Best in Fest

In this episode Leslie breaks down the Upfronts in Hollywood.  What are they and why are they so important?

With over 30 years in the animation industry, Tony Bancroft has been creatively involved in almost every position making an animated film, video, commercial, or short film. His animation and directing skills have been sharpened and honed while working at Walt Disney Feature Animation, Sony Pictures, his own animation company, Toonacious Family Entertainment, and currently, as an independent contractor working with Disney, Warner Brothers, and many more.

Bancroft was accepted into the exclusive California Institute of the Arts (Cal-Arts) in 1987, where he thrived artistically and developed a lifelong passion for animation. Soon after, he realized one of his childhood dreams as he was hired to animate for Walt Disney Animation Studios. During his 12-year career with Disney Studios, Bancroft helped create and animate Pumbaa, the lovable warthog in The Lion King; Kronk, the dim-witted sidekick in The Emperor’s New Groove; Cogsworth the nervous clock from Beauty and the Beast; and Iago the pestering parrot in Aladdin.

Bancroft’s most notable accomplishments include being the co-director of Walt Disney’s animated film, Mulan, for which he received the Annie Award for Director of the Year from ASIFA-International; and animation supervisor of Sony’s 

Ken Kwapis has been a motion picture and television director for four decades. He
directed eleven feature films, among them A Walk In The Woods, Big Miracle, He’s Just
Not That Into You, and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

Kwapis helped launch nine television series, including The Larry Sanders Show, The
Bernie Mac Show, and The Office. He earned an Emmy nomination for directing the
“Gay Witch Hunt” episode of The Office. He also earned an Emmy nomination for his
work as a producer-director of Malcolm In the Middle. Kwapis contributed episodes to
such shows Freaks and Geeks, Parks and Recreation, Santa Clarita Diet, and One
Mississippi. Most recently, he directed the entire second season of Space Force.

He is currently prepping the feature Thelma, based on the real-life story of the mother of John Kennedy Toole, author of A Confederacy of Dunces. Toole died before his novel
was published, and his mother Thelma spent over a decade trying to find a home for her
son’s masterpiece.

In addition to his film and television work, Kwapis is the author of the memoir But What I Really Want To Do is Direct, published by St. Martin’s Press.

Kwapis studied filmmaking at Northwestern University and the University of
Southern California. He won the Student Academy Award in Dramatic Achievement
for his USC film For Heaven’s Sake!, a contemporary

B.J. Graf (aka Beverly Graf) lives in Los Angeles with her family and a menagerie of four-footers. Her near-future-mystery-novel, GENESYS X, featuring Detectives  Eddie Piedmont & Shin Miyaguchi, will be published 11/10/2020 by Fairwood Press and is available for pre-orders now at www.fairwoodpress.com, www.amazon.com, www.b&n.com, and an independent bookseller near you.

 In her alternate identity Dr. Graf is an Adjunct Professor who teaches Film Studies and Classical Mythology at Pepperdine, UCLA, and CSUN. Previously, she worked as V.P. of Development for Abilene Pictures where they produced several features and television projects including Primal Fear, Frequency, Fallen, Fracture and NYPD 2069.

Giovanni Labadessa

Award winning film producer and storyteller, founder of Lumiere Lab a boutique film production company working since 2010 to tell stories that entertain, edify and build more understanding and empathy for others. Passionate about strengthening the independent film ecosystem as whole, in 2018 I co-founded Nòt Film Fest, a film festival and non-profit that connects audiences to storytellers whose work champions creativity, uniqueness and innovation while fostering film and business education for the youth. In 2021 I co-founded Nòtstream a SVOD streaming service dedicated to indie films that promotes an innovative distribution ecosystem that supports Independent cinema and its filmmakers.

Rick Markovitz is a partner in Weissman/Markovitz Communications. 
WMC forges connections between people, brands and media to convey
powerful ideas. Grounded in the business of storytelling, we know how to
use the right tools and channels in today';s complex social media
environment.

With decades of entertainment marketing and communications expertise,
and an industry-wide network of resources, we help countless clients
succeed in creative, effective and profitable brand-building relationships.
Starting with our first breakout for AMC’s Broken Trail with 16 Emmy
nominations and 4 wins in 2006, we have continually worked with the
leading content producers and distributors across motion pictures,
television, and digital on comprehensive release and awards campaigns
covering the product lifecycle. With our “Awards Lifecycle” approach, in
collaboration with our clients, we seek to build the best path to success in
the consumer and awards stages. Our work on these clients includes the
following services depending on the unique needs of each project:

• Program Analysis, prioritization and strategic communications
planning
• Content development of press materials and editorial outreach
for launch and awards coverage
• Prepare video assets for editorial and promotion on social
media
• Screenings and events and other stunts (food trucks, event
buses)
• Advertising consultation based on target audience and
campaign goals

When it comes to the world of Hollywood entertainment, we are
dynamically connected to consumer and industry audiences. We are keenly
integrated in all facets of marketing from promoting a network program,
feature film, film festival or advising our international Guild clients on their
awards events and other strategic business issues.forge connections between people, brands and media to convey powerful ideas. Grounded in the business of storytelling, we know how to use the right tools and channels in today's complex social media
environment.

Luca was born in a little town in the north of Italy, Castelfranco Veneto, 30 minutes far from Venice. After high school, he moved to Milan to study communication at the University without an exact idea of what I wanted to become.  Luca became an assistant to a television director who was managing some live broadcast shows for SKY Italy and wanted some help. 

After the first tv gigs, Luca learned to operate the camera, consequently the mayor editing systems to finally be able to create my own contents.  In Milan Luca worked for a photo studio where he was filming behind the scenes of important film sets and  started to collaborate with a press agency as a documentarian. That was the company that sent him to L.A. where he settled since 2008. After a fortunate meeting with Dino De Laurentiis, he was sent to Cinecitta’ for my first gigs in the actual film industry where he kept working still as a behind the scenes director on some of the major blockbusters of the following year and opened his own production company. Luca and his team have worked on three feature projects so far, entirely produced by his company, LSPG.

Everything you ever wanted to know about how to get your movie distributed, but were afraid to ask. This is the Best in Fest Best Of Distribution episode.

In 1962, while he was doing pre-production work on The Greatest Story Ever Told, Stevens was recruited by Edward R. Murrow to serve as director of the Motion Picture and Television Service, a division of the United States Information Agency.[10][11] At age 31, Stevens moved from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., where as director of the service, he produced roughly 300 short documentary films per year.[11][12][7] One of the films Stevens commissioned was Nine from Little Rock, which followed the experiences of nine African-American students attending a previously all-white high school in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957.

In 1965, Stevens was a consultant in the process that established the National Endowment for the Arts.[17] In June 1967, at age 35, Stevens resigned from his position at the USIA to join the American Film Institute.

In 1973, Stevens established the AFI Life Achievement Award, to honor and recognize decorated figures in the American film industry such as Orson Welles, James Cagney, Bette Davis, and Lillian Gish.[24][7][25] Stevens produced and wrote for the Life Achievement Award's television broadcast from its inception until 1998.

In 1978, along with Nick Vanoff, Stevens co-created the Kennedy Center Honors, a ceremony and television production recognizing people who have made significant contributions to American culture through the performing arts.

Stevens  has just released an unforgettable  memoir entitled  My Place in the Sun.

Director/screenwriter Jace Anderson most recently directed her first feature film, The Long Game, which premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in February 2024. Based on a short story by New York Times-bestselling author Janet Fitch, the film stars Kathleen Turner, Jackie Earle Haley and newcomer Sekai Abeni. It is a “femme fatale origin story,” a contemporary neo-noir that tells the tale of young actress Holly Sloan and her entanglements with failed con man Richard Metzger and faded superstar Mariah McKay.

Together with her husband/co-writer Adam Gierasch, she has written numerous projects in both the studio and indie realms and for companies such as Fox, The Disney Channel, Lakeshore Entertainment and CBS Films. Mentored early in their career by legendary horror director Tobe Hooper, the duo has also worked with Clive Barker and Dario Argento. Sixteen of their scripts have been made into feature films. Recent projects include the Saturn Award-winning “Tales of Halloween,” for which Gierasch directed and Anderson produced a segment. Gierasch has directed many of the duo’s scripts, and recently directed the film “Spaghetti.”

Anderson graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University, where her senior thesis, “Re- Writing Race: Subverting Language in Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi and Alice Walker’s Meridian” was published in the academic journal a/b: autobiography studies. Before becoming a screenwriter she worked as an HIV test counselor/educator with homeless/runaway and incarcerated youth in Los Angeles and studied social work at the University of Southern California. She lives in the mountains outside of Los Angeles with her husband and two neurotic rescue mutts.