Aronofsky and Lievsay to Receive Top Motion Picture Sound Editors Awards

While the New York isn’t yet known as “the” place to edit feature motion pictures, two awards to be meted out by the Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE) society show that might be changing.

Supervising Sound Editor Skip Lievsay is on tap to receive the society’s 2015 MPSE Career Achievement Award, while Aronofsky gets the group’s Filmmaker Award. Both awards will come at the MPSE’s 62nd annual Golden Reel Awards in February at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles. Both creatives are based in New York.

Skip Lievsay

Lievsay, who is both a Supervising Sound Editor and Re-Recording Mixer, shared the 2014 Academy Award for Best Sound Mixing with fellow editors for their work on Gravity. In the industry for more than 30 years, Lievsay has contributed to almost 150 films, and is a frequent collaborator with New York-based directors Joel and Ethan Coen, Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee, and John Sayles.

Darren Aronofsky

Aronofsky’s career has been notable for films that are much more a personal, surreal vision than the typical Hollywood product, with titles including Noah, Black Swan and Requiem for a Dream. He has been quoted as saying that, among other things, he was inspired to become a filmmaker because of “the exciting possibilities of experimenting with sound.” In that same Variety article by reporter Marianne Zumberge, Aronofsky said that “Sound dreams, sound emotes and, most importantly, sound is what often saves my ass.”

About Dan Ochiva

New York City-based journalist and NYCPPNEWS founder Dan Ochiva writes and consults on film, video, and digital media technology.

Kami Asgar and Jessica Parks are post-production heavyweights who work with major studios, namely Sony. As a sound designer (Asgar) and as a post executive (Parks), their collective resume touches on everything from Apocalypto to Grandma’s Boy to Venom.

Parks has recently shifted her focus from supervisor to hands-on sound design, and we talk about how it’s never too late to pivot on your career path and find the thing you love doing wherever you are in life.

Click on this link to read the rest of the article on No Film School’s site.

The coronavirus relief package that Congressional leaders agreed to this week includes grant money that many small proprietors described as a last hope for survival.

For the music venue owners, theater producers and cultural institutions that have suffered through the pandemic with no business, the coronavirus relief package that Congress passed on Monday night offers the prospect of aid at last.

To read the full article on The New York Times’ site, click here.

Phase 4 production guidance is available on the Film Permit website. All production activity, whether it requires a Film Permit or not, must comply with New York Forward Industry Guidance.

For more information see, please refer to the State Department of Health’s Interim Guidance for Media Production During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency. Please review the guidelines and FAQ before submitting permit applications. The Film Office is operating remotely, so please allow additional time for Film Permit processing.

The above paragraphs contain links to the various FAQ – just mouse over the relevant words.

NVIDIA Research has invented a way to use AI to dramatically reduce video call bandwidth while simultaneously improving quality

What the researchers have achieved has remarkable results: by replacing the traditional h.264 video codec with a neural network, they have managed to reduce the required bandwidth for a video call by an order of magnitude. In one example, the required data rate fell from 97.28 KB/frame to a measly 0.1165 KB/frame – a reduction to 0.1% of required bandwidth.

To read the rest of this article on Petapixel, click this link.

Law360 (October 9, 2020, 5:22 PM EDT) — The Motion Picture Industry Health Plan’s board can’t be sued under ERISA for allegedly flouting its duties when it relaxed plan rules in response to COVID-19, a California federal judge has ruled, nixing a proposed class action filed by two cinematographers who still couldn’t qualify for benefits.

In an order entered Thursday, U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner granted the board of directors’ motion to dismiss Greg Endries and Dee Nichols’ Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit accusing board members of breaching their duty to treat all plan participants fairly.

Endries and Nichols, members of Local 600 of the International Cinematographers Guild, said in July that the board left them and others “out in the cold” in its attempts to address the problems COVID-19 caused for plan participants.

But Judge Klausner agreed with the board’s contention that the case, which alleged a fiduciary breach, should be tossed because plan administrators don’t act as fiduciaries when they amend health care plans.

Read the full article on the Law360 site by clicking here.

Anthony Russo and Joseph Russo photographed at the PMC Studio in Los Angeles for the Variety Playback Podcast.

The Russo brothers, directors of the all-time top grossing film “Avengers: Endgame,” quietly secured a roughly $50 million cash infusion for their production company AGBO from Saudi Arabia earlier this year, multiple sources tell Variety.

In a deal brokered and closed at the beginning of the pandemic, the Russos received the investment from an undisclosed Saudi bank in exchange for a minority stake in the brothers’ Los Angeles-based shop.