Gifting The Gifted On The Fest Circuit

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Features

Published on Monday, 15 November 2010 10:57

Written by Trent Gough

We’ve all heard of, and probably envied, celebrities who receive gift bags (also know as swag bags, goody bags, etc.) in addition to their stratospheric salaries. These gifts are tied to sophisticated marketing and promotional efforts, frequently handed out at the Golden Globes, Sundance Film Festival, Academy Awards, the Cannes Film Festival, plus fashion, sports and entertainment industry events.  

Says Jane Ubell-Meyer, president of Madison & Mulholland, a New York gifting firm, “gifting is about showcasing amazing, new and cool products to the media to create exposure that normally you could not even pay for through advertising.” Ubell-Meyer's company provides gifting services at the Oscars, Emmys, New York’s Fashion Week and VIP gifting for the Hamptons Jitneys, American Airlines and private jets.

“As long as there are red-carpet events and awards shows, celebrity exposure will be generated and gifting will occur,” adds Mark Harris, director of global strategic marketing for Wow Creations, who does gifting around the Oscars, Sundance and other film festivals as well as the William Shatner and alfinso Mourning celebrity charity events, consults on swag’s upside for marketers. “This industry is all about branding.”

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RIP: Roy Lichtenstein Influence Jerry Grandenetti

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Features

Published on Friday, 01 October 2010 05:32

Written by Frank Lovece

Belated word has come that comics great Jerry Grandenetti died February 19, 2010, at age 83. A comic-book artist whose career stretched from the early days of the medium well into the 1980s before he left to become an advertising art director, Grandenetti was one of DC Comics' most acclaimed war-story artists, alongside the likes of Joe Kubert and Russ Heath.

Renowned painter Roy Lichtenstein, who famously appropriated pop-culture images to reimagine and comment on them, based his 1962 drawing Jet Pilot on a Grandenetti comic-book panel (the cover of DC's All-American Men of War #89 - Feb. 1962; the lower-right panel is the source of Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein's drawing).

Grandenetti's death was confirmed by his daughter, Jennifer Pedersen, who said the official cause was "cardiopulmonary arrest, but he had cancer that had metastasized." He lived in Bellport, NY, on Long Island, and died at Brookhaven Memorial Hospital in nearby East Patchogue.

"Growing up, we had no idea he was famous. He was just dad," she said. "Later on, I'd go with him to a comics convention and see people asking for his autograph, and that was just the neatest thing in the world. He was a great artist and dad."

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NY's Quad Cinema Adapts to Changing Film Environment

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Features

Published on Saturday, 08 May 2010 07:40

Written by Laura Blum

Floored is a new documentary about the demise of the unfittest in Chicago's commodities markets. With filmmakers struggling to adapt to a mutant distribution environment, could it also be a metaphor for today's indie film industry?

The doc, by James Allen Smith, opened today at New York's Quad Cinema through a self-distribution mechanism that would make Darwin proud. Called “Quad Cinema 4-Wall Select,” the initiative allows filmmakers to show their work in the weighty media market of Manhattan.

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