Lucasfilm has appointed Teresa Cheng as General Manager for Lucasfilm Singapore. She joins the company from DreamWorks Animation where she was senior production executive for the joint venture between DWA and Oriental DreamWorks. Cheng has also held senior positions at Warner Bros, Rhytym & Hues and Digital Domain. Feature credits include Shrek Forever After, Madagascar, Batman & Robin and True Lies. In January, George Lucas unveiled Lucasfilm’s new digital production headquarters in the Southeast Asian city-state, replete with the Sandcrawler building that sits on a 22,500 square meter campus. Industrial Light & Magic Singapore is currently working on Transformers: Age of Extinction, Star Wars Episode VII and Agent 47. Colin Brown, who has served as Lucasfilm Singapore’s interim GM for the past seven months, will remain with the company through the summer to help transition Cheng into her new post. She will report to Lynwen Brennan, President and GM of ILM.
Best known as Sherlock’s Mrs Hudson, Una Stubbs and BBC Radio 5 live presenter Richard Bacon will lead a nationwide search for Britain’s best amateur artist in a new primetime BBC One series. With the working title The Big Picture, the series will also feature artists Daphne Todd and Lachlan Goudie, who will judge the competitors’ artwork each week as they face new challenges in different mediums from oils, acrylics and watercolors, to pencils, charcoal and chalks. A spring 2015 airdate is set for the six-part series that aims to prove you don’t need to be world-famous to create fantastic paintings. From almost 6,000 entries received, 10 finalists have been selected. As part of a partnership between the BBC and the Tate museum, a display of works from the finalists and the overall winner will be hosted by the Tate Britain on London’s Millbank. Colm Martin is executive producer and Rob Clifford is producer.
Dusk!, a female-oriented erotic cable channel out of the Netherlands, is launching what it calls “Porna” – that’s porn for women – in the U.S. Dusk! will provide select programming via transactional VOD in the U.S. and its territories starting this month and expects to reach 30 million subscribers by mid-summer. I understand it’s already available via Verizon and is expected to join other national providers throughout the month. Billed as the “first and only adult TV product where content must meet the approval of a panel of women,” Dusk! has been available in Holland on such platforms as Ziggo and UPC Netherlands. It launched in 2009 and is owned by the somewhat conversely named 2GrapesMedia. Dusk! says its “unique approach” to explicit adult content appeals to a growing market of female adult TV viewers. An online panel made up of “wives, mothers, career women and professionals” provides opinions on films and clips, with programming ultimately decided based on their take. Much of the content is also directed by women in an effort to get away from the conventional male-focused brand of adult content – or porn, as it’s traditionally been called.
Copenhagen and New York-based LevelK has closed a series of deals on Bille August’s Silent Heart. The film stars Paprika Steen (The Celebration), Pilou Asbæk (A Highjacking), newcomer Danica Curcic and August’s frequent collaborator Ghita Nørby. They play a family who gathers for one last weekend with their ailing matriarch who will take her own life when the weekend is over. Sales were concluded in Benelux (Wild Bunch), Taiwan (Atom), Hungary (Cirko) and Australia (Madman). Currently in post-production, Silent Heart is produced by Jesper Morthorst for SF Film Production and supported by The Danish Film Institute, SF Film A/S, TV2 Danmark and FilmFyn. SF Film A/S will handle the local Scandinavian release, set for winter 2014/15.
Fox International Channels has appointed Christian Brent as SVP of Global Research & Audience Strategy. In the newly created role, he will head up all audience research for FIC across Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia Pacific. His remit will include TV ratings, digital analytics and agency projects, and he will work with commercial and editorial teams across the FIC regions. Brent joined FIC in 2013 as VP Audience Research & Strategy for Europe and Africa. He will continue to be based in London and will report to Diego Londono, COO for FIC Europe & Africa.
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