teams up with Kevin Cash and Shelby Dupree to commit the heist of the century and the last crime...
Castings
Edgar Ramirez is in talks to portray a career criminal in Netflix’s near-future movie “The Last Days of American Crime.”
The project is based on the Radical Publishing graphic novel by Rick Remender and Greg Tocchini. Olivier Megaton (“Taken 2”) is directing from an adapted screenplay by Karl Gajdusek, whose credits include “Oblivion” and “Stranger Things.”
The story centers on U.S. government plans to broadcast a signal making it impossible for anyone to knowingly commit unlawful acts. Graham Bricke, a career criminal who was never able to hit the big score, teams up with Kevin Cash and Shelby Dupree to commit the heist of the century and the last crime...
- 7/28/2018
- by Dave McNary
- Variety Film + TV
The Sundance Film Festival kicks off today, and there's a lot to look forward. And one picture that made our list of the 30 Most Anticipated Films Of The 2016 Sundance Film Festival is Steven Caple Jr.'s feature film directorial debut "The Land." And today, we have an exclusive listen at a cut from the score by composer Jongnic Bontemps. Read More: Sundance Film Festival 2016 Midnight Lineup Includes New Films From Kevin Smith, Rob Zombie, And More Starring Ezri Walker, “Kings Of Summer” star Moises Arias, Rafi Gavron, Erykah Badu, Machine Gun Kelly and Michael K. Williams, and featuring a soundtrack produced by Nas, the film follows a quartet of teenage skateboard pals, who fall into slinging drugs in Cleveland. And before we get to see the movie, the tone is set by "All Gone," a track by Bontemps which finds him using elemental sounds from the picture to help compose his piece.
- 1/21/2016
- by Edward Davis
- The Playlist
Sundance is always on the move. Skywalker and George Lucas himself are refocusing on the indies and choosing sound design as their point of entry.
Sundance Institute and Skywalker Sound recently announced that the Sundance Institute Music and Sound Design Labs at Skywalker Sound will take place at Skywalker Ranch in 2013 and 2014 and also listed the artists that will participate in the 2013 Labs. This is the first time the two organizations will collaborate to support independent filmmakers and film composers and marks a significant expansion of the Institute’s existing Composers Labs to include sound design.
The Institute has hosted its Composers Labs at Sundance Resort for fiction feature films since 1999 and documentaries since 2005, allowing composers and independent filmmakers to collaboratively explore the process of writing music for film. Fellows also participate in workshops and creative exercises under the guidance of leading film composers and film music professionals acting as Creative Advisors.
Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute, said, “Hosting the Composers Labs at Skywalker Ranch allows an expansion of the program to include sound design, giving further insight into the powerful ways that sound and music can impact independent films. We are deeply grateful to the Skywalker team for working with us to provide our Fellows with the tremendous benefit of accessing this legendary facility”
Josh Lowden, General Manager of Skywalker Sound, said, “We’re very excited to formalize this relationship. Sundance Institute is virtually synonymous with independent film, and Keri and her team have done an amazing job to honor the Institute’s legacy. Twenty-five years ago Skywalker was founded by a filmmaker for filmmakers, and we have never forgotten our roots. We continue to believe in independent filmmaking, and are thrilled to deepen our relationship with the Institute by hosting these Labs at Skywalker.”
The Composers Lab for fiction feature films is a joint initiative of the Institute’s Film Music Program and Feature Film Program, and the Composers Lab for documentaries is hosted by the Film Music Program and Documentary Film Program and Fund.
Peter Golub, Director of the Sundance Institute Film Music Program, said, “Skywalker Sound is a leader in the field of post-production and sound design, and their world-class facilities offer the ideal environment for our Composers Labs. Lab fellows will have access to Skywalker’s sound designers and mixers for ongoing collaboration, as well as the state-of-the-art facility during their stay.”
Artists and projects selected for the 2013 Sundance Music And Sound Design Lab – Documentary (June 3-10) are:
Filmmakers
Director: Kirsten Johnson
A Blind Eye (U.S.) — The voice of an American camerawoman explores the nature of cinematography and what she has failed to see while filming in Afghanistan through her encounters with two Afghan teenagers. Najeeb, a one-eyed boy, struggles to hide what really haunts him, while a bold teenage girl must decide how much she will risk to be visible. A U.S. Military surveillance blimp in the sky over Kabul tracks their every move.
Director: Judith Ehrlich
Open (U.S.) — The fight for free speech in the 21st century is being fought in cyberspace, and its most dramatic story may be unfolding in Iceland. Open follows trailblazing Internet revolutionary Birgitta Jónsdóttir and three generations of digital “hacktivists” as their stories converge in the tiny island nation now poised to become the world’s first haven for freedom of information and transparency online and off.
Director: Thomas Allen Harris
Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People (U.S.) — A 90-minute documentary film with an innovative companion transmedia project that explores the ways black communities have used the medium of photography to construct political, aesthetic and cultural representations of themselves and their world. This will be the first film to vividly bring to life the individual photographers, photographic collectives, and anonymous and celebrated subjects, whose work has transformed the lives of African Americans through the magic and power of the camera lens.
Director: Mark Grieco
Marmato (Canada/Colombia) — A peaceful gold-mining town in rural Colombia confronts destruction by a Canadian multinational mining company.
Composers
Kathryn Bostic
Kathryn Bostic is a prolific composer, pianist and singer-songwriter. She is a recipient of several awards and fellowships including the Sundance Fellowship for Feature Film Scoring, Bmi Conducting Fellowship and the Ascap Musical Theatre Workshop. She has written for both off-Broadway and Broadway productions. Currently her score can be heard in the Mark Taper production of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.
Omar Fadel
Los Angeles-based composer Omar Fadel has carved out a niche fusing an eclectic palette of musical instruments and styles. He has scored numerous features films, documentaries and television shows, including Walt Disney Studios’ first ever Arabic language feature film, The United.
Miles Jay
Miles Jay is a composer, contrabassist, and multi-instrumentalist with many traditional and cross over artists around the world. Supporting himself as a musician around the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa for much of the last decade, Miles has re-imagined the contrabass, adapting a wide range of melodic ornamentation to his own technique, as well as having invented and hand-built a new type of contrabass utilizing rawhide for a soundboard. Miles has performed in such venues as Carnegie Hall, the Emirates Palace Abu Dhabi, Ted, and the United Nations.
Todd Reynolds
Todd Reynolds is a long-time New York violinist for Bang on a Can, Steve Reich, Broadway, and founder of the string quartet known as Ethel. His double CD set, Outerborough, rose to "best in classical" on the Amazon classical charts of 2011. A classical violinist 'gone horribly wrong', his genre-defying and technologically savvy music and performances have been called "a charming, multi-mood extravaganza, playful like Milhaud, but hard-edged like Hendrix."
Artists and projects selected for the 2013 Sundance Music And Sound Design Lab – Feature Film (July 10-25) are:
Filmmakers
Writer/director: Miguel Calderón
Zeus (Mexico) — Sporadically employed and still living with his mother, Joel finds his only joy in falconry in the flatlands outside Mexico City, until an encounter with a down-to-earth secretary forces him to face reality.
Writer/director: Meredith Danluck
State Like Sleep (U.S.A.) — Under the surreal cloud cover of northern Europe, a young American widow reluctantly revisits her past when her mother is hospitalized in Brussels. While coping with the bleak reality of parental loss, Katherine explores her deceased husband's secret life of underground sex clubs and finds comfort in a relationship with a stranger as equally broken as she is.
Co-writer/co-director: Ian Hendrie
Co-writer/co-director: Jyson McLean
Mercy Road (U.S.A.) — Based on true events, Mercy Road traces the spiritual odyssey of a small town housewife and mother, as she becomes willing to commit violence and murder in the name of God.
Writer/director: K’naan
Maanokoobiyo (Somalia/U.S.A.) — In war-torn Somalia, an artistic orphan named Maano joins the mercenary killing squad of a notorious warlord, only to discover his adoptive father and gang leader is responsible for wiping out his family.
Writer/director: Pamela Romanowsky
The Adderall Diaries (U.S.A.) — Writer Stephen Elliott reaches a low point when his estranged father resurfaces, claiming that Stephen has fabricated much of the dark childhood that that fuels his work. Adrift in the precarious grey area of memory, Stephen has to navigate the unstable terrain of truth and identity, led by two sources of inspiration: a new romance, and a murder trial that reminds him more than a little of his own story. Based on the memoir by Stephen Elliott.
Co-writer/director: Eva Weber
Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name (UK/Germany/U.S.A.) — Twenty-eight-year-old Clarissa discovers on the day of her father's funeral that everything she believed about her life was a lie. She flees San Francisco and travels to the Arctic Circle to uncover the secrets of her mother, who mysteriously vanished when Clarissa was fourteen. Based on the novel by Vendela Vida.
Composers
Jongnic Bontemps
Jongnic Bontemps has had the pleasure to score numerous films, including award-winning Daughter of Fortune, A Different Tree, Soaring on Invisible Wings and Saudade. Jongnic's scores incorporate ethnic instruments with organic and synthetic textures to create a unique musical world for a film. This skill has been honed through his music education at Yale University, Berklee School of Music and the University of Southern California and his collaborations with some of the top film composers. Jongnic's scores have been heard at film festivals around the world including Cannes, The Pan African Film Festival, American Black Film Festival and Run & Shoot Martha's Vineyard
Larry Goldings
Larry Goldings is a Grammy-nominated pianist, organist, composer, and arranger, whose talents have been sought-after by an impressive range of artists including James Taylor, Norah Jones, John Mayer, Sia Furler, Madeleine Peyroux, Maceo Parker, Michael Brecker, and John Scofield.
Lucas Lechowski
Based in Los Angeles, Polish born Lucas Lechowski is a violinist/guitarist who creates music, experiments with sounds, improvises and performs. His recent film scoring credits include a 2013 Student Academy Award winner “Un mundo para Raúl” (dir. Mauro Mueller). Currently he is composing music for a two-hour NBC News television special commemorating the 50th anniversary of the death of President Kennedy, entitled "Where Were You?"
Heather McIntosh
Heather McIntosh is a cellist, bassist and composer who got her musical start playing with the Elephant 6 collective in Athens, Georgia and continued on to perform with artists such as Gnarls Barkley and Lil Wayne. Recently relocated to Los Angeles, her film credits include Compliance by Craig Zobel and The Rambler by Calvin Lee Reeder.
Vladimir Podgoretsky
Vladimir Podgoretsky started his professional career as a musical theater composer. His 2007 ballet Snow Maiden (Snegurochka) was a huge success and continues to be regularly performed in theaters throughout Moscow. Vladimir moved to the Us to become a film composer and after graduating from the UCLA film scoring program has been working with leading composers on films such as Rise of the Guardians, A Single Shot, The Eagle, Season Of the Witch and Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. He has also worked on the acclaimed video game World of Warcraft and the ABC TV series Revenge.
Mac Quayle
A resident of Topanga Canyon, California, Mac Quayle has written music for over 20 films and television shows and accumulated a long list of credits as a music producer, dance remixer and multi-instrumentalist, including a Grammy nomination for producing Donna Summer. His music is heard in films such as the Indian documentary Beyond Grace and the Irish drama A Belfast Story and some of his collaborations as an additional composer appear in Drive, Spring Breakers and Only God Forgives.
The Sundance Institute Music and Sound Design Labs at Skywalker Sound are made possible by Bmi, Time Warner Foundation, and the Film Music Foundation.
Sundance Institute
Founded by Robert Redford in 1981, Sundance Institute is a global, nonprofit cultural organization dedicated to nurturing artistic expression in film and theater, and to supporting intercultural dialogue between artists and audiences. The Institute promotes independent storytelling to unite, inform and inspire, regardless of geo-political, social, religious or cultural differences. Internationally recognized for its annual Sundance Film Festival and its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, film composers, playwrights and theatre artists, Sundance Institute has nurtured such projects as Born into Brothels, Trouble the Water, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Amreeka, An Inconvenient Truth, Spring Awakening, Light in the Piazza and Angels in America. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.
Skywalker Sound
Skywalker Sound, a division of Lucasfilm Ltd, is one of the largest, most versatile full-service audio post-production companies in the industry. Skywalker Sound offers comprehensive post-production services and utilizes the talents of Academy Award®-winning sound professionals working on sound design, editorial, Foley and re-recording mixes as a team. This provides filmmakers the most efficient model available for the audio post-production process. More information is available at www.skysound.com.
Lucasfilm Ltd. is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. Skywalker Sound, the Skywalker Sound logo, Star Wars and related properties are trademarks in the United States and/or in other countries of Lucasfilm Ltd. and/or its affiliates. © 2013 Lucasfilm Entertainment Company Ltd. or Lucasfilm Ltd. All rights reserved.
Sundance Institute and Skywalker Sound recently announced that the Sundance Institute Music and Sound Design Labs at Skywalker Sound will take place at Skywalker Ranch in 2013 and 2014 and also listed the artists that will participate in the 2013 Labs. This is the first time the two organizations will collaborate to support independent filmmakers and film composers and marks a significant expansion of the Institute’s existing Composers Labs to include sound design.
The Institute has hosted its Composers Labs at Sundance Resort for fiction feature films since 1999 and documentaries since 2005, allowing composers and independent filmmakers to collaboratively explore the process of writing music for film. Fellows also participate in workshops and creative exercises under the guidance of leading film composers and film music professionals acting as Creative Advisors.
Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute, said, “Hosting the Composers Labs at Skywalker Ranch allows an expansion of the program to include sound design, giving further insight into the powerful ways that sound and music can impact independent films. We are deeply grateful to the Skywalker team for working with us to provide our Fellows with the tremendous benefit of accessing this legendary facility”
Josh Lowden, General Manager of Skywalker Sound, said, “We’re very excited to formalize this relationship. Sundance Institute is virtually synonymous with independent film, and Keri and her team have done an amazing job to honor the Institute’s legacy. Twenty-five years ago Skywalker was founded by a filmmaker for filmmakers, and we have never forgotten our roots. We continue to believe in independent filmmaking, and are thrilled to deepen our relationship with the Institute by hosting these Labs at Skywalker.”
The Composers Lab for fiction feature films is a joint initiative of the Institute’s Film Music Program and Feature Film Program, and the Composers Lab for documentaries is hosted by the Film Music Program and Documentary Film Program and Fund.
Peter Golub, Director of the Sundance Institute Film Music Program, said, “Skywalker Sound is a leader in the field of post-production and sound design, and their world-class facilities offer the ideal environment for our Composers Labs. Lab fellows will have access to Skywalker’s sound designers and mixers for ongoing collaboration, as well as the state-of-the-art facility during their stay.”
Artists and projects selected for the 2013 Sundance Music And Sound Design Lab – Documentary (June 3-10) are:
Filmmakers
Director: Kirsten Johnson
A Blind Eye (U.S.) — The voice of an American camerawoman explores the nature of cinematography and what she has failed to see while filming in Afghanistan through her encounters with two Afghan teenagers. Najeeb, a one-eyed boy, struggles to hide what really haunts him, while a bold teenage girl must decide how much she will risk to be visible. A U.S. Military surveillance blimp in the sky over Kabul tracks their every move.
Director: Judith Ehrlich
Open (U.S.) — The fight for free speech in the 21st century is being fought in cyberspace, and its most dramatic story may be unfolding in Iceland. Open follows trailblazing Internet revolutionary Birgitta Jónsdóttir and three generations of digital “hacktivists” as their stories converge in the tiny island nation now poised to become the world’s first haven for freedom of information and transparency online and off.
Director: Thomas Allen Harris
Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People (U.S.) — A 90-minute documentary film with an innovative companion transmedia project that explores the ways black communities have used the medium of photography to construct political, aesthetic and cultural representations of themselves and their world. This will be the first film to vividly bring to life the individual photographers, photographic collectives, and anonymous and celebrated subjects, whose work has transformed the lives of African Americans through the magic and power of the camera lens.
Director: Mark Grieco
Marmato (Canada/Colombia) — A peaceful gold-mining town in rural Colombia confronts destruction by a Canadian multinational mining company.
Composers
Kathryn Bostic
Kathryn Bostic is a prolific composer, pianist and singer-songwriter. She is a recipient of several awards and fellowships including the Sundance Fellowship for Feature Film Scoring, Bmi Conducting Fellowship and the Ascap Musical Theatre Workshop. She has written for both off-Broadway and Broadway productions. Currently her score can be heard in the Mark Taper production of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.
Omar Fadel
Los Angeles-based composer Omar Fadel has carved out a niche fusing an eclectic palette of musical instruments and styles. He has scored numerous features films, documentaries and television shows, including Walt Disney Studios’ first ever Arabic language feature film, The United.
Miles Jay
Miles Jay is a composer, contrabassist, and multi-instrumentalist with many traditional and cross over artists around the world. Supporting himself as a musician around the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa for much of the last decade, Miles has re-imagined the contrabass, adapting a wide range of melodic ornamentation to his own technique, as well as having invented and hand-built a new type of contrabass utilizing rawhide for a soundboard. Miles has performed in such venues as Carnegie Hall, the Emirates Palace Abu Dhabi, Ted, and the United Nations.
Todd Reynolds
Todd Reynolds is a long-time New York violinist for Bang on a Can, Steve Reich, Broadway, and founder of the string quartet known as Ethel. His double CD set, Outerborough, rose to "best in classical" on the Amazon classical charts of 2011. A classical violinist 'gone horribly wrong', his genre-defying and technologically savvy music and performances have been called "a charming, multi-mood extravaganza, playful like Milhaud, but hard-edged like Hendrix."
Artists and projects selected for the 2013 Sundance Music And Sound Design Lab – Feature Film (July 10-25) are:
Filmmakers
Writer/director: Miguel Calderón
Zeus (Mexico) — Sporadically employed and still living with his mother, Joel finds his only joy in falconry in the flatlands outside Mexico City, until an encounter with a down-to-earth secretary forces him to face reality.
Writer/director: Meredith Danluck
State Like Sleep (U.S.A.) — Under the surreal cloud cover of northern Europe, a young American widow reluctantly revisits her past when her mother is hospitalized in Brussels. While coping with the bleak reality of parental loss, Katherine explores her deceased husband's secret life of underground sex clubs and finds comfort in a relationship with a stranger as equally broken as she is.
Co-writer/co-director: Ian Hendrie
Co-writer/co-director: Jyson McLean
Mercy Road (U.S.A.) — Based on true events, Mercy Road traces the spiritual odyssey of a small town housewife and mother, as she becomes willing to commit violence and murder in the name of God.
Writer/director: K’naan
Maanokoobiyo (Somalia/U.S.A.) — In war-torn Somalia, an artistic orphan named Maano joins the mercenary killing squad of a notorious warlord, only to discover his adoptive father and gang leader is responsible for wiping out his family.
Writer/director: Pamela Romanowsky
The Adderall Diaries (U.S.A.) — Writer Stephen Elliott reaches a low point when his estranged father resurfaces, claiming that Stephen has fabricated much of the dark childhood that that fuels his work. Adrift in the precarious grey area of memory, Stephen has to navigate the unstable terrain of truth and identity, led by two sources of inspiration: a new romance, and a murder trial that reminds him more than a little of his own story. Based on the memoir by Stephen Elliott.
Co-writer/director: Eva Weber
Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name (UK/Germany/U.S.A.) — Twenty-eight-year-old Clarissa discovers on the day of her father's funeral that everything she believed about her life was a lie. She flees San Francisco and travels to the Arctic Circle to uncover the secrets of her mother, who mysteriously vanished when Clarissa was fourteen. Based on the novel by Vendela Vida.
Composers
Jongnic Bontemps
Jongnic Bontemps has had the pleasure to score numerous films, including award-winning Daughter of Fortune, A Different Tree, Soaring on Invisible Wings and Saudade. Jongnic's scores incorporate ethnic instruments with organic and synthetic textures to create a unique musical world for a film. This skill has been honed through his music education at Yale University, Berklee School of Music and the University of Southern California and his collaborations with some of the top film composers. Jongnic's scores have been heard at film festivals around the world including Cannes, The Pan African Film Festival, American Black Film Festival and Run & Shoot Martha's Vineyard
Larry Goldings
Larry Goldings is a Grammy-nominated pianist, organist, composer, and arranger, whose talents have been sought-after by an impressive range of artists including James Taylor, Norah Jones, John Mayer, Sia Furler, Madeleine Peyroux, Maceo Parker, Michael Brecker, and John Scofield.
Lucas Lechowski
Based in Los Angeles, Polish born Lucas Lechowski is a violinist/guitarist who creates music, experiments with sounds, improvises and performs. His recent film scoring credits include a 2013 Student Academy Award winner “Un mundo para Raúl” (dir. Mauro Mueller). Currently he is composing music for a two-hour NBC News television special commemorating the 50th anniversary of the death of President Kennedy, entitled "Where Were You?"
Heather McIntosh
Heather McIntosh is a cellist, bassist and composer who got her musical start playing with the Elephant 6 collective in Athens, Georgia and continued on to perform with artists such as Gnarls Barkley and Lil Wayne. Recently relocated to Los Angeles, her film credits include Compliance by Craig Zobel and The Rambler by Calvin Lee Reeder.
Vladimir Podgoretsky
Vladimir Podgoretsky started his professional career as a musical theater composer. His 2007 ballet Snow Maiden (Snegurochka) was a huge success and continues to be regularly performed in theaters throughout Moscow. Vladimir moved to the Us to become a film composer and after graduating from the UCLA film scoring program has been working with leading composers on films such as Rise of the Guardians, A Single Shot, The Eagle, Season Of the Witch and Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. He has also worked on the acclaimed video game World of Warcraft and the ABC TV series Revenge.
Mac Quayle
A resident of Topanga Canyon, California, Mac Quayle has written music for over 20 films and television shows and accumulated a long list of credits as a music producer, dance remixer and multi-instrumentalist, including a Grammy nomination for producing Donna Summer. His music is heard in films such as the Indian documentary Beyond Grace and the Irish drama A Belfast Story and some of his collaborations as an additional composer appear in Drive, Spring Breakers and Only God Forgives.
The Sundance Institute Music and Sound Design Labs at Skywalker Sound are made possible by Bmi, Time Warner Foundation, and the Film Music Foundation.
Sundance Institute
Founded by Robert Redford in 1981, Sundance Institute is a global, nonprofit cultural organization dedicated to nurturing artistic expression in film and theater, and to supporting intercultural dialogue between artists and audiences. The Institute promotes independent storytelling to unite, inform and inspire, regardless of geo-political, social, religious or cultural differences. Internationally recognized for its annual Sundance Film Festival and its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, film composers, playwrights and theatre artists, Sundance Institute has nurtured such projects as Born into Brothels, Trouble the Water, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Amreeka, An Inconvenient Truth, Spring Awakening, Light in the Piazza and Angels in America. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.
Skywalker Sound
Skywalker Sound, a division of Lucasfilm Ltd, is one of the largest, most versatile full-service audio post-production companies in the industry. Skywalker Sound offers comprehensive post-production services and utilizes the talents of Academy Award®-winning sound professionals working on sound design, editorial, Foley and re-recording mixes as a team. This provides filmmakers the most efficient model available for the audio post-production process. More information is available at www.skysound.com.
Lucasfilm Ltd. is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. Skywalker Sound, the Skywalker Sound logo, Star Wars and related properties are trademarks in the United States and/or in other countries of Lucasfilm Ltd. and/or its affiliates. © 2013 Lucasfilm Entertainment Company Ltd. or Lucasfilm Ltd. All rights reserved.
- 6/6/2013
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
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