The Seattle Times:
Seattle filmmaker Lynn Shelton’s third feature, “Humpday,” was one of the first movies to ink a distribution deal at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, over the weekend. Magnolia Pictures bought worldwide rights to the film, for a dollar amount described by Variety as “mid-six figures,” and plans to release it theatrically in August following a video-on-demand campaign. At the festival, Shelton said, “This is beyond my wildest dreams.”
ScreenDaily:
New York-based sales company Visit Films has bulked up its already busy Sundance slate by acquiring worldwide rights to David Russo’s Spectrum screener The Immaculate Conception Of Little Dizzle. The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle recieved its world premiere on January 19 and Visit will commence international sales at the EFM in Berlin next month. The film focuses on a computer programmer who loses his job and finds work as a janitor where he gets entangled in a bizarre experiment where he and his fellow guinea pigs start to give birth to blue fish. Peggy Case produced and the ensemble cast includes Marshall Allman, Natasha Lyonne, Tania Raymonde, Tygh Runyan, Matt Smith and Vince Vieluf.
KEXP Blog:
One of KEXP’s missions is to facilitate music discovery, and as such, they were very excited to have the opportunity to host the first ever Youth Podcasting Workshops! These workshops, hosted in a partnership with the Vera Project, were an intensive, hands-on, 8-week series geared towards young adults in the Seattle area. The goal of these workshops was to engage young people in our community, champion youth-led and youth-focused programming, and offer increased training opportunities. Workshop participants learned how to create a podcast, from song selection, to securing music rights, to recording, editing and hosting the final podcast. Check out the results on the KEXP blog!
From Broadway.com:
Allies, a new rock-infused musical featuring the music of 70s and 80s power band Heart, will receive a special industry reading at The Zipper Factory on January 26. The staged concert reading, which is open to the public as seating allows, will be directed by Drama Desk nominee Samuel Buggein. Part love rock show, part drama, Allies features legendary Heart hits including “Barracuda,” “These Dreams,” and “Alone.”
From Pitchfork:
Last year, Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band tried to break onto the web-rock scene by purposefully withholding their music from the web. Instead of posting a few songs on MySpace, they uploaded a few silly instructional videos about “technology” and “homeostasis” to YouTube. And in the tradition of things so crazy they just might work, the band got some blog attention, released an EP co-produced by Scott Colburn (Arcade Fire, Animal Collective), played a few shows, got signed to Dead Oceans, and now they’re ready to release their self-titled debut album on March 10.
From Sound On The Sound:
The Seattle punk band was just written up in the quintessential American music magazine, Rolling Stone. David Fricke writes, “the Whore Moans are steadfast believers in loud-fast salvation, or what they call in one power-chord catapult, ‘The Holy Fucking Moment.’ This album has plenty.”
From Hollywood Reporter:
Movie rental service Netflix and Los Angeles-based Film Independent are joining forces to discover a new independent filmmaker, who will receive a $150,000 production grant to make a feature film, which will be distributed online by Netflix. Josh Brolin is serving as honorary chair and as one of the judges of the competition, dubbed the “Netflix FIND Your Voice Film Competition.” The winner will own all rights to his or her film. Film Independent will provide advisement and mentorship to the winning filmmaker throughout the production process and will also screen the winner’s movie at the Los Angeles Film Festival.
From NME:
Pearl Jam is rolling out tracks from the remastered version of its 1991 debut album, “Ten,” exclusively through Verizon Wireless. A different song from the new edition, due March 24, will go live through V Cast Music with Rhapsody for 10 consecutive weeks, beginning with “Once” on Tuesday.The newly remastered tracks can be purchased as ringtones, ringbacks and ringback jukeboxes. An additional component of the “Ten” reissue is a new mix by producer Brendan O’Brien. The album will be offered in a variety of incarnations, the ritziest of which includes such bonuses as a cassette dub of the band’s first demo tape with singer Eddie Vedder.
