daily list

More stories about China may fill the movie development pipeline thanks to a new cultural initiative by the American Film Institute and IDG Greater China. The Institute announced its new China Story Fellowship program at AFI FEST presented by Audi earlier this week. 

Made possible through the generosity of Hugo Shong, Chairman, IDG Greater China, the fellowship provides nine AFI Conservatory Fellows with travel to China for cultural research. The Fellows will write a feature-length screenplay and receive a full scholarship for their second year at the AFI Conservatory, where they may develop the work. A leadership grant from IDG China made the new program possible and is part of a large increase in scholarship opportunities at the AFI Conservatory.  

“China’s rich cultural legacy is filled with stories waiting to be shared with an eager global audience,” said Bob Gazzale, AFI President and CEO. “We are honored to launch this new initiative with IDG Greater China, giving voice to the best and brightest storytellers of tomorrow.”

“Although China has a remarkable and distinguished history stretching back more than 5,000 years, too many Americans only know Chinese culture through animated films like KUNG FU PANDA and MULAN,” added Shong. “Americans deserve to see other types of movies about China, ones that hopefully can entertain them, educate them and at the same time touch their hearts. By initiating this project with AFI, I am hoping that together we can jointly encourage a new generation of American screenwriters to produce more and different kinds of screenplays about China.”

Congratulations to screenwriting Fellows Paige Devitt, Derek Ustruck and Lindsay Golder – the first recipients of the AFI China Story Fellowships. They spent the summer in China, returning this fall to begin their second year at the AFI Conservatory – with stories to tell.

Congratulations to Allen Eckhouse of Cleveland, Ohio, and Nancy Frazee of Parkville, Missouri – winners of last month’s WB Musical Sweepstakes and each a recipient of a DVD Box Set of Warner Bros. musicals. They correctly answered that SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN is ranked #1 on AFI's List of the 25 Greatest Movie Musicals of All Time. You can see the entire list here.

To celebrate the beloved movie's 75th anniversary, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has brought THE WIZARD OF OZ into the present and beyond with a brand new kind of magic: a stunning 3-D Blu-ray™ edition. To celebrate Warner Bros.' 90th anniversary, we're offering a 4-Disc box set collection as the prize in our latest sweepstakes.

Here's what you need to do to win: THE WIZARD OF OZ is one of the most honored films in the annals of AFI. Name at least five AFI lists THE WIZARD OF OZ appears in.

This sweepstakes is only open to AFI members: Please send an e-mail to membership@AFI.com with your name, address, phone number and the correct answer, and one correct entry will be randomly selected to win. Ready?

Complete rules are found here.

To all the new members who are joining us as the result of Membership Month (aka September) - welcome!  We are proud to have the support of members from all 50 states and the District of Columbia - a nation of movie lovers represented by you!  And to the current members who made Membership Month an even greater success with your additional donations - thank you. Your support will make an immediate difference in the preservation of the AFI Archive - where America's greatest storytellers have shared their words and wisdom for nearly 50 years.

AFI Five-Star members and above are invited to join us for AFI's Life Achievement Award Tribute to Jane Fonda to be held Thursday, June 5, in Los Angeles. TNT and Turner Classic Movies will broadcast the proceedings later in June. Three-Star members and above will receive a special AFI Life Achievement Award DVD with member-exclusive content. For more information on AFI membership, please contact Laura Shumate, AFI Senior Manager, Membership at lshumate@AFI.com.

Each year, AFI honors the most outstanding achievements in film, television and other forms of moving image arts with the AFI Awards. Celebrating excellence on both sides of the camera, the AFI Awards jury votes on the top 10 films and television programs of 2013. As the voice of America's moviegoers, AFI members vote, too. Awards will be announced mid-December with ceremonies to be held in January. Your vote is a benefit of membership, so be sure it counts in recognizing the most exemplary achievements in cinema and television of 2013. Check your e-mail later this month for your link to the online ballot, and let your voice be heard!

Are you a female filmmaker? On Tuesday, November 19 at 7:30 p.m., the AFI Directing Workshop for Women will host its annual Open House event on the AFI Conservatory campus in the Ted Ashley Screening Room (Warner Bros. Building). Workshop staff will be on hand to discuss how to apply, what happens in the workshop, screen prior year films and Workshop alumnae will be in attendance to discuss their experiences. To RSVP, please e-mail DWWinfo@AFI.com.

Since 1974, the AFI Directing Workshop for Women (DWW) has offered a tuition-free training program that has launched the careers of over 250 female directors. With the Directors Guild of America reporting the percentage of working female directors to be 9% in film and 15% in television, DWW offers a way to make those numbers grow. Please support this underrepresented demographic of the film community by making a gift to AFI here.

R. Jurt Osenlund spoke with actress Julianne Moore who describes "what you want as an actor" in Filmmaker Magazine. A must-read for admirers of "Cinema's Modest Chameleon."
http://filmmakermagazine.com/70837-julianne-moore-cinemas-modest-chameleon/

Richard Armstrong's article from imagesjournal.com sees Janet Leigh (who graced the cover of our last issue) as a pivotal icon in modern filmmaking. This piece is filled with scrumptious details about her work in TOUCH OF EVIL (1958) and PSYCHO (1960).
http://www.imagesjournal.com/2004/features/janetleigh/

Who's rising in the ranks of young film critics today, and how do they approach their work? These six profiles from cineaste.com are written in the critics' own voices, and provide some of the answers.
http://www.cineaste.com/articles/film-criticism-the-next-generation

We were admitted to Karin Tucker's office at 8:45 a.m. one recent morning, and that's saying something: Tucker is the Director of Admissions at the AFI Conservatory, one of the world's top film schools, according to The Hollywood Reporter. With a warm smile and ready laugh, Tucker immediately put us at ease as she has so many nervous hopefuls in her first-floor office in the Warner Bros. Building. A large modernist oil painting – the work of an AFI colleague – hung in place of the usual and, at AFI ubiquitous, film posters. We studied our 10 questions and plunged in.

1. Where are you from? I'm from New Rochelle, New York, which is where Rob and Laura Petrie lived.

2. Where did you go to school? My college years were like GLEE. I went to the Boston Conservatory of Music, where I earned a degree in Musical Theater. It was a triple-threat program, so I can do a time-step. In fact, I have tap-shoes, and will tap!

3. What did you do before you came to AFI? Well, after graduating from college, I worked in the admissions office at the Boston Conservatory. I was also performing in local theaters at night, so I kind of led a double life. Then I moved to San Francisco to work at the American Conservatory Theatre as an assistant stage manager. What brought me out there was the show, "Angels in America," which they were doing at the newly restored Geary Theatre. I continued to work in regional theater as an assistant stage manager at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, and the California Shakespeare Festival, while also pursuing an acting career. I had a one-woman show that ran for a long time and toured nationally and was very successful. The Bay Area is where I fell in love with film – as an actor, but also behind the scenes. So, I moved to Los Angeles, of course! And then I co-founded a film collaborative group called Roulette Films, where we took turns making a short film a month and then screening it at a local film festival. It's actually where I met my husband, too. And then I started at AFI!

4. How long have you been at AFI? I just had my five-year anniversary in July.

5. What do you do at AFI? My title is Director of Admissions and my colleague Anne and I are pretty much the gatekeepers between the prospective applicants and the committee that decides on who attends the AFI Conservatory. Our office is also involved in many other aspects. We are responsible for creating the Conservatory brochure, conducting the Campus tours and maintaining a lot of the content that is on the AFI Conservatory Facebook and Twitter pages. We supervise the processing of hundreds of applications to the graduate film program. We're basically the front lines of the AFI Conservatory, where the public goes first, meeting the applicant from the point of interest and guiding them through the application process, to the review and interview process and the acceptance process – until they arrive for registration. So we really get to know a candidate from the beginning until they start here.

6. How does that affect our members? The members are our audience. The AFI Conservatory is generating storytellers, and the members are our patrons. So that's how I look at it: we're responsible for finding those future storytellers to tell the story to AFI members.

7. What was your best day at AFI? I have to say Commencement because I see a Fellow go from the very beginning, from when they start here and then continue to grow through the program. When I hear their name being called and they go up on the stage to shake hands with the discipline head, I feel like a proud mom.

8. What are you working on today? We're about to launch our online application for 2014 entry. It's a new software system that we've had to learn throughout the summer, so we're excited to be launching that application today. We're also in a recruitment season. That means we're going to start looking for our applicants or prospective applicants for 2014 entry, as well. This year, we're going to be focusing on finding qualified Production Design applicants. I've been having conversations with alumni, specifically those who graduated in Production Design and who have a background in architecture or theater arts, to learn how we can find more of the most qualified of those people.

9. What don't your colleagues know about you? We're a pretty tight-knit community here, and we share what's going on in our lives outside of AFI. I think most people know I'm a puppeteer and I just graduated from Puppet School! But what they might not know is that I was a figure model for Industrial Light and Magic when I was in my 20s. It was very cool.

10. What's your favorite film? One film that I quote from all the time is one of my favorite movies: WAITING FOR GUFFMAN. And oddly enough, Joe Garrity, who's the head of our Production Design program, worked on that movie as a production designer. In fact, I quote from that movie with him: "There ain't no swimmin' in my show!" It's Corky, the main character, who's the director of a community theater. He's trying to get a bigger budget for his show, and he goes to the City and they turn him down; the amount of money that he asks for is ludicrous to them. And they say, "We don't spend that much for the swimming pool." And he says to them: "Well, there ain't no swimmin' in my show!"