Dan M. Harries (born 1963, in Pomona, California) is an artist and theorist of visual culture and media. After twenty years as a professor in Australia, England, and the U.S., and well known for his theories of parody, new media, postmodernism and the image, Harries began to put his teachings into practice and pursue his art full-time. In 2008, he established his studio, Harries + Fayé, in Hollywood's historic Artisan's Patio Complex. His limited edition abstract photographs explore his theories of intertextuality and ambiguity. He currently exhibits his photographs at the Amy-Lauren Gallery on Kauai and at his studio.
In 1993, Harries began his academic career at Griffith University, in Brisbane, Australia, where he lectured in film and television studies. In 1994, he developed a film and media directory Web site, CineMedia, [1] which in 1997 was nominated in the "Film and Television" category for the 1st Annual Webby Awards. [2] In 1995, Harries moved back to Los Angeles to take up the position of the American Film Institute's first Director of Online Media where his team worked on a number of online projects, including the 1996 launch of the world's first streaming video site devoted to classic Hollywood movies. The first movie to be streamed was Charlie Chaplin's silent 1916 classic, "The Rink." [3] [4] In 1998, Harries moved to London where he was head of the Visual Culture and Media Department at Middlesex University until 2003.
Harries has a B.A in sociology from UCLA, an MA in Film Studies from the University of East Anglia, and a PhD from UCLA in Film & Television. His books include Film & Video on the Internet, Film Parody, and The New Media Book. He serves on the editorial board of the journal of visual culture. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his husband and daughter.
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylized Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American film noir. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key, black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionism cinematography. Many of the prototypical stories and attitudes expressed in classic noir derive from the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Great Depression.
Ain't It Cool News (AICN) is an entertainment news website founded by Harry Knowles and run by his sister Dannie Knowles since September 2017, dedicated to news, rumors, and reviews of upcoming and current films, television, and comic book projects, with an emphasis on science fiction, superhero, fantasy, horror, and action genres.
Barret Eugene Hansen, known professionally as Dr. Demento, is an American radio broadcaster and record collector specializing in novelty songs, comedy, and strange or unusual recordings dating from the early days of phonograph records to the present. Hansen created the Demento persona in 1970 while working at the Pasadena, California, station KPPC-FM. After he once played "Transfusion" by Nervous Norvus on the radio, DJ "The Obscene" Steven Clean said that Hansen had to be "demented" to play it; this event inspired his stage name. His weekly show went into syndication in 1974 and was syndicated by the Westwood One Radio Network from 1978 to 1992. Broadcast syndication of the show ended on June 6, 2010, but the show continues to be produced weekly in an online version.
Paul Jarrico was an American screenwriter and film producer who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses during the era of McCarthyism.
Julie Adams was an American actress, billed as Julia Adams in her early career, primarily known for her numerous television guest roles. She starred in a number of films in the 1950s, including Bend of the River (1952), opposite James Stewart; and Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). On television, she was known for her roles as Paula Denning on the 1980s soap opera Capitol, and Eve Simpson on Murder, She Wrote.
Moctesuma Esparza is an American producer, entertainment executive, entrepreneur and community activist. He is the chief executive officer of Maya Cinemas, a theater chain servicing to the United States Latino audience. He is also a partner with Carolyn Caldera in the company Esparza/Caldera Entertainment. He founded film distribution and production company Maya Entertainment in 2007.
Cracked.com is an American website that was based on Cracked magazine. It was founded in 2005 by Jack O'Brien.
The Hollywood Symphony Orchestra (HSO) is a large scale American symphony orchestra based in Los Angeles, California. Its founder was John Scott and its current Principal Conductor and consulting producer is John Everett Beal. The HSO is dedicated to performing classic, contemporary and world premiere media scores, and comprises recording musicians from the Hollywood movie studios and the Los Angeles concert scene.
Marc Weigert is an Emmy-award-winning film producer and film/TV visual effects supervisor and 2nd unit director.
A web series is a series of short scripted or non-scripted online videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet, which first emerged in the late 1990s and became more prominent in the early 2000s. A single instance of a web series program can be called an episode or a webisode. The scale of a web series is small and a typical episode can be anywhere from three to fifteen minutes in length. Web series are distributed online on video sharing websites and apps, such as YouTube and Vimeo, and can be watched on devices such as desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, and Internet-connected television sets. They can also be released on social media platforms. Because of the nature of the Internet, a web series may be interactive. Web series are classified as new media.
IndieWire is a film industry and film criticism website that was established in 1996. The site's focus was predominantly independent film, although its coverage has grown to "include all aspects of Hollywood and the expanding universes of TV and streaming". IndieWire is part of Penske Media.
Craig Barron is an American visual effects artist and creative director at Magnopus, a media company that produces visual development and virtual production services for motion pictures, television, museums and multimedia platforms.
Retrofit Films is a production company located in Los Angeles, California, that develops and produces digital media and entertainment.
Ben Caldwell (1945) is a Los Angeles-based arts educator and independent filmmaker.
Ella Cinders is a 1926 American silent comedy film directed by Alfred E. Green, starring Colleen Moore, produced by her husband John McCormick, and featuring Moore's recurring co-star, Lloyd Hughes. The film is based on the syndicated comic strip of the same name by William M. Conselman and Charles Plumb, which in turn was based upon the millennia-old folk tale of Cinderella.
Asco was an East Los Angeles based Chicano artist collective, active from 1972 to 1987. Asco adopted its name as a collective in 1973, making a direct reference to the word's significance in Spanish ("asco"), which is disgust or repulsion. Asco's work throughout 1970s and 1980s responded specifically to socioeconomic and political problems surrounding the Chicano community in the United States, as well the Vietnam War. Harry Gamboa Jr., Glugio "Gronk" Nicandro, Willie F. Herrón III and Patssi Valdez form the core members of the group.
HuffPost Live was an Internet-based video streaming network run by HuffPost, a news website in the United States. The network produced original programming as well as live conversations among users via platforms such as Skype and Google+. Live content was previously streamed for eight hours each weekday, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. EST. Instead of the usual TV news format of individual shows, the network was divided into shorter segments covering an individual story or topic from the parent website as well as other segments pertaining to a specific part of the site itself, such as politics, money, front page, and the like.
Pantelion Films was an American film production company that was created in 2010 and based in Santa Monica, California. The studio's goal was to bring wider theatrical distribution of movies aimed at Latino audiences. It was backed by TelevisaUnivision and Lionsgate Studios. Making theatrical relationships with movie exhibition chains including Regal Entertainment Group, AMC Theatres, Cinemex, and Cinemark, the studio raised the level of theatrically-released Latino films. Under that arrangement, Pantelion was active with its own office from 2010 to 2023. The studio's first film was 2011's From Prada to Nada, which Lionsgate and Grupo Televisa announced it had commissioned for a television series that did not materialize in 2012. The studio's office was discontinued in 2023 and its website redirected in 2024 effectively ending the studio's operational lifecycle though not the usage of its trademark for existing unreleased if not future productions.
Scott Zakarin is an American film producer. He is known as the creator of the Web series medium due to his introduction of the first internet episodic website The Spot.
Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles is a 2021 American concert film directed by Robert Rodriguez and Patrick Osborne, starring singer-songwriter Billie Eilish. It features performances of all 16 tracks from Eilish's second studio album, Happier Than Ever (2021), at the Hollywood Bowl amphitheater. She is accompanied by other musicians, including her brother Finneas O'Connell and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Inspired by films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Cool World (1992), A Love Letter to Los Angeles blends live action and animation.