4 More! "Sparkly Count"

Speaking of sparklies, here's some more fun news:

Beauty World, the commercial for Almay Pure Blends directed by Arlene Bogna & produced by Vista Point Pictures, has won an Aurora Award, a Davey Award, an Accolade Award, and a Remi Award.

A Big Congrats to Cast & Crew!


For more information & credits click here, or you can watch the winning spot here.

:: bogna ::

Ladies at the Box Office

And now a little something from CNN's article "Yes, Hollywood, women do go to movies"

"There's no difference in movie-going by gender; women are just as likely to go to the movies as men," says Martha Lauzen, executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University.

If you give women movies reflecting their experience and interests, Lauzen says, they will go -- even on opening weekend."

[AND]

"Women are a dramatically underserved segment of the moviegoing population, and if the industry would produce films that are not, by the way, just about shoes and clothes, but really had multidimensional female characters doing interesting things, women will go to see these movies in droves," Lauzen says.

Well, I know what I think about this gamechanger. What do you think?

:: bogna ::

Speaking of Sparklies...

Wasn't I just talking about sparklies? Here's some fun news:
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Beauty World, the commercial for Almay Pure Blends directed by Arlene Bogna & produced by Vista Point Pictures, has won a 2009 Davey Award. A Big Congrats to Cast & Crew!

For more information & credits click here, or you can watch the winning spot here.


ABOUT THE DAVEY AWARDS
The annual International Davey Awards honors the achievements of the "Creative Davids" who derive their strength from big ideas, rather than stratospheric budgets. The Davey is sanctioned and judged by the International Academy of the Visual Arts, an invitation-only body consisting of top-tier professionals from a "Who's Who" of acclaimed media, advertising, and marketing firms. IAVA members include executives from organizations such as Alloy, Coach, The Ellen Degeneres Show, Estee Lauder, Fry Hammond Barr, HBO, iNDELIBLE, Wunderman, MTV, Polo Ralph Lauren, Refinery, Sotheby's Institute of Art, Victoria's Secret, Wired, Yahoo! and many more.
Award: Silver Davey Award
http://www.daveyawards.com/

ABOUT ARLENE BOGNA
Arlene Bogna is an award winning writer/director. She won a Davey Award for "Beauty World", and the Platinum Aurora Award for Best of Show, a Telly Award, and a Davey Award for the PSA "Canvas". Her feature screenplay "Earth Kids", which she co-wrote with Nicole Schubert, won 1st Place Best Screenplay at the 2007 KIDS FIRST! Film Festival as well as the Sponsor Award. Currently she is developing an untitled action feature to direct.
http://www.vistapointpictures.com/arlene.html

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A Big Thanks to all who supported this project!!!

:: bogna ::

"Beauty World" - the TV version

It's here! The television version of "Beauty World" is now airing nationwide on Current TV.

And if you are near a TV today (Saturday, May 30th), you can catch it @ 10:05 am, 12:52 pm, and 8:15 pm PST (I think) on Current TV. (I posted more info here, including credits and channels)

Thanks for taking a look!

:: bogna ::

"Beauty World" to air on television

I am very excited to say that "Beauty World" was selected by Almay Pure Blends to air on Current TV! We were #1 with the popular vote, and we are absolutely THRILLED Almay Pure Blends chose our work. And because so many talented peeps worked so hard on this, I am glad it will have a new audience now that it's going national.
Beauty World
:30 commercial for Almay Pure Blends
Directed by Arlene Bogna
Written and Produced by Arlene Bogna & Tony Ferranti
Starring Karyn Nesbit, Jason Fedusenko, & Grant Tanguma
Cinematography by Nathan Levine-Heaney
Production Design by Jem Elsner
Key Makeup and Hair by Meredith Scott
Camera: Nick Militello
Boom Op: Ben Hunter
Edited by Michael Thibault
Music Supervision by Brian Saur
Sound Design by Brett Coleman
Sound Engineering by Mike Boeltl
GFX & VFX: Vista Point Pictures

And a big thanks to everyone who supported this project, and thank you Current for this wonderful opportunity!

Current TV can be found on:

USA
+ DirecTV 358
+ Comcast Nationwide 107
+ Dish Network 196
+ Time Warner
New York 103
Los Angeles 142
Nationwide Check your local listings
+ Verizon FiOS 192
+ AT&T U-verse 189

UK & IRELAND
+ Sky 193
+ Virgin Media 155

ITALY
+ Sky Italia 130

:: bogna ::

Yay! We won a Telly Award!

More info on this soon, but I just found out we won a Telly Award! Vista Point Pictures has done some cool projects for some fun clients (or is that the other way around?), and it looks like we've been rewarded. I'm ready to celebrate. Just in time for the weekend...
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Bailout THIS! Gamers Celebrate Doomsday

Last week I went to the best office party ever. It was on a crisp clear evening in Downtown LA, with geeks, rockers, and beauties all together in one big kumbaya. There was a nuclear wasteland, an open bar, and a game lounge. It could only mean one thing: the Fallout 3 launch party.

As I walked through a field of oil drums peppered with empty martini glasses, the smell of clove cigarettes in the air, I remember thinking that this is proof that we can heal from any terror. I mean, does anyone even remember when the thought of nuclear annihilation was actually terrifying, and not just a gaming environment? One of the reasons all this fascinates me is because one of my favorite directors did a movie called eXistenZ (totally ahead of its time) in which our emotional attachment to a synthesized world was explored. And now, with 3d animation technology where it is today, the synthetic worlds are getting more complex, therefore more beautiful, as more and more nuances are artfully rendered. I can definitely appreciate the level of production and concept design of the Fallout world. All I can say is: zeitgest. Plus, Fallout pokes fun at the ridiculous mentality of the 1950's - so what's not to love?

And to the people who are against video games because they are too violent, think about why we need them. In fact, our need is so great that video gaming formed a huge entertainment industry of its own, rivaling and surpassing hollywood blockbusters while possibly being recession-proof. Video games quench our society's thirst for gladiator tournaments in a virtual coliseum. The technology may be new, but the collective need is as old as a dusty fossil.

One of my favorite highlights of the evening was seeing the Foo Fighters live. Dave Grohl is funny. In between rock anthems, he would say things like "We've never played an office party before. This is heaven: you get to play video games and drink beer. Kudos. It's the American Dream." and "See you at the next office party. Are you having a Christmas party? Cause we'll f*@#in' do that one too."

And by the way, how cool is downtown LA getting? No matter how many penthouse lofts go up, you can still quadron off a couple of city blocks, have a rock concert, and spray your logo in light all over the sides of the adjacent skyscrapers, which is exactly what the Fallout peeps did. That's why a video game launch party makes my blog, another moment that is rockstar friggin' awesome.



:: bogna ::

"Also I like to rock" and other cultural phenomena

It is good to live in LA. There are many reasons, one of which is the Also I like to rock series of free concerts at the Hammer Museum by FM station Indie 103.1. Last Thursday The Duke Spirit and io echo rocked the Hammer Courtyard. The Duke Spirit, one of my new favorite bands, is a tight band from London. The lead singer Liela Moss is a little Siouxsie, a little Jefferson Airplane, a little Mazzy Star, with a powerful voice in her own right. Being from London, she thought that the Hammer gig was at "a museum of hammers." No, the Hammer is definitely not "full of tools," especially if they are putting on awesome shows like this for the community. Recession, shmercession, we've got our music. As long as awesome rockers are belting it out in nice museum courtyards for free, we are all going to be okay.

I left the Hammer crowd elated, only to see massive crowds lining the streets in Westwood and feeling a fervent electricity in the air, which only meant one thing: the first screenings of the new Batman movie by Director Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight. A much anticipated film with a record-breaking opening, The Dark Knight deserves the crowds and the accolades, for it is stunning filmmaking of a dark and complex drama. It's great to see that Director Christopher Nolan, who wowed the Sundance crowd with the nonlinear indie Memento, could evolve the Batman franchise into such an intriguing realistic entity with a life of its own, far beyond hopes and expectations, and oh so satisfying. And speaking of Sundance, that's where I was when I heard of Heath Ledger's death. It was snowing and cold, I was on a festival shuttle, and some girls in the back were talking about it. It instantly felt like a tragedy, such a great loss to the film community, and I have been looking forward to seeing this final performance ever since. I've read reviews of Ledger's performance of the Joker as "Cagney meets Brando," and I have to agree, but with the caveat that it was even better and deeper than that. Unforgettable.


:: bogna ::

A shout out to the Stripe Factory

I recently wandered into the gallery in Chinatown known as Sister and ran into 'Stripe Factory' by artist Danica Phelps. Stripe Factory is a series of panels with perhaps thousands of little stripes arranged on them. Meticulous? Yes. Fastidious. Oh yeah. Method to the madness? Absolutely. Apparently the artist really made these panels factory-style with assistants to help make all the stripes in the name of efficiency.
What's nice about these panels is how different they seem when viewed from different distances. From one vantage point, a panel seems to hold purely an abstract texture. If you get a little closer, you can detect a pattern. From one angle there is a slight optical illusion, from another you can really see the detailed work. And if you get a little closer, each little piece of a stripe has its own shape and integrity, which can start to feel maddening when seeing so many of them. And I mean maddening in a good way. It's a nice exercise in seeing the forest, or the trees, or the veins of each leaf, depending on a couple of steps.

:: bogna ::

(Detail of a panel from Stripe Factory)

Public But Not Forgotten: a potato in a parking lot

I am very fond of a certain potato in a parking lot. But it's not just any potato. It's a bronze potato sculpture, and it's sitting in the parking lot of Anawalt Lumber & Hardware in West Los Angeles.
Seriously. Do people even notice it on their way to the hardware store? Do they stop and think how those three massive bronze potatoes could balance off each other so precariously? It is art, after all. Someone had to imagine it and cast it in bronze. It's got a title and everything: "Crutch."
When shoppers use a car remote to lock/unlock their cars, and the potato sculpture happens to be obstructing their view of the automobile, then maybe, maybe, they see "Crutch" for a second... but I think that's about it. I mean, if anyone saw you admiring it in the parking lot, wouldn't they laugh at you?
I guess we've forgotten that art can exist in something as banal and utilitarian as a parking lot. Well, at Pico and Sepulveda, apparently it can. So the next time you need lumber, a bolt, or an eyeglass screwdriver, just remember that art might be lurking someplace unexpected, and closer than you think.

Looking for Something

If you are looking for an antidote to the kitsch trend in art this summer, then look just a little further, like towards Hyperion and Rowena in Silverlake, CA.
"Looking for something and maybe almost finding it" is the title of Kathy Jaroneski's solo exhibition at the Silverlake Neighborhood Council.
Her paintings have a quality of seeing both through and far into an introspective reality.
The color composition is bold and soothing at the same time, like good design, but the forms, strokes, and drips of paint have a motion which makes the paintings come alive.
There is a tension in her work, a dichotomy where discipline meets emotion. Color logic rules over expressive brushstrokes in "Silvia's Lake", while a light palette serves to offset an aubergine storm in "Aubergine #2". It lulls you in then shakes you up. Definitely a must for anyone seeking some emotional authenticity in a season of empty blockbusters and subprime refinancing.

On another note, let's hear it for seeing something you weren't really looking for in the first place, and would rather not have seen, but now that you have you can't help but grin a little. I found myself grinning at the Claremont Museum of Art when I saw this sculpture. You get the picture. You should see what the artist Amy Maloof did to a shopping cart as well.

Enjoy the heat and keep looking.

:: bogna ::