Can We Talk?
(Joan Rivers...A Piece of Work)

 

 

 

 

"A to Z :the Filmmakers Perspective" class at the California Film Institute

"A to Z: the Filmmakers Perspective"
class at the California Film Institute

Blah, Blah

button Cynthia's latest short film, "13", will be screened at the Topanga Film Festival in July. Her film is a quirky look at the beginning of the teenage years, both good and bad. Her film will be screened in the popular Youth Salon, geared toward young audiences covering current topics of friendship, love and werewolves.

button Melinda and Cynthia have joined the prestigious Julie Nation Academy as guest faculty of the Santa Rosa well-established modeling and acting school. With 40 years of experience, Julie Nation Academy has become Northern California's premiere resource for model and talent search, modeling and personal development. Melinda and Cynthia will be teaching an intensive course in the Advanced Gold Level series of on-camera and acting classes. As part of the class, they will rehearse and shoot a short film, right from the initial casting process to the final copy of the DVD for each student.

button Melinda has worked as a model and talent scout for over 12 years for the San Francisco agency, STARS. In April, she and Cynthia will be conducting a day long open casting call for models and actors, produced by Julie Nation. They will see potential talent ready for representation in the San Francisco and Los Angeles market.

button Cynthia will continue to teach her class entitled WRITE A SHORT STORY: MAKE A SHORT FILM at Book Passage in Corte Madera. The class will discuss and show samples of treatments, story boards, casting, camera, editing and scoring of short films on limited budgets and experience.

button Melinda and Cynthia worked for CFI, producing a Pixar children's film festival and a huge Bollywood event with live parade and activities to coincide with the 35th Mill Valley Film Festival Children's FIlm Fest.

button Xanadu producted a music video/film starring the world renowned vocal artist, Mavie Marcos. Cynthia and Melinda produced and choreographed Mavie's latest record for her label. Once again, they worked with the prolific director, Jamie Redford and his award-winning cinematographer, Doug Nichol on this innovative project.

button Melinda and Cynthia worked for Jamie Redford casting his new documentary film entitled: The Big Picture: Rethinking Dislexia. The 40-minute documentary was shown at Sundace Film Festival and purchased for wide distribution to HBO.

button Starting August, 2011 Melinda and Cynthia will be weekly on-camera contributors for the television show Aspect Ratio.....hosted by California Film Institute's John Morrison. Their new segment "FLIX CHIX" will report and discuss the latest films including studio features, tent poles along with screenings from independent film festivals throughout the Bay Area.

button Melinda is a contributing features writer for the newspaper, The ARK and both she and Cynthia are now on editorial staff of PATCH. Both were also senior contributing writers for Marin Arts Magazine.

button Melinda and Cynthia will once again be teaching a class for the California Film Institute, called A to Z: The Filmmakers Perspective. They have been asked to participate in the SummerFilm seminars held in July at the Rafael Theater where during a week budding filmmakers are treated to day long classes and Q&A.

button Melinda and Cynthia joined the teaching faculty of Beau Bonneau's The San Francisco Acting Academy. They have taught all the children's division commercial on-camera classes since January 2011. They cover every aspect of children/teens entering and thriving in the world of show business. The material is presented in an exciting on-camera workshop, where their meet and train potential child/teen actors for their future film, commercial, auditions and projects.

button Melinda's film, The Faeries of Farthingale, selected from over 3000 submissions, will be screened  at the Tiburon International Film Festival, March 18- 26 and  also at the prestigious  San Francisco International Children's Film Festival in conjunction with WorldCon, April 2-4.

button A selection of films from Xanadu's collection entitled: "Child's Play" were screened at the" Mostly British " Film Festival founded by Ruthe Stein at the Vogue Theater.

button Xanadu Entertainment has been awarded a generous grant from American Express to underwrite the DVD copies of "Child's Play." They have partnered with the Ronald McDonald House, Fisher House, and Oakland Children's Hospital, donating their films for the hospital and RMH facilitiy libraries. The collection, Child's Play, will be given to each of the children upon completion of their stay with their families.