ACTRESS JULIANNA MARGULIES IS ILL – she has chicken pox – and her scheduled appearance Sunday, May 15 at Anderson’s Bookstore in Naperville has been canceled. “The Good Wife” star has been on tour promoting her children’s book, “Three Magic Balloons,” and her visit here will be rescheduled for another time.
THE WEEKEND WILL BE PACKED with city-sponsored Lake FX Summit events, with media and entertainment-related panels taking place at the Gene Siskel Film Center and the Cultural Center, free and open to all. Here are some of Friday’s panels:
“STATE OF THE UNION: Labor, Film and TV,” is the 10:30 a.m. panel at the Siskel Center, with business managers Mark Hogan, Local 476 Studio Mechanics; Eric Chaudron, SAG AFTRA; Shirley Berling, Theatrical Wardrobe Local 769; Justin Conway, Camera Local 600 and Mike DeGard, Teamsters 727.
HBO PRESIDENT LEN AMATO, West Garfield native, Triton College and Columbia College grad, and Columbia College grad producer Bob Teitel, will hold forth at the Cultural Center Friday at noon, talking with Columbia’s film department chair Bruce Sheridan.
MEET THE INDEPENDENT FILM ORGANIZATIONS at the Siskel Center, 1:30, with speakers Brenda Webb, Chicago Filmmakers; Craig Harris, Creative Cypher; Keaton Wooden, IFP/Chicago; Carrie Hunter, Women in Film; Dante Bacani, Chicago Screenwriters Network, moderated by SAG AFTRA’s Kathy Byrne.
FILMMAKER NIC COLLINS moved from Chicago to Los Angeles, but his new sci-fi webseries, “Year of the Snake,” was shot here. It screens Sunday, May 15 at the Beauty Bar, 1444 W. Chicago, 8 p.m. The Reader calls the series “hilarious and deeply weird – think ‘Mork & Mindy,’ but with two dudes making stoned jokes about music and technology.”
CHICAGO AGENCY CAVALRY, assembled by WPP in mid 2012 to handle Coors Light and new products, has been folded back into Y&R Chicago (also owned by WPP). Cavalry lost the MillerCoors business last year.
Meanwhile, Cavalry president Marty Stock was also appointed president of Y&R Chicago, leading a staff of 100 in both agencies. He replaces John Fraser, who joined from Mcgarryowen and left after just a year.
REEL MICHIGAN. Director Harold Cronk, of 10 West Studios, whose “God’s Not Dead” grossed $62.6 million on a budget of $2 million, will shoot his new faith-based film, “God Bless the Broken Road,” in Manistee and Grand Rapids, and the Berlin Raceway.
The new film will be produced through his 10 West Studios, Great Basin Entertainment and A Really Good Home Pictures. It will combine elements of faith, country music and stock car racing while paying tribute to those who serve our country.
Cronk, a West Michigan native, began his career in L in 2004 as an art director and production designer. He move back to Michigan in 2008 and founded his studio to focus on family and faith-based content.
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