PAIR OF FORMER CRC STAFFERS have teamed up to form the new music company Diplomacy Music. They are Mike Middleton, a former CRC producer who produced for Frayne Lewis’ OneSun Enertainment division, and Dan Burnelle, a CRC staff composer and engineer.
While both partners share composing duties, Middleton calls Burnelle “more the artist, the creative director,” whereas he, with a minor in business, along with a degree in classical music, is the executive producer. Their first assignment was scoring The Beef Checkoff’s new web campaign for Leo Burnett.
“One of the big strengths we have, when you start to look at it, is this modern electronic music movement,” says Middleton,who also leads his own band, referring to Brunelle’s growing reputation for his indie electronica band, The Gemini Club, whose unconventional live shows have been tearing up the club scene for the past two years. The band has a specially designed rig that allows it to do on-the-fly remixing of their own songs, so each performance is different from the last.
The Gemini Club currently has two singles in the Top 10 on the iTunes electronic charts.
Diplomacy Music, working out of rehearsal space in Bucktown where the partners do most of their writing, have adopted “a guerilla style flexibility to be mobile. We realize that, in post, clients can review tracks on computers, which is where 90% of audience will hear music,” Middleton says.
CHICAGO’S VIBRANT VISUAL EFFECTS market has grown still another notch with RelevantVFX’ signing of Val Gobos to represent the new boutique studio in the Midwest. The company is owned by Founder/VFX Supervisor/Artist Connor Meechan; executive producer is Mary Matusz, who previously sold for two familiar L.A.-based companies – Beast and Red Car.
One of RelevantVFX’ specialties is previs (previsualization), which performs the same role in preproduction that non-linear offline editing plays in post, when creative decisions can be made quickly, easily and inexpensively. Relevant collaborates with a roster of L.A. and European visual effects artists for a range of effects which include on-set/location data acquisition, particle based effects and natural phenomenon stimulation for spot and features.
ON ITS 30TH YEAR in business as a premier event staging service and audio/video/lighting equipment rental, AV Chicago has expanded into a 23,000-sq. ft. facility at 619 W. Taylor in the South Loop.
SIX SPOT COMPANIES will be filming in Chicago over the next t5wo wees. We know that L.A.-based Park Pictures is here for a Chevy shoot next weekend, but can’t report the products that STORY, L.A.’s Believe Media and Biscuit (through local 59 Films), and Twist of Minneapolis are shooting, but assume they are for major advertisers.
Meanwhile, the Blue (first) unit and Green (second) unit for Showtime’s “Shameless” wrap a five and four day, respectively, shoot on city streets for the series that’s set in Chicago but filmed in L.A. Expect Blue and Green to return in November for more of the same.
A CHICAGO-SET INDIE MOVIE, the romcom “You May Not Kiss the Bride,” about a man forced to marry the daughter of a Chicago mobster, was filmed in … Hawaii. Said the producer, undoubtedly with a straight face: “We made Hawaii look like Chicago and Tahiti, where the movie is set.”
It stars Rob Schneider, Mena Suvari, Kathy Bates and Kevin Dunn.
Can’t wait to see it.
“THE BUSINESS OF FILMMAKING” is the panel that Chris Johnson of Johnsonese Insurance is hosting Sept. 18 to discuss current business issues relating to filmmaking and to answer questions. Panelists are Daliah Saper, principal in the entertainment law firm of Saper Law Offices, LLC, Jim Laubinger, CPA, principal, film accounting and tax incentives firm of Corbett, Duncan & Hubly, P.C.; Mark Krausz, owner, film payroll specialists Falcon Paymasters, and Johnson.
The event is free and open to all, at 505 N. LaSalle, suite 350, 6:30-8:30 p.m. RSVP to info@johnsonese.com.
Send your news and notes to ruth@reelchicago.com.
