Naudet revisited
Who is production company William Morris Endeavor?
Who is Ben Silverman, agent of William Morris?
Who was behind
9|11 - the propaganda movie with an audience of over 30 million?
http://www.wma.com/flash.html
Listed simply as "Talent Agency (310) 285-9000" on their own site, William Morris is credited with bringing the Nextel-sponsored "Naudet" movie
9|11 to our screens.
Based in London, New York, Los Angeles and Nashville, the 'private engagement' factor seems to be the only option available if you want to be based in Europe or London.
http://www.wmeentertainment.com/0/cta/a ... gagements/
The 'voice over work' option involves huge celebrity names - some of which we may recognize in this research
- Steve Buscemi (featured on the site as this bizarre audio reading
http://www.wmeentertainment.com/0/vo/ce ... ercial.mp3))
- Denis Leary
- Patrick Stewart (used in the VicSim)
and others (all here
http://www.wmeentertainment.com/0/vo/ce ... index.html )
And that may not have anything to do with anything ... just peeking around, you know ...
"What's working right now is fantasy and escapism: Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter," says Ben Silverman, the agent at William Morris who handled the Naudets' film. "And especially Friends.
this from an article here
http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/sept11/features/5791/ which also twists the usual dose of propaganda into itself:
It hasn't been just book editors snapping up proposals -- though they've bought everything from David Halberstam's Firehouse to Cantor Fitzgerald chief Howard Lutnick's story to Murray Weiss's biography of prescient former FBI agent and WTC chief of security John O'Neill. (There is, in fact, a separate O'Neill industry, with several TV and film projects: An article by New York's Robert Kolker was bought for TV, and Lawrence Wright has an MGM-backed movie deal.)
O.J. chronicler Lawrence Schiller is working on a script for CBS about United Flight 93, and there are no fewer than three TV projects about Rudy Giuliani, including Brad Grey's In Memoriam, which will be broadcast on Memorial Day.
Underlying the media's interest in 9/11 is a question of authority and authenticity. There are subjects the victims can discuss -- Greg and Lauren Manning's book talks about her recovery from severe burns incurred in the lobby of One World Trade -- that the observers cannot; the Naudets are quick to point out that Jules stopped filming two burning people he saw fleeing the building. And everyone takes pains to explain that they're donating money to 9/11 charities.
"It's all a matter of taste," says Lloyd Kramer, who's directing an ABC documentary based on Smith's book, "and every one of these programs should be judged at the highest level of taste."
"Is there a way to police good taste? In Iraq, there is," muses Newsweek's "Homefront" columnist, Steve Brill, who is also writing a book (reportedly for 1 million) about the country's recovery. "The best antidote to all that is embarrassment. Of course, there are some people who just can't be embarrassed."
"There will inevitably be a level of grief pornography," says writer Tom Beller, who just released a book of 9/11 testimonies culled from his Website. "If this book is part of the rising tide, then so be it. It's in a New Yorker's nature to rebel against sanctimony."
And one reason for the outpouring of print and video is that New York is, among other things, the media capital of the world. "It happened in the backyard of almost every major writer, photographer, and editor," says Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter, co-producer of the Naudets' film. "It was just so close and so enormous."
Still, others feel too close to what happened. "I've had six book offers myself," says Marian Fontana, who lost her husband, a firefighter. "I'm in the middle of it -- and I'm grieving heartily. If you're directly affected, I don't see how you could come up with something. You're not thinking clearly."
Wow. The meta level here is dangerous. I think they broke the fifth wall.
Here is some more grounding info about the Naudet flick. Apparently:
CBS News' Susan Zirinsky is executive producer of the CBS broadcast, along
with Gedeon and Jules Naudet, Ladder 1 firefighter James Hanlon and CBS News'
Hal Gessner and Tom Forman, who are executive editor and senior producer,
respectively. Betsy West, Senior Vice President, CBS News, is
executive-in-charge.
Vanity Fair Editor Graydon Carter and the magazine's Editor of Creative
Development David Friend will also serve as executive producers of the
broadcast. Vanity Fair ran an exclusive interview with the Naudet brothers in
the magazine's current issue. The project was brought to CBS by Carter and
the William Morris Agency's President and Co-Chief Executive Officer Jim Wiatt
and Head of International Development Ben Silverman, who were instrumental in
its development.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases ... 20402.html
What's this? The film actually
originated from a connection to magazine
Vanity Fair? That seems a safe place to dump its official origination. It will quickly be overshadowed by giants CBS and Paramount pictures - and nobody will ever suspect it originated in those companies in the first place ...
CBS acquired the tape through some unusual connections to Vanity Fair magazine, which is publishing an article about their experiences in the issue that comes out this week.
David Friend, a Vanity Fair editor who wrote the article, has been a friend of the Naudet family. He said yesterday that he contacted the brothers soon after the attack to interview them for an article after learning that they had been on the scene with videocameras.
Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, then contacted Jim Wiatt of the William Morris talent agency as well as Mr. Moonves, both of whom are personal friends of his, to work out the arrangements for bringing the tape to television.
Mr. Wiatt called in another William Morris agent, Ben Silverman, to represent the Naudets and Mr. Hanlon directly. Mr. Wiatt said that all the William Morris fees on the CBS project would be donated to a fund designated by the Naudets.
Mr. Moonves did not disclose how much CBS had paid for the rights to the footage, but Mr. Silverman called it "a minimal fee." CBS did, however, commit resources to complete the film, including the services of Susan Zirinsky, the executive producer of the CBS news magazine program "48 Hours." She is leading the creative team on the project, though she said the Naudets remained in control of the film. Mr. Carter and Mr. Friend are also executive producers.
Despite Ms. Zirinsky's participation, CBS emphasized that the special was not a product of CBS News. "Because of the fund-raising aspect, it does not fit under a news heading," Ms. Zirinsky said. Mr. Moonves said that it would not be an entertainment special either. "We're not going to label it anything," he said.
The network will sell commercial time in the special, Mr. Moonves said, but "we are looking for just two or three special sponsors." Mr. Carter said the deal mandated that commercials would run only at the beginning and end of the film, with one break in the middle.
Mr. Silverman predicted that the special would be one of the biggest events of the television season. "I think 50 million will watch this," he said. He said that CBS had acquired two runs of the film, but that it would still be owned by the Naudets. He said that they might expand it later, and that it would be sold internationally next. Proceeds from that sale will also go to the scholarship fund.
-
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/06/nyregion/06TAPE.html
Aw, poor guy. They missed over 10 million viewers. Darn. Maybe this
whole thing would have just tricked us all if they'd only gotten those 10 million extra viewers. Oh well! Too late now! Bwahahaha
The firefighters rushed to the north tower, accompanied by Naudet. Entering the lobby, he saw two people on fire; the fuel from the plane had created a fireball that went down an elevator shaft.
"No one should see this," Naudet is heard saying on the tape. He didn't film the scene.
"This was the first time I had seen anything like this," Naudet explained during a telephone news conference Tuesday with reporters and TV critics. "This was an image that was quite horrible, and I thought immediately, 'It's not something people should see.' I guess I did some kind of auto-censorship."
There are also no shots of the many people who either fell or jumped from the upper floors of the Trade Center's two towers.
Viewers will, however, hear the ghastly sound of people crashing through the enormous glass awning outside the lobby entrance to the north tower.
"Those are jumpers," a firefighter is heard saying matter-of-factly.
CBS elected to edit out much of the crashing noise.
"To have that incredible crush of sound every 20 to 30 seconds would have been very difficult for the audience," Zirinsky explained.
... forgetting that the 'incredible "crush" of sound' is actually retained in the movie? And aired? Uh ... okay?
Only one dead victim is shown during the entire two-hour broadcast. The body of the Rev. Mychal Judge, a Fire Department chaplain who's seen earlier praying silently in the lobby, is later shown being carried out of the wreckage. Judge was killed by chunks of falling debris as he administered last rites to victims on the sidewalk. Only his booted feet are shown on videotape, but CBS added the now-familiar Reuters photograph of five men carrying Judge's body, in which his face can be seen.
The Naudets also documented the first few days of the recovery efforts at ground zero, including some scenes shot underground as firefighters searched frantically for signs of life. Here, too, Gedeon Naudet said, the brothers would turn off their cameras rather than film workers removing human remains from the rubble.
During Tuesday's news conference, the Naudets defended their decision to "auto-censor" their coverage.
"It is a story about a firehouse and the men in the firehouse, going through their daily lives and, after Sept. 11, surviving this," Gedeon Naudet said. "It's not a story about death or what happened. It's a tribute."
It's a tribute. Aw. Above criticism then I guess. What a familiar theme these days.
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William Morris Agency has had a long history before they became William Morris Endeavor.
Notable trainees include:
Michael Ovitz - co-founder of Creative Artists Agency and former president of Walt Disney Company
Michael Eisner - former CEO of Walt Disney Company and Paramount Pictures
David Geffen - "G" in Dreamworks SKG and founder of Geffen Records and Asylum Records
Jeffrey Katzenberg - "K" in Dreamworks SKG and CEO of DreamWorks Animation
George Shapiro - executive producer of Seinfeld
Anne Carey - producer of The Laramie Project and The Savages
Ben Silverman - co-chairman of NBC and executive producer of The Office
Barry Diller - former CEO of Paramount Pictures, Fox Broadcasting Company and USA Networks, chairman of InterActiveCorp
They are responsible for producing people who worked on the
X-Men movie (some names from this movie ended up in the Vicsim)
WMA's Television Department "represents the creators, producers, and writers of such scripted shows" as
Lost (J. J. Abrams) &
American Dad (cartoon by "9/11 airplane skipping Seth MacFarlane" about the CIA) and none other than
Seinfeld (Larry David).
It has also represented Larry King and Condoleezza Rice.
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In 2009, WME was purchased by Ariel "Ari" Zev Emanuel (oy vey!) and this guy was responsible for representing Michael Moore at one time. I guess it passed into "good" hands.
Emanuel is the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, NIH "bioethicist" Ezekiel J. Emanuel [no psychological ethics in the family then?], and adopted sister Shoshana Emanuel. His father, the Jerusalem-born Dr. Benjamin M. Emanuel is a pediatrician who was active in the Irgun (Hebrew: ארגון), a hardline group that fought for Israeli independence until 1948 and was branded as a terrorist organisation by the British colonial authorities.
Yipes. -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ari_Emanuel
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Interestingly, when this takeover happened, Jim Wiatt, "who came to WMA in 1999 from International Creative Management (where he was Vice-Chairman)" was let go.
So what did he do in 1999 to score the biggest propaganda movie of the 20th/21st century? Not surprisingly, International Creative Management is
also based in Los Angeles, New York and London. I guess whatever channels London can use to send its war-mongering ideals down, it will use.
If you thought WME had a minimal site, check out this slab of post-modern:
END OF WEB SITE. BASTA.
http://icmtalent.com/index.html
Don't ask too many questions. Capisce?