The Lively Group family of companies–which includes design/visual effects/animation studio Spontaneous, editorial/post house BlueRock, and beauty and luxury shop Scarlett which specializes in conceptual design, VFX and photo-real CG–has hired Chloe Sedelmaier to serve as sr. sales agent, Sedelmaier has worked in business development at Taylor James and Bang Music + Audio Post, and as a sales rep at Launch and Über Content.,,,LOGAN, a bicoastal content-creation studio, has appointed Marie Soto as an EP. She will head up sales and business development at LOGAN and its live-action division Logan & Sons. Prior to LOGAN, Soto was an EP at Omnicom Group, @radical.media, Accent Media and Belief Design. Soto, who has assembled and led creative teams in the U.S., Europe and South America, arrives with a deep and varied background in live action, design, visual effects and post. Her work spans clients such as Nike, Subaru, Infiniti, Visa and 20th Century Fox….ICM Partners is now representing costume designer/stylist Mobolaji Dawodu for commercials, music videos, and features exclusively….Dattner Dispoto and Associates (DDA) has booked cinematographer Sam Levy on the HBO series Crashing, and DP Blake McClure on season four of Comedy Central’s Drunk History. On the theatrical feature front, DDA has booked DP Paul Cameron, ASC on The Commuter (director Jaume Collet-Serra, Lionsgate), and production designer Hannah Beachler on Black Panther (director Ryan Coogler, Marvel/Disney). DDA also has three cinematographer clients with features that premiered at the soon-to-wrap Cannes Film Festival. DP Giles Nuttgens shot Hell or High Water screened in the Un Certain Regard category; Bob Gantz, ASC shot Blood Father which screened Out of Competition as did Hands of Stone which was lensed by DP Miguel “Ioan” Littin Menz…..
James Earl Jones, Lauded Actor and Voice of Darth Vader, Dies At 93
James Earl Jones, who overcame racial prejudice and a severe stutter to become a celebrated icon of stage and screen — eventually lending his deep, commanding voice to CNN, "The Lion King" and Darth Vader — has died. He was 93.
His agent, Barry McPherson, confirmed Jones died Monday morning at home in New York's Hudson Valley region. The cause was not immediately clear.
The pioneering Jones, who was one of the first African American actors in a continuing role on a daytime drama and worked deep into his 80s, won two Emmys, a Golden Globe, two Tony Awards, a Grammy, the National Medal of Arts, the Kennedy Center Honors and was given an honorary Oscar and a special Tony for lifetime achievement. In 2022, a Broadway theater was renamed in his honor.
He cut an elegant figure late in life, with a wry sense of humor and a ferocious work habit. In 2015, he arrived at rehearsals for a Broadway run of "The Gin Game" having already memorized the play and with notebooks filled with comments from the creative team. He said he was always in service of the work.
"The need to storytell has always been with us," he told The Associated Press then. "I think it first happened around campfires when the man came home and told his family he got the bear, the bear didn't get him."
Jones created such memorable film roles as the reclusive writer coaxed back into the spotlight in "Field of Dreams," the boxer Jack Johnson in the stage and screen hit "The Great White Hope," the writer Alex Haley in "Roots: The Next Generation" and a South African minister in "Cry, the Beloved Country."
He was also a sought-after voice actor, expressing the villainy of Darth Vader ("No, I am your father," commonly misremembered as "Luke, I am your father"), as... Read More