Company/Organization Profiles

Story producers are an integral part of the collaborative effort in the cinematic arts. Their job is to bring out the fullest potential in the story. They hone story strengths and create the structural foundation necessary to generate an unforgettable on-screen experience. Directors, screenwriters, and studios use story producers to construct, develop, and evaluate their project’s story.

While creative professionals continue to adapt in the face of economic hurdles, the LEF Foundation, founded in 1985 to support contemporary art, has made changes of its own with ramifications that impact both narrative and documentary filmmakers seeking financial assistance.

The influx of regional film production has increased the demand for local crews, actors, actresses and equipment -- including lighting gear. Kaye Lites, which has provided lighting, grip, and expendables for over 19 years, has responded by expanding its warehouse space, opening the ASAP Supply Store in Woburn, MA, and devoting a unique space for customers to hang out and try new equipment.

Let’s say after watching a particularly good or bad acting performance you say to yourself, “I could do that.” Well, maybe you could, but where and how would you start?

A 16-year-old Indian girl dressed in a beautiful silk tunic dances across the screen to the music of Bollywood.  She is upbeat, joyful and spontaneous.  A few moments later, the young woman is lying on a sofa, writhing in pain.  Sonum is suffering from the effects of polluted water in her town in northern India.  The problem stems from a medical college that dumped waste into a local river in Meerut, India, causing environmental illness among local people.  Sonum’s physical and emotional transformation, captured on video, is read more...

One morning each month, a group of artists, armed with a digital camera, gather for coffee, scones, and, inevitably, a whole lot more.

This Just In

Actors Mick Hoegen and Fran Richmond, co-chairs of the Boston AFTRA/SAG Independent Film Committee (a sub-committee of the Boston AFTRA/SAG Organizing Committee) will take questions on breaking into the indie film scene as an actor at a free discussion on January 8th, 7 pm, at the Borders book store in Providence Place.   Hosted by Toni Pennacchia of spoileralertradio.com and Adam Short, RIIFF's producing director.   

Like a species brought back from the brink of extinction, the American independent movie theatre is experiencing something of a comeback.  Suburban multiplexes effectively wiped out most smaller movie houses but here and there passionate film lovers and plucky entrepreneurs are rebutting conventional economic wisdom.  A great example of this is the Red River Theatres in Concord, NH, which opened in October of 2007 to enthusiastic community support.

This month, NewEnglandFilm.com invited Center for Independent Documentary's executive director Susi Walsh to contribute a report from the field at NAMAC.  Read it below or check out her blog.

More than a few summer visitors to Martha’s Vineyard have dreamt of staying and living on the island year-round.  Yet, beyond the beaches and the restaurants and the shops is the reality of the lives of everyday people who call the island home.  Their lives are about making a living in the off-season, and finding a home in a place where housing prices hover in the exorbitant range and there is no such thing as a year-round rental.

The shine is still on the Oscar statuettes and the memories of the Independent Spirit Awards are still fresh, but for a growing group of Boston film fans the award season isn’t over until “The Trudies” are handed out on March 18th. “Trudies” are awards given by the Chlotrudis Society for Independent Film, whose mission is to develop audiences for non-mainstream film in all its forms -- short, feature, animated and documentary. This year the Awards Ceremony will be held on Sunday, March 18th at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge.

WGBH Boston, the source of more than one-third of PBS’s prime time line-up, is making its facilities available to independent filmmakers through its new WGBH Lab. The Lab is designed to encourage filmmakers to experiment with clips from NOVA, Anatomical Travelogues and other WGBH productions in the Video Sandbox. "It’s about public participation and reaching out for new ideas and new filmmakers," says Denise DiIanni, executive in charge of Boston media productions.

After more than 30 years of service to the independent film community and nearly a year of struggle to reorganize and raise emergency funds, the Association of Independent Video & Filmmakers (AIVF) announced its closure on July 26. The email blast was one of several updates sent to members from the board of directors regarding the organization’s instability. Remaining board members took proposals to transition The Independent, the organization’s national monthly magazine, to new management read more...

Well, we just shipped the final DVDs to the winner of our Heartwood Non-Profit Challenge.

As you may recall in part 1 of this article, written a few months ago, we had grown tired of the last-minute, sometimes ill-conceived, and often uninspired pro-bono projects that we had been asked to do.

Our plan was to take control of the pro-bono projects we were doing by starting a contest. Here was the plan, as written by yours truly:

You could walk right past Hatchling Studios in downtown Portsmouth New Hampshire without noticing the door that leads up one flight of stairs to the world Mark Dole has created. Nestled in between brew pubs, coffee shops and an eclectic mix of specialty retail shops, the animation and web design company that has created an international buzz seems right at home in this New England Brigadoon. Like the skeptics from Disney and Pixar who came to verify that the studio really exists, I wanted to see the place "where technology becomes art," read more...

Industrialist Henry Ford once said, "Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success." This is a concept that the Alliance of Independent Motion Media (AIMM) has proven to be true.

AIMM is made up of six separately functioning non-profit organizations: Center for Independent Documentary, Central Productions, The Color of Film Collaborative, Filmmakers Collaborative, LEF New England, and WGBH - Boston Media Productions.

What happens when an organized group of enthusiastic New Englander’s pool their resources, talent, and time? The answer is: they win an award for local filmmakers at the Rhode Island International Film Festival. This August 2006, the Rhode Island Film Collaborative (RIFC) won the Providence Film Festival for local filmmakers of Rhode Island grand prize for their short film, "The Daydream." The RIFC is a fast growing network of filmmakers proving that artists can produce good films on a small to zero budget and gain local and national attention.

With a video camera, some editing equipment and a lot of talent, teenagers in New Haven, Connecticut are discovering the true power of filmmaking and are taking on profound yet controversial issues in their community.

About four months ago, someone in the office had a bright idea.

"Say, why don’t we do a free video? We could donate it to a non-profit. We’ll have a contest and pick a winner. It’ll be fun."

Hmmm. People looked up from their computer monitors.

"It would be fun, and we could make sure it was a great project, for them and for us," our clever colleague continued.

Tucked behind the sprawling Charles River campus of Boston University in an unassuming strip of office buildings is the 22,000 square foot facility that houses National Boston: National Boston is New England’s premiere design, motion graphics, high and standard definition television resource. The company was founded in the early 1990s by Tom Sprague to provide corporations, broadcast networks, advertising agencies, and filmmakers the ability to extend their brands and films across the nation and the world.

Everything Ann Marie Fleming writes comes true. The award-winning filmmaker learned this unsettling fact about herself after making The French Guy, a farcical horror film, showing at the Boston Underground Film Festival this month. While penning the script, she believed that her story was all fiction, written purely on a whim. It was only when she’d finished filming that she realized the gruesome tale’s all-too-real foundation: "At the 2003 Toronto International Film Festival, I was presenting a documentary on my read more...

Imagine building a full service production company from the ground up. How do you picture spending the first year? Building a client base? Beefing up your demo reel? Developing a recognizable brand?

How about winning an Emmy?

Dean "Dino" Georgopoulos’s resume includes business planning for Quentin Tarantino, teaching Don King to surf the net, building a "one box" live production studio for Orange County, and coaching hockey. NewEnglandFilm.com recently spoke with the New Hampshire native about one of his many innovations -- ROADance -- a shorts festival projected on a truck that he drives through Park City, Utah during the town’s busiest time of year.

Erin Trahan: So should I call you Dean or Dino?

Political puns aside, a strong coalition of Massachusetts film, television, and media producers along with labor unions and others actively involved in the industry have formed an official body to attract not only more projects and work to the Bay State, but also to provide a forum for a variety of production concerns, issues, and opportunities.

Writers often crave isolation. They need complete silence while they work and cannot be swayed from their vision. But what happens after the piece is written? Where does the new writer go with his or her pristine 300-page manuscript? New Hampshire’s answer to this is the New Hampshire Writers’ Project. One of the most comprehensive organizations in support of literary careers, the NHWP serves every aspect of the writing profession, from publication to book sales, to education, and reading. Working on every side, NHWP develops new writers, new read more...

Look at the horizon and rising high in the sky is one of Boston’s and New England’s newest talents in motion picture production, Joe Gatto who helms Liquid Lunch Productions. Gatto is an Arlington, Massachusetts native who always had a love of film. After spending some time in Berkley, California and making a variety of short films there, he returned to New England several years back to launch Liquid Lunch Productions.