CHICAGO AREA good works companies won the biggest number of grants – a total of $500,000 — in the just-concluded 2011 Chase Community Giving program that asked the public to vote on Facebook for the organization they deemed most worthy of Chase’s generous grant-giving.
Grants of $25,000 each were awarded to 20 local organizations, of which 15 were performing arts, including the Midwest Independent Film Festival.
The arts winners are: Chicago Tap Theatre, Chicago Dance Crash, Inaside Chicago Dance NFP, Visceral Dance, Chicago Midwest Independent Film Festival, Culture Shock, Porchlight Music Theatre, Jump Rhythm Jazz Project, Studio BE, Ka-Tet Theatre, Joel Hall Dancers & Center; Northshore Concert Band of Evanston, Curtain Call Community Theatre, Frankfort and The Music Theatre Company, Highland Park.
CHICAGO NATIVE SHERRY LANSING, the first woman to head a major Hollywood studio, has committed $5 million to support a major new facility for performing and visual arts at the University of Chicago Lab Schools.
The centerpiece of the new arts wing – which will boast performance halls, studios, digital media lab and more – will be a 250-seat multiplex theatre named the Sherry Lansing Theatre.
South Sider Lansing, a 1962 Lab School grad, graduated cum laude from Northwestern and thereafter spent almost 30 years deep inside the Hollywood film industry. She was chairman/CEO of Paramount from 1992-2005. She is married to North Sider William Friedkin, famous as director of “The Exorcist”.
COMMERCIAL SHOOTS this week are led by Walmart, via The Martin, but with a local production company and director. STORY and director John Komnenich has been added to the roster of bi-coastal companies Hungry Man, Radical Media, Go Films, Smuggler and Chelseam that have been shooting Walmart spots here for the past several months, benefiting from our Illinois tax credit.
Komnenich will shoot in a location house and at a Walmart store, says STORY executive producer Mark Androw.
Other known shoots: RSA for T-Mobile in a suburban shopping mall; Paradoxal/New York shoots Bulls star Derrick Rose for Addidas; East Pleasant Pictures/New York films beauty shots of the city for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines; Second City Communications at Essanay.
STARZ’ HIT “BOSS” SERIES will return to Chicago and Cinespace offices in January to prep for the second gripping season that will start filming in March.
SCREENWRITER/ADMAN COLIN COSTELLO, the newly elected president of the Chicago Screenwriting Network and fellow board members for the 2012-2014 term will meet CSN members Dec. 4 at the Lincoln Restaurant starting at 5:30 p.m.
New board officers, all screenwriters, are: VP, Christina Wollerman, a former New York actress currently at Leo Burnett; treasurer, Julie Glassman, copywriter and novelist; secretary, Judy Alexander; VP/events and speakers, screenwriter/ad exec Linda Frothingham; VPs/contest, playwright/actor Rich Watkins and UCLA screenwriting grad Michael Kandarev, of Angry Chow Writers;
VPs/communication, freelance writer Denise O’Neal and integrated marketing/communications expert Leyla Arsan; VP/education, agency producer Rose Antoniou, and IT developer Michael DeRosa is CSN’s web developer and webmaster.
Special guest at the Dec. 4 meeting is horror film “Munger Road” writer/director Nicholas Smith.
DAUF TIME is what Lawrence Daufenbach of Daufenbach Cameras calls a series of open houses starting Dec. 1, from 5 to 7 p.m. On display will be a demonstration of the news Red Camera, the newest camera, Scarlet-X, along with a 3D gig. Their goal is to showcase new arrivals, discuss technology and give guests hands-on time on new equipment and have questions about the gear answers. Daufenbach is at 320 N. Damen.
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