The view of the 4th of July fireworks from the 45th floor of The Austonian.
Video credit: Alberto Martinez, Austin American-Statesman.
Last week The Austonian celebrated a major construction milestone when it reached the 51st floor and became the tallest structure in Austin. The Giant Media crew and The Austonian construction manager Bob Albanese took members of the media to the top of the building to experience the 360-degree views of Austin and the surrounding Hill Country.
Award-winning mixed-use, master-planned community Plum Creek was recently included on the cover of the Sunday “Statesman Homes” section in the Austin American-Statesman. Read the full article here..
Plum Creek is entering a second phase of growth, which includes multifamily, employment and retail development. Following the principles of New Urbanism, the neighborhood incorporates and supports community through a traditional neighborhood design.
“Now more than ever there are excellent alternatives for filmmakers — festivals that go the extra mile to make certain that a moviemaker’s efforts are well-compensated,” cites Moviemaker.
Giant Media handles public relations for the Austin Film Festival, a non-profit organization dedicated to furthering the art, craft and business of writers and filmmakers and recognizing their contributions to film, television and new media. The AFF champions the work of aspiring and established writers and filmmakers by providing unique cultural events and services, enhancing public awareness and participation, and encouraging dynamic and long-lasting community partnerships.
Giant Media also recently represented “The Eyes of Me” by filmmaker Keith Maitland. Read about his film and media coverage secured by Giant Media here.
Whole Foods Market will host a Community Giving Day benefiting the Austin Film Festival’s Young Filmmakers Program on Wednesday, April 29. Five percent of all sales from both Austin Whole Foods Market stores will support the AFF’s Young Filmmakers Program that includes a project at Dell Children’s Hospital and writing and film programs offered free through AISD high schools. There will be information on all AFF programs, a claymation station, shorts screenings, opportunity to win passes to the 2009 Austin Film Festival and more.
When:
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Events begin at 10 a.m.
Where:
Whole Foods Market Austin locations:
2525 N. Lamar Blvd., Austin, TX 78703
9607 Research Blvd., Austin, TX 78759
Wandering River Recycling is a paper, plastic, glass and metal recycling pickup service for outlying Austin residents and small and medium-sized businesses that are not being served by the City of Austin.
Currently the City of Austin is only required to provide recycling services to businesses with 100 employees or more on site, leaving hundreds of small and medium business owners without a convenient or viable option for recycling.
Wandering River Recycling not only picks up recycling the city does not, it also makes it easy to recycle by not requiring customers to sort. Wandering River picks up un-sorted recyclables from customers’ curbsides and takes them to Ecology Action, downtown Austin’s recycling center and a responsible re-seller of recyclable items.
Bob McGivney, the founder of Wandering River, was featured on KXAN News this week as one Austin man who has turned a city problem into a green business that serves all of Austin.
Watch the following video or read the accompanying article by clicking here.
Every April for the past ten years, the Umlauf Sculpture Garden & Museum has hosted what has evolved into one of Austin’s most anticipated outdoor fundraising events. The Umlauf Garden Party is Thursday, April 23.
The Garden Party is a celebration of food, wine and art set in the lush Umlauf Sculpture Garden. The evening includes live music provided by the Nash Hernandez Orchestra and samplings of signature dishes from 20 of Austin’s finest restaurants. Highlighting this elegant evening is the popular “Celebrity Seeds/Garden Planters Auction” – a silent auction of “garden planters” created, decorated, signed or filled by Austin luminaries. Proceeds from the event directly benefit the Umlauf Sculpture Garden & Museum and its programs, including the museum’s award-winning education programs for children.
Michael Barnes included The Umlauf Garden Party’s Celebrity Seeds Auction in his Out & About column in today’s Austin American-Statesman.
For more information about the Umlauf Sculpture Garden and the 2009 Umlauf Garden Party, visit the Umlauf’s website at www.umlaufsculpture.org. Umlauf Garden Party event details follow.
11th Annual Umlauf Garden Party
Umlauf Sculpture Garden & Museum
605 Robert E. Lee Road
Thursday, April 23, 2009
6:30 – 9:30p.m.
Featured artist: Kyle Bunting
Honorary chair: Damian Priour
Tickets are $100 in advance and $115 at the door. Tickets may be purchased online at www.umlaufsculpture.org, by calling the museum at 462-6050 or at the following Twin Liquors locations: Balcones Drive, West 7th Street, Bee Caves Road and Hancock Center.
The Austin Film Festival and The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum present the “Made in Texas Film Series,” a program of six films made by Texas based filmmakers or filmed in Texas. The program will begin on Wednesday, April 8th and run the second Wednesday of every month through September 2009. All screenings are presented in the Texas State History Museum’s beautiful Texas Spirit Theater at 7:30 PM and are free for members of AFF or TSHM; $5 for the general public. The “Made in Texas Film Series” is sponsored by the Texas Film Commission.
A complete list of films follows:
April 8 | “Songwriter,” writer Bud Shrake and musician Ray Benson (Asleep at the Wheel) in attendance
May 13 | “Fandango,” writer/director Kevin Reynolds in attendance*
June 10 | “Blood Simple”
July 8 | film TBA
August 12 | “Chalk,” writer/director Mike Akel and writer/lead actor Chris Mass in attendance
September 9 | “A Perfect World,” writer/director John Lee Hancock in attendance*
*An AFF Conversations in Film sponsored by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, will precede the screening this night beginning at 6:00 PM at the AT&T Conference Center.
For more information about the series, click here.
This week, the Austin Film Festival was featured on the cover of the Austin American-Statesman’s Movies & Life section. The article focuses on the festival’s Writer’s Ranch, where four screenwriters are counseled by successful peers on their screenplays. The Austin Film Festival funds the week long seminar and subsequent trip to Los Angeles for the screenwriters.
Join the Austin Film Festival and writer/director Will Moore at a screening of “Cowboy Smoke” tomorrow night at Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek. Filmed entirely in Texas, “Cowboy Smoke” forces its characters to come to their own terms with right and wrong and, ultimately, what it means to be a cowboy. Event details follow.
“Cowboy Smoke”
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek
13729 Research Blvd.
Austin, TX 78750
$4 for general admission; FREE for AFF members
“The Eyes of Me” is a documentary by Austin filmmaker Keith Maitland that follows four blind teenagers over the course of one year at the Texas School for the Blind.
Distilled from over 250 hours of footage, this experiential documentary captures a textured portrait of its characters’ who, forced to confront the world without sight, share their thoughts, perceptions, and inner-visions of the outer world.
Giant Media signed on to represent the film at its world premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin. Each screening utilized Live Audio Description as a way to present the film to visually impaired festival-goers. Audio Description refers to an additional audio track which blind audience members can access through use of wireless headset receivers. Users of Audio Description receive simple descriptions of what has been communicated visually in the film.
Another interesting feature of the film is the stylized rotoscopic animation that is intermixed with the footage to complement the film’s observational aesthetic. Austin’s Jason Archer & Paul Beck created the animations that offer dynamic dreamlike moments that deal specifically with questions of perception and sensory-loss.
Archer & Beck lead the animation team on Richard Linklater’s “A Scanner Darkly.” For Scanner, Archer and Beck honed the rotoscopic animation techniques they learned while working on the animated feature “Waking Life.” “The Eyes of Me” Is Archer & Beck’s first documentary work.
Coverage of the film and its screenings included pieces on Fox 7 News, KXAN News and KVUE News. Watch the three segments below.
