Martin Cohen Gains Top Honors from Motion Picture Editors Guild

The Motion Picture Editors Guild (MPEG) will honor veteran post-production executive and producer Martin Cohen with its prestigious Fellowship and Service Award, recognizing an individual who embodies the values set forth by the Guild: professionalism, collaboration, mentorship, generosity of spirit and commitment to the labor movement. Cohen will receive the award at a gala in his honor on October 5th at the Sheraton Universal Hotel in Universal City.

Martin Cohen has served as head of post-production as well as overseeing editorial, sound design, digital intermediates and piracy protection for Amblin Entertainment and Paramount Studios.

Cohen has also produced and executive produced films such as “The Hunger Games,” “Mothman,” “The Seventh Son” and “Godzilla.” He also directed an episode of the web series, “Action Figures.” As well as working in production, Cohen also served film preservation efforts with passion. He helped to restore timeless classics like Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” trilogy and “Jaws.”

“We are delighted to honor Marty with our Fellowship and Service award,” stated Alan Heim, ACE, President of the Motion Picture Editors Guild. “He perfectly exemplifies the values that the Guild holds most dear by forging a career in this industry that has served not only the films on which he has worked, but the many filmmakers and colleagues with whom he’s collaborated. He has consistently given back to our community and that makes him the ideal recipient for our highest honor.”

“I am honored and deeply moved that the Editors Guild is bestowing me with this prestigious award. I thank all my Brothers and Sisters for this honor!” stated Cohen.

The Fellowship and Service Award was established 12 years ago by the Guild’s Board of Directors. Previous recipients of this distinguished honor are Dede Allen, ACE; Joseph Aredas; Lillian Benson, ACE; Donn Cambern, ACE; Lee Dichter, CAS; Don Hall; Carol Littleton, ACE; Donald O. Mitchell and Thomas C. Short.

For more information please visit www.editorsguild.com

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.