The Greenhouse Arts & Media

COMMUNITY EVENT - LOS ANGELES & ATLANTA THE GREENHOUSE "CREATIVE COFFEE MEET-UPS!" FOR SEPTEMBER WHEN: Saturday, September 21st (for the L.A. area) & Saturday, September 28th (for the Atlanta area) TIME: 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM (PST) & (EST) COST: FREE (registration required) REGISTER: https://lnkd.in/gxJvnvCN Join us to share ideas, build community, and have fun over cups of coffee (or your beverage of choice)! Let's gather to mix, mingle, connect, and hang out with other creatives! Details for the Los Angles area "Creative Coffee Meet-Up!": The hosts for the L.A. area are David Acuff and Jonathan Regier. The Greenhouse's next "Creative Coffee Meet-Up!" for the Los Angeles area is Saturday, Sept. 21st from 10:00AM - 12:00PM (PST) at the Burbank Town Center Mall, 201 E. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank, CA 91502. (At the front of the mall, in the open air dining terrace area, overlooking East Magnolia Blvd.). Details for the Atlanta area "Creative Coffee Meet-Up!": The host for the Atlanta area is Joey Cox. The Greenhouse's next "Creative Coffee Meet-Up!" for the Atlanta area is Saturday, Sept. 28th from 10:00AM - 12:00PM (EST) at the East Pole Coffee Co., 255 Ottley Drive, Ste. 105, Atlanta 30324. The August "Creative Coffee Meet-Ups!" were a blast so, come hang with us and connect and grow in this fun, casual atmosphere. Bring a friend or help The Greenhouse spread the word. All creatives are welcome! Note: These live, in-person, events are FREE. Since space is limited, please register so that we have a count of how many are attending. Thank you! Questions? Contact us at [email protected]. See you Sept. 21st for the L.A. area and Sept. 28th for the Atlanta area! — #communityeventatlanta #communityeventlosangeles #creativeindustry #entertainmentindustry

Here's an update from Shun Lee at the Toronto International Film Festival. Congratulations to all cast and crew! — "Just got back to the hotel following the "Sketch" premiere & afterparty at the Toronto International Film Festival (as well as a wonderful dinner afterwards with my friends, Steve & Debbie Taylor). The early reviews are already starting to come in for the film, and they're looking really, really good. This was my first time seeing the completed film with all the special effects included, and it was so great to watch it with a full theater of people who were laughing, gasping, and cheering at all the right moments. And throughout the screening, I kept thinking how proud I was to have played a part, large or small, in helping bring a project like this to the screen. You're gonna love it." --- #mylife #mytravels #wandering #TIFF #creativelife #filmmaking

HOLLYWOOD HISTORY LEONARD MALTIN TEAMS WITH QUENTIN TARANTINO'S NEW BEVERLY CINEMA FOR A WEEKEND OF RARE TREASURES (By Jim Hemphill) The film historian talks with IndieWire about programming a series of difficult to see classics from the Universal vault at the Los Angeles repertory theatre. Back in 2016, MOMA curator Dave Kehr programmed a series of restorations and rediscoveries from the early days of sound at Universal Studios. Across the country in Los Angeles, film historian Leonard Maltin looked at the schedule with envy and longing. “My mouth was watering,” Maltin told IndieWire. “I was so frustrated that I couldn’t just fly to New York and set up a futon in the lobby so I could go to all the films he was screening.” Luckily, Maltin was able to see some of the films back in Hollywood when Universal archivist Bob O’Neil allowed him to sit in on screenings that had been set up to check answer prints. “I saw dozens of them,” Maltin said. “Some were good, many were unmemorable or downright bad, but every now and then I got lucky and found a real winner.” Maltin wanted to share his discoveries with the Los Angeles film community, so starting September 20 he’ll be presenting a long weekend of double features at Quentin Tarantino‘s New Beverly Cinema. Of the six films showing, only “The Good Fairy,” an early comedy from screenwriter Preston Sturges and director William Wyler, is available on physical media (as a Blu-ray from Kino Lorber), and none of the six are currently streaming. [W]hile Maltin says that the best way to see any movie is on the big screen with an audience, he feels these films in particular will benefit from the experience. “It’s certainly the best way to experience movies that have been hiding in plain sight like these have, because you can share the thrill of discovery with a simpatico crowd of people who are there for the same reason you are.” In keeping with New Beverly practice, all the programs will be accompanied by carefully curated vintage trailers and short subjects, adding to the can’t-miss quality of the series. “The opportunity to see these six movies in a theatre that caters to film buffs is the brass ring on a merry-go-round,” Maltin said, adding that he hopes the program attracts a crowd for another simple reason. “If this is well attended, maybe we’ll be able to show more of these films that aren’t otherwise available. There are more where these came from — a lot more.” For details and to read the entire article, click on the below link: https://lnkd.in/gRPARXSx — #hollywoodhistory #hollywoodmovies #1930smovies #newbeverlycimema #filmhistorian #filmhistory #ClassicMovies

NEWS AND INFORMATION SONY PICTURES CEO PREDICTS INDUSTRY 'CHAOS' OVER THE NEXT 2 YEARS: 'MERGERS AND BANKRUPTCIES AND SALES' (By Tony Maglio) If you think the Paramount-Skydance drama was a bit much, you’re going to hate the next couple of years, Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Tony Vinciquerra warned on Thursday. At the annual Bank of America Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference, Vinciquerra said Hollywood is in for “chaos” over the next two years. He predicted the industry is in for a wave of “mergers and bankruptcies and sales and all kinds of fun things,” and that only the biggest companies will survive. Unless, that is, those giants “make some massive mistake or miscalculation” along the way. “The business […] will be in a period of chaos for the next 18 to 24 months,” Vinciquerra said. “Just look at all the companies with cable networks that have this albatross of cable networks around their necks that they have to figure out what to do with.” Easy for him to say: SPE doesn’t have much in terms of cable-channel ownership. It does, however, provide an enormous amount of content to other companies’ broadcast and cable channels (and yes, streaming). That positioning is where Vinciquerra is, wants to be, and will stay. His peers at Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global, meanwhile, can feel the albatross’s talons tightening. Both companies just devalued their respective cable businesses by billions of dollars, have stocks that are in the toilet, and are ripe for the picking. To read the entire article, click on the below link: https://lnkd.in/guGpbjbG — #entertainmentnews #entertainmentindustry #streamingservice #cablechannels

NEWS AND INFORMATION PURE FICTION: THE BLACK LIST OFFERS NEW NOVELISTS A NEW AVENUE TO PUBLICATION, TV & FILM ADAPTATIONS (By Dominic Patten) Over three months before the 20th edition of The Black List hits inboxes all over town, the Franklin Leonard founded platform is broadening its horizon into novels. “The Black List’s core mission has always been discovering, supporting, and amplifying exceptional writing–providing it with the platform and visibility that it deserves based on its merit,” said Leonard today of the move into fiction with manuscript submissions and connections to the world of adaptation for TV and film. “Expanding into fiction is a natural progression. “Right now, there are brilliant writers around the world who don’t have access to high-quality, accountable feedback, and whose work goes unseen for reasons entirely unrelated to how good it is,” the Black List CEO adds. “That’s a massive market failure, and it changes today. I have no doubt that The Black List will find exceptional manuscripts that will become enormously popular published novels and film and television adaptations. Congratulations in advance to the publishers and film and television professionals who find them here. I look forward to reading and watching them when they do.” With new initiatives like the genre specific Unpublished Novel Award and a partnership with Simon Kinberg’s Genre Films for a $25,000 award to option unpublished manuscripts, the Black List’s foray into fiction will be led by Randy Winston. “Randy’s resume and reputation in the book world speak for themselves,” Leonard said of the ex-Director of Writing Programs at The Center for Fiction and former Fiction Editor at "Slice" Literary Magazine, “But the work he’s done since joining the team in February should make absolutely everyone excited about the future. Today’s announcements are just the tip of the iceberg.” To continue reading, click on the below link: https://lnkd.in/gFxNEWVf — #theblacklist #novelists #novels #publicationsupport #writerscommunity #writingcommunity

NEWS AND INFORMATION WHAT HAPPENED TO NATIONAL CINEMA DAY? IT'S COMPLICATED (By Tom Brueggemann) The deeply discounted end-of-summer theatrical event was wildly popular in 2022 and 2023, but that's also part of the problem. If tradition held for National Cinema Day — the National Association of Theater Owners-sponsored (in partnership with the Cinema Foundation) one-day event when U.S. theaters sell deeply discounted tickets — it would have taken place last weekend. Historically, it sells upward of 8 million tickets, but there’s no date reserved for 2024. In a statement to IndieWire, the Cinema Foundation said, “Currently, we are exploring all opportunities to expand the program, but conversations with all of the parties are ongoing and no decisions have been made on the details.” Theaters may still embrace NCD in another format, but the nascent tradition skipped its pre-Labor Day slot. While the $3 and $4 tickets (2022 and 2023, respectively) increased grosses, customers, and concession sales, the swell of patrons also strained staff and facilities among the 4,000 theaters that participated. Theaters in Los Angeles and Atlanta faced crowds unruly enough to require police evacuation. While that’s the most dramatic potential reason for NCD’s delay, it also faces challenges in the changing nature of post-COVID box office. Unlike its predecessors, this year’s Labor Day-adjacent dates had significant new wide releases. Distributors are prohibited from setting ticket prices, but they have some say by virtue of contractual entitlement: Film rentals are based on a minimum price, so NCD requires distributors to waive those clauses. No major film would want to dilute its opening-weekend gross with discounted tickets while facing elevated competition from bargain-priced films. [For] now, it appears to be a work in progress. — To read the entire article, click on the below link: https://lnkd.in/euatjHQe — #NationalCinemaDay #movietickets

HOLLYWOOD HISTORY 100 YEARS LATER, REVISITING BUSTER KEATON IN THE MULTIVERSE (By Thomas Doherty) The comedian-auteur labored over his fifth and shortest feature film for five months before unveiling what would become a prescient Jazz Age meditation on the relationship of audiences to screens. A hundred years later, the sequence still radiates an otherworldly aura: a man wearing a porkpie hat walks down the aisle of a movie theater, steps up onto the stage, and slips into the motion picture screen. The film we have been watching — a conventional enough story of a boy who loses his girl due to a dumb misunderstanding — flows fluidly into another cinematic realm, where the boy is a brilliant detective who outwits the bad guys, solves the crime, and gets the girl. One Hollywood fantasy is switched for a more beguiling Hollywood fantasy. The film, of course, is "Sherlock Jr." (1924), directed by and starring Buster Keaton, the greatest of all silent film comedian-auteurs. (Team Chaplin is welcome to dissent.) It is the usual Keaton concoction of ingenious gags, trick photography and jaw-dropping stunt work, but the film, true to its name, is also an investigation into the role of screen imagery in our imaginative lives, a prescient Jazz Age meditation on a relationship that has only grown more intimate over time, as the screens have moved closer, into our living rooms, into our hands. [O]f the great silent comedians, Buster Keaton has traveled into our own realm without a trace of mileage. [K]eaton’s appeal hasn’t dated — the stoicism, the mechanical dexterity, the target fixation on the task at hand. Among the mute stars from the first chapter of Hollywood’s history, he has attained a status that is not just pantheon but (arguably) preeminent. [H]ollywood also seems to favor Keaton. His full-screen immersion in "Sherlock Jr." has provided a model for whole tributaries of fantasy, SF, and adventure films. Every successive medium seems to have inspired a variation on the Keaton theme of a youngster being vacuumed through a portal into an FX-laden screen realm: television ("Pleasantville," 1998), video games ("Tron," 1982), computer software ("The Matrix," 1999), and too many MCU/DCCU multiverses to count. The most explicit homage is Woody Allen’s "The Purple Rose of Cairo" (1985), a clever reversal of the Keaton conceit. [Y]et none of the descendants has matched the ingenuity of the wrap-up in the original, what Keaton and his colleagues would have called “the topper.” To read the entire article, click on the below link: https://lnkd.in/gbrSznAP — #hollywoodhistory #hollywoodmovies #busterkeaton #silentmovie #silentmovies

NEWS AND INFORMATION 'CITY OF DREAMS' FILMMAKERS GIVING AWAY $1 MILLION IN SNEAK PREVIEW TICKETS TO ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS' CHILD TRAFFICKING DRAMA (By Matt Grobar) With the theatrical release of Roadside Attractions‘ child trafficking drama City of Dreams coming up, the filmmakers will be giving away $1 million in free tickets for a series of sneak previews beginning Wednesday, August 28, the studio announced today. It’s expected that the giveaway will result in more than 50,000 moviegoers coming out. The hope is to bring out trafficking survivors and individuals from anti-trafficking organizations, as well as schools, churches, municipalities, and people who might not otherwise be able to afford a screening. Complimentary advance preview passes are available at the link (https://lnkd.in/gm2Dg8HB). In the top 25 markets nationwide, iHeart Media will provide live coverage, with on-air talent on site to help bring added awareness to the issue of child trafficking. The ticket giveaway was made possible through a donation from John Devaney, founder of United Capital and Manor House Films. Inspired by a landmark sweatshop case in El Monte, CA, City of Dreams chronicles the journey of a Mexican boy (newcomer Ari Lopez) whose dreams of becoming a soccer star are shattered when he’s smuggled across the border and sold to a sweatshop in downtown Los Angeles. Pic marks the feature debut of veteran producer Mohit Ramchandani, who directed from his own script. [In] the lead-up to City of Dreams‘ release, numerous celebrities of different stripes have gotten involved to help promote the film and its mission to end child trafficking. The list includes actors Mira Sorvino, Sylvester Stallone, Martin Sheen, Anthony Ramos, Frank Grillo, Thomas Jane, Katheryn Winnick, Marisol Nichols and Carlos Ponce; producer and studio executive Peter Guber; talk show host Kathie Lee Gifford; iHeart Latino president Enrique Santos; the Miami Heat’s Pat Riley; musician Prince Royce; journalists Pamela Silva, María Celeste and María Elena Salinas; model Karolina Kurkova; and more. To read the entire article, click on the below link: https://lnkd.in/g9cjhNeS — #entertainmentnews #filmmaking #cityofdreamsmovie #manorhousefilms #UnitedCapital #childtraffickingawareness #childtrafficking

FRIDAY FUNNIES...

NEWS AND INFORMATION CALIFORNIA VS. THE WORLD: THE RACE TO NAB FILM AND TV PRODUCTIONS (By Winston Cho) Locales from Atlanta to Tokyo are steadily beefing up their tax relief programs in bids to attract Hollywood money. Last year, New York dispersed about $124 million in tax credits to various entities belonging to Paramount Global as a reward for 10 projects that were shot in the state. Those productions…invested nearly $425 million in the region through labor and other costs. California, meanwhile, saw just $71 million in spending from Paramount Global for titles that were granted credits in 2023 to film in the area. The figure was a far cry from the $295 million the company spent for projects that were awarded incentives just three years earlier. It’s the latest in a trend of productions turning away from the Golden State and toward other jurisdictions that are steadily beefing up their tax relief programs in bids to attract Hollywood money. [A] report from FilmLA...found an anemic return to filming in Los Angeles after production was decimated by the work stoppages. The main reason for the sluggish rebound: a double-digit drop in TV shoots in the three-month period from January to March. Filming in the category…trailed its five-year average by more than 32 percent. A subsequent report from the film office found that overall production from April to June declined roughly 12 percent compared to the same period last year and more than 33 percent compared with the five-year average, even accounting for low activity during the strikes. Tax incentives play a key role in the erosion of California’s share of production. The state’s film commission…offers a 20 percent base credit to feature films and TV series — lower than most other jurisdictions vying for Hollywood dollars, including New York, New Mexico and the U.K. — and has a $330 million cap on the program. In comparison, Georgia, which has the same base incentive as California’s but offers a 10 percent uplift for displaying the state logo in the project, distributed $2.6 billion in credits to 273 productions in the 2024 fiscal year. Its program doesn’t have a cap on the amount in tax breaks it gives to productions annually. Kelsey Moore, executive director for the Georgia Screen Entertainment Coalition, stresses that the state…is now “competing handily” with Los Angeles and New York. [Y]et, despite efforts by other locales to lure movies and TV shows, California remains the heartland of production. [Lawyer, Ian] Brereton notes, “It’s still the place where the magic is made.” To read the entire article, click on the below link: https://lnkd.in/gDY5idDN — #entertainmentnews #entertainmentindustry #filmmaking #tvproduction #filmproduction