AMC has given out a series order to the musical anthology dramedy “National Anthem,” with the cabler giving the series an initial eight-episode order.
“National Anthem” hails from writer Scott Z. Burns with “Better Call Saul” and “Breaking Bad” executive producer Mark Johnson also set to executive produce the new series. The show is the first under Johnson’s overall deal with AMC Studios.
The series tells the story of a middle class Midwestern family tumbling down the ladder of American society, periodically bursting into song as they struggle to catch themselves. The legendary T Bone Burnett is attached as the series’ music producer with words and music by Craig Finn.
“’National Anthem’ is a family drama with deep resonant things to say about the fragility of our country, our world and our planet,” said Sarah Barnett, president of AMC Networks’ Entertainment Group and AMC Studios. “Plus…it’s a musical!
“National Anthem” hails from writer Scott Z. Burns with “Better Call Saul” and “Breaking Bad” executive producer Mark Johnson also set to executive produce the new series. The show is the first under Johnson’s overall deal with AMC Studios.
The series tells the story of a middle class Midwestern family tumbling down the ladder of American society, periodically bursting into song as they struggle to catch themselves. The legendary T Bone Burnett is attached as the series’ music producer with words and music by Craig Finn.
“’National Anthem’ is a family drama with deep resonant things to say about the fragility of our country, our world and our planet,” said Sarah Barnett, president of AMC Networks’ Entertainment Group and AMC Studios. “Plus…it’s a musical!
- 3/24/2020
- by Joe Otterson
- Variety Film + TV
This powerful new addition to what’s shaping up to be the year of Adam Driver casts the Marriage Story star in the all-work-no-play role of Daniel Jones, the real-life Senate investigator charged with filing a report on the CIA’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” on suspected terrorists after September 11th. “The (Torture) Report” — the word torture has been redacted in the title — took Jones and his team six years to complete. And boy, do you feel the grinding, painstaking effort of the job in every minute of this...
- 11/13/2019
- by Peter Travers
- Rollingstone.com
Scott Z. Burns, writer-director of “The Report” and writer-producer of Steven Soderbergh’s “The Laundromat,” built his career with the Oscar-winning filmmaker. They’ve now collaborated on five films, with these last two tackling the Panama Papers and torture reform via screwball comedy and a CIA procedural, respectively. If that seems a little schizophrenic, it’s only because most of us don’t have a history of working with Soderbergh.
“That’s the price of admission for me if I want to come back,” said Burns. “I come back with something new.”
The approaches to Netflix’s “The Laundromat” and Amazon’s “The Report,” a deep dive into Dan Jones’ massive and controversial 2012 Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, seem very different. However, both rely on Burns’ unique capacity for diving into the weeds so that, as he says, “the audience doesn’t have to.”
Burns first worked with...
“That’s the price of admission for me if I want to come back,” said Burns. “I come back with something new.”
The approaches to Netflix’s “The Laundromat” and Amazon’s “The Report,” a deep dive into Dan Jones’ massive and controversial 2012 Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, seem very different. However, both rely on Burns’ unique capacity for diving into the weeds so that, as he says, “the audience doesn’t have to.”
Burns first worked with...
- 10/30/2019
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
Over a span of 13 years, Scott Z.. Burns has compiled an incredibly rich, diverse body of work as a screenwriter, collaborating with many of Hollywood’s most prestigious filmmakers and stars to make films that broke box office records and left a tremendous impact on popular culture. But when asked what quality unifies his uniquely eclectic filmography, Variety’s 2019 Creative Impact in Screenwriting Award recipient admits that the only throughline is that each project is different than the previous one — and the next.
“Every successive opportunity is an invitation to explore a kind of writing I haven’t done,” says Burns, who will partake in a conversation with Variety’s Malina Saval on Oct. 13 at the Mill Valley Film Festival. “I feel like by the time I’m done with something, I’ve exhausted the toolbox of that genre in my mind and it’s fun for me to go and explore something else.
“Every successive opportunity is an invitation to explore a kind of writing I haven’t done,” says Burns, who will partake in a conversation with Variety’s Malina Saval on Oct. 13 at the Mill Valley Film Festival. “I feel like by the time I’m done with something, I’ve exhausted the toolbox of that genre in my mind and it’s fun for me to go and explore something else.
- 10/11/2019
- by Todd Gilchrist
- Variety Film + TV
It would be kind of neat to see Scott Z. Burns premiere his directorial debut at the same time as his frequent collaborator Steven Soderbergh unveils High Flying Bird (#32 on our Predictions list). A scribe who first got into the game via Pu-239 (2006), arguably his best gigs have been for 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum, 2009’s The Informant! and 2013’s Side Effects. A mentor-in-residence for Sundance Screenwriters Labs, Burns began production on The Torture Report in April this year in NYC with the likes of Adam Driver, Annette Bening, Jon Hamm, Jennifer Morrison, Tim Blake Nelson, Ben McKenzie, Matthew Rhys, Ted Levine, Michael C.…...
- 11/23/2018
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
Well known as a screenwriter, Scott Z. Burns made his debut as a director with the 2006 HBO drama Pu-239, starring Paddy Considine. Since then he's made short films and an episode of Californication, but he's now in talks to get behind the camera for another feature. He'd also write the film, inspired by the true events outlined in the New York Times article The Professor, The Bikini Model And The Suitcase Full Of Trouble.The story, originally written by Maxine Swann, centres on Paul Frampton, for thirty years a theoretical particle physicist at The University Of North Carolina. "A very good scientist with the emotional age of a three-year-old" according to his ex-wife, Frampton was duped into an online relationship with a supposed Czech supermodel.Against the advice of appalled and concerned friends and colleagues, he ended up, with thudding inevitability, travelling to Bolivia in posession of a suitcase given...
- 2/3/2014
- EmpireOnline
Conspiracy, a drama series project based on Christopher MacBride’s 2012 found footage-style indie feature The Conspiracy, has landed at NBC as a put pilot. Written and executive produced by Contagion scribe Scott Z. Burns, the TV adaptation centers on a conspiracy theorist who vanishes after a man is killed at an Occupy Wall Street protest, leaving behind his sister and an FBI agent to investigate. Also executive producing are Working Title Films’ Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Liza Chasin, with the company’s Daniel Pipski co-executive producing. The rights to The Conspiracy, written & directed by MacBride and produced by Lee Kim, were held and shopped by Kyle Franke and Aram Tertzakian of Xyz Films, with MacBride, Kim, Franke and Tertzakian also executive producing the TV version. (watch the movie’s official trailer below). This marks feature writer Burns’ reunion with Working Title where he developed his first project, Pu-239, which...
- 9/16/2013
- by NELLIE ANDREEVA
- Deadline TV
Side Effects marks the third collaboration between screenwriter Scott Z. Burns and director Steven Soderbergh. They previously tackled the mind of a bipolar pathological liar with The Informant and a horror-esque “what if?” movie with Contagion. For Side Effects, they’re not taking on pharmaceuticals, but a twisty thriller in the vein of Fatal Attraction and Body Heat. This is the type of movie that drops a new piece of information in almost every scene, causing you to rethink most of what you previously saw. Burns accomplished that with a split narrative starring characters who aren’t exactly the most noble. An ensemble movie with characters one can’t really root for is something of a rare commodity these days, and from the sounds of it, it’s something Burns would like to see (and write) more of. Here’s what screenwriter Scott Z. Burns had to say about constructing ensemble narratives, how...
- 2/9/2013
- by Jack Giroux
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Scott Z. Burns is responsible for some of the best adult-oriented thrillers of the last six years, including "The Bourne Ultimatum," "Contagion" and, now, "Side Effects." Those last two films mark the second and third times Burns wrote a film directed by Steven Soderbergh (their first collaboration was "The Informant!"), and it's a relationship that has served both men well. Burns writes scripts that would have been at home in the 1970s and 1980s, and Soderbergh likes that era too. (Soderbergh even used the Saul Bass 1970s Warner Bros. logo at the beginning of "Magic Mike".)
"This was a kind of movie that used to be made a lot," Soderbergh said of "Side Effects" at a recent screening hosted by The Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York. "I don't know if it just got priced out of existence or what. […] They just kind of went away. I was...
"This was a kind of movie that used to be made a lot," Soderbergh said of "Side Effects" at a recent screening hosted by The Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York. "I don't know if it just got priced out of existence or what. […] They just kind of went away. I was...
- 2/7/2013
- by Christopher Rosen
- Huffington Post
Members of the Sloan Jury at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, chosen by the Sundance Institute and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, also participated in the Science in Film Forum Panel at the Festival. The members of the 2013 Sloan Jury were: Paula Apsell (Senior Executive Producer, Nova and Nova ScienceNow, Director, Wgbh Science Unit), Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, The Fountain, Pi), Scott Burns (writer, Contagion, Pu-239, The Informant and producer, An Inconvenient Truth), Dr. André Fenton (Professor of Neural Science at the Center for Neural Science at New York University), Dr. Lisa Randall (Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science, Harvard University, author of Knocking on Heaven’s Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World).
2013 marks the 10th Anniversary of the Alfred P. Sloan Science in Film initiative, a collaboration between Sundance Institute and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to support the development and presentation of film projects that explore science and technology ideas, or depict scientists, engineers, and mathematicians in engaging new ways. Activities include the Science in Film Forum, the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, the Sloan Commissioning Grant, and the Sloan Feature Film Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute, said, “Scientists, engineers, mathematicians are – like filmmakers - some of the most imaginative and adventurous thinkers of our time, and the Alfred P. Sloan Science in Film initiative has fostered awareness of and engagement with these fascinating themes in independent film for the last 10 years.”
"We are thrilled to celebrate our tenth anniversary with Sundance, which has been such a great partner in our nationwide effort to encourage filmmakers to engage with science and technology themes and characters,” said Doron Weber, Vice President, Programs at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “Anyone who looks at the incredible list of winning films, from Shane Carruth's Primer and Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man to Jake Scheirer’sRobot and Frank and Musa Syeed's Valley of Saints—or at the amazing screenplays that have been developed through the Sloan Fellowship at Sundance Institute Labs and the Sloan Commissioning Grant—will see that science and technology can reveal the human condition in ways previously unseen and undreamt of."
For more information about the Science in Film initiative, along with updated content, a complete list of supported filmmakers, trailers for completed films, and an interview with Jake Schreier (director, Robot and Frank, 2012 Sloan Prize Winner), visit www.sundance.org/science-in-film.
Feature Film Prize Jury
The Sloan Jury determines the recipient of the Sloan Feature Film Prize at the Sundance Film Festival which is presented to an outstanding Festival feature film focusing on science or technology as a theme, or depicting a scientist, engineer or mathematician as a major character. The Prize includes a $20,000 cash award by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Previous Alfred P. Sloan Prize Winners include: Jake Schreier and Christopher Ford, Robot & Frank, and Musa Syeed, Valley of Saints (2012); Mike Cahill and Brit Marling, Another Earth (2011); Diane Bell, Obselidia(2010); Max Mayer, Adam (2009); Alex Rivera, Sleep Dealer (2008); Shi-Zheng Chen, Dark Matter (2007); Andrucha Waddington, The House of Sand (2006); Werner Herzog, Grizzly Man (2005), Shane Carruth, Primer(2004) and Marc Decena, Dopamine (2003). Several past winners have also been awarded Jury Awards at the Festival, including the Grand Jury Prize for Primer, the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for Sleep Dealer and the Excellence in Cinematography Award for Obselidia.
Science in Film Forum Panel
The Science in Film Forum Panel takes place at Sundance Film Festival on January 22 at 2:30 p.m. Mt at the Egyptian Theatre in Park City. Sloan Jurors Aronofsky, Burns, Dr. Fenton and Dr. Randall will engage in conversation with moderator Paula Apsell.
Juror and Panelist Bios
Paula Apsell
As Director of the Wgbh Science Unit and Senior Executive Producer of the PBS science series Nova, Paula Apsell has overseen the production of hundreds of acclaimed science documentaries, including such distinguished miniseries as The Fabric of the Cosmos with Brian Greene, Origins with Neil deGrasse Tyson, Making Stuff with David Pogue and the magazine spin-off Nova scienceNOW. Nova is the nation’s most watched science series, a top site on pbs.org, and recipient of every major broadcasting honor, including the Emmy®, the Peabody®, and the duPont-Columbia Gold Baton. Paula has won numerous individual awards and has served on many boards including the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. She was recently journalist in residence at Uc Santa Barbara’s Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics.
Darren Aronofsky
Academy Award® Nominated Director Darren Aronofsky was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. His most recent film, Black Swan, won Natalie Portman the Academy Award® for Best Actress and received four other nominations, including Best Picture. The film received scores of other accolades, appeared on over 200 critical Top Ten lists, and swept the 2011 Independent Spirit Award with wins for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Cinematography. Prior to Black Swan, Darren directed The Wrestler. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival where it won the esteemed Golden Lion making it only the third American film in history to win this grand prize. He also directed The Fountain, starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz, and Requiem for a Dream, which was named to over 150 Top Ten lists. Darren’s first feature, π, won the Director’s Award at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival and an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay. He is currently at work on Noah, based on the biblical story of Noah’s ark. Among his honors, the American Film Institute gave Darren the prestigious Franklin J. Schaffner Alumni Medal, the Stockholm Film Festival presented him the Golden Horse Visionary Award, and he has won three Independent Spirit Awards.
Scott Z. Burns
Scott Burns is screenwriter, director and producer. He wrote the original screenplay for Contagion, directed by Steven Soderbergh, starring Matt Damon, penned the screen adaptation of Soderbergh's The Informant! and co-wrote the Academy Award® winning Bourne Ultimatum, directed by Paul Greengrass. He was a producer on An Inconvenient Truth, the Academy Award® winning documentary, for which he received the Humanitas Prize and the Stanley Kramer Award from the Producers Guild of America. Scott recently completed production on Side Effects, a psychological thriller, slated for release in early 2013. It stars Jude Law, Rooney Mara, Catherine Zeta Jones and Channing Tatum and is again directed by Steven Soderbergh with Scott writing and producing along with Greg Jacobs and Lorenzo Di Bonaventura. Currently, Scott is writing The Library, a stage play based on the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School with Steven Soderbergh directing and Kennedy/Marshall producing. The play is under development at the Public Theater in New York City. Scott began his career in advertising and was part of the creative team responsible for the original "Got Milk?" campaign. His advertising work has been recognized by the Clio Awards, the Cannes Film Festival, and the New York Film Festival.
Dr. André Fenton
Dr. André Fenton, is a neuroscientist, biomedical engineer and entrepreneur working on three related problems: how brains store information in memory; how brains coordinate knowledge to selectively activate relevant information and suppress irrelevant information; and how to record electrical activity from brain cells in freely-moving subjects. André and colleagues identified PKMzeta as the first memory storage molecule, a discovery identified by Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s journal, as one of the ten most important breakthroughs in all the science reported in 2006. Recordings of electrical brain activity in André’s lab are elucidating the physiology of cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia. It was recently discovered that preemptive cognitive training during adolescence changes the brain sufficiently to prevent the adult brain dysfunction and cognitive impairments that arises from brain damage during early life in a schizophrenia-related animal model. André is a Professor of Neural Science at New York University’s Center for Neural Science. He founded Bio-Signal Group Corp., which is developing an inexpensive, miniature wireless Eeg system for functional brain monitoring of patients in emergency medicine applications and other clinical scenarios.
Dr. Lisa Randall
Dr. Lisa Randall studies theoretical particle physics and cosmology at Harvard University where she is Frank J. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science. Her research connects theoretical insights addressing puzzles in our current understanding of the properties of matter, the universe, and space. Dr. Randall is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is the recipient of many awards and honorary degrees. Professor Randall was included in Time Magazine's “100 Most Influential People” of 2007, was among Esquire Magazine's “75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century," and was one of 40 people featured in “The Rolling Stone 40th Anniversary issue" in 2008. Dr. Randall's two books, Warped Passages (2005) and Knocking on Heaven’s Door (2011) were featured on the lists of New York Times 100 Most Influential Books. Her ebook, Higgs Discovery: The Power of Empty Space, was published last summer.
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Founded in 1934, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is a non-profit philanthropy that makes grants in science, technology and economic performance. This Sloan-Sundance partnership forms part of a broader national program by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to stimulate leading artists in film, television, and theater; to create more realistic and compelling stories about science and technology; and to challenge existing stereotypes about scientists, engineers, and mathematicians in the popular imagination. Over the past decade, the Foundation has partnered with some of the top film schools in the country – including AFI, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Nyu, UCLA, and USC – and established annual awards in screenwriting and film production and an annual first-feature award for alumni. The Foundation has also started an annual Sloan Feature Film Prize at the Hamptons International Film Festival and initiated new screenwriting and film production workshops at the Hamptons and Tribeca Film Festival and with Film Independent. As more finished films emerge from this developmental pipeline—four features were completed this year, with half a dozen more on deck—the foundation has also partnered with the Coolidge Corner Theater and the Arthouse Convergence to screen science films in up to 40 theaters nationwide. The Foundation also has an active theater program and commissions over a dozen science plays each year from the Ensemble Studio Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club and Playwright Horizons.
The Sundance Film Festival®
A program of the non-profit Sundance Institute®, the Festival has introduced global audiences to some of the most ground-breaking films of the past two decades, including sex, lies, and videotape, Maria Full of Grace, The Cove, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, An Inconvenient Truth, Precious, Trouble the Water, and Napoleon Dynamite, and through its New Frontier initiative, has showcased the cinematic works of media artists including Isaac Julien, Doug Aitken, Pierre Huyghe, Jennifer Steinkamp, and Matthew Barney. The 2013 Sundance Film Festival® sponsors include: Presenting Sponsors – Hp, Acura, Sundance Channel and Chase Sapphire PreferredSM; Leadership Sponsors – Directv, Entertainment Weekly, Focus Forward, a partnership between Ge and Cinelan, Southwest Airlines, Sprint and YouTube; Sustaining Sponsors – Adobe, Canada Goose, Canon U.S.A., Inc., CÎRoc Ultra Premium Vodka, FilterForGood®, a partnership between Brita® and Nalgene®, Hilton HHonors and Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts, Intel Corporation, L'Oréal Paris, Recycled Paper Greetings, Stella Artois® and Time Warner Inc. Sundance Institute recognizes critical support from the Utah Governor's Office of Economic Development, and the State of Utah as Festival Host State. The support of these organizations will defray costs associated with the 10-day Festival and the nonprofit Sundance Institute's year-round programs for independent film and theatre artists. www.sundance.org/festival.
Sundance Institute
Founded by Robert Redford in 1981, Sundance Institute is a global, nonprofit cultural organization dedicated to nurturing artistic expression in film and theater, and to supporting intercultural dialogue between artists and audiences. The Institute promotes independent storytelling to unite, inform and inspire, regardless of geo-political, social, religious or cultural differences. Internationally recognized for its annual Sundance Film Festival and its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, film composers, playwrights and theatre artists, Sundance Institute has nurtured such projects as Born into Brothels, Trouble the Water, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Amreeka, An Inconvenient Truth, Spring Awakening, Light in the Piazza and Angels in America. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
2013 marks the 10th Anniversary of the Alfred P. Sloan Science in Film initiative, a collaboration between Sundance Institute and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to support the development and presentation of film projects that explore science and technology ideas, or depict scientists, engineers, and mathematicians in engaging new ways. Activities include the Science in Film Forum, the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, the Sloan Commissioning Grant, and the Sloan Feature Film Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute, said, “Scientists, engineers, mathematicians are – like filmmakers - some of the most imaginative and adventurous thinkers of our time, and the Alfred P. Sloan Science in Film initiative has fostered awareness of and engagement with these fascinating themes in independent film for the last 10 years.”
"We are thrilled to celebrate our tenth anniversary with Sundance, which has been such a great partner in our nationwide effort to encourage filmmakers to engage with science and technology themes and characters,” said Doron Weber, Vice President, Programs at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “Anyone who looks at the incredible list of winning films, from Shane Carruth's Primer and Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man to Jake Scheirer’sRobot and Frank and Musa Syeed's Valley of Saints—or at the amazing screenplays that have been developed through the Sloan Fellowship at Sundance Institute Labs and the Sloan Commissioning Grant—will see that science and technology can reveal the human condition in ways previously unseen and undreamt of."
For more information about the Science in Film initiative, along with updated content, a complete list of supported filmmakers, trailers for completed films, and an interview with Jake Schreier (director, Robot and Frank, 2012 Sloan Prize Winner), visit www.sundance.org/science-in-film.
Feature Film Prize Jury
The Sloan Jury determines the recipient of the Sloan Feature Film Prize at the Sundance Film Festival which is presented to an outstanding Festival feature film focusing on science or technology as a theme, or depicting a scientist, engineer or mathematician as a major character. The Prize includes a $20,000 cash award by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Previous Alfred P. Sloan Prize Winners include: Jake Schreier and Christopher Ford, Robot & Frank, and Musa Syeed, Valley of Saints (2012); Mike Cahill and Brit Marling, Another Earth (2011); Diane Bell, Obselidia(2010); Max Mayer, Adam (2009); Alex Rivera, Sleep Dealer (2008); Shi-Zheng Chen, Dark Matter (2007); Andrucha Waddington, The House of Sand (2006); Werner Herzog, Grizzly Man (2005), Shane Carruth, Primer(2004) and Marc Decena, Dopamine (2003). Several past winners have also been awarded Jury Awards at the Festival, including the Grand Jury Prize for Primer, the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for Sleep Dealer and the Excellence in Cinematography Award for Obselidia.
Science in Film Forum Panel
The Science in Film Forum Panel takes place at Sundance Film Festival on January 22 at 2:30 p.m. Mt at the Egyptian Theatre in Park City. Sloan Jurors Aronofsky, Burns, Dr. Fenton and Dr. Randall will engage in conversation with moderator Paula Apsell.
Juror and Panelist Bios
Paula Apsell
As Director of the Wgbh Science Unit and Senior Executive Producer of the PBS science series Nova, Paula Apsell has overseen the production of hundreds of acclaimed science documentaries, including such distinguished miniseries as The Fabric of the Cosmos with Brian Greene, Origins with Neil deGrasse Tyson, Making Stuff with David Pogue and the magazine spin-off Nova scienceNOW. Nova is the nation’s most watched science series, a top site on pbs.org, and recipient of every major broadcasting honor, including the Emmy®, the Peabody®, and the duPont-Columbia Gold Baton. Paula has won numerous individual awards and has served on many boards including the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. She was recently journalist in residence at Uc Santa Barbara’s Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics.
Darren Aronofsky
Academy Award® Nominated Director Darren Aronofsky was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. His most recent film, Black Swan, won Natalie Portman the Academy Award® for Best Actress and received four other nominations, including Best Picture. The film received scores of other accolades, appeared on over 200 critical Top Ten lists, and swept the 2011 Independent Spirit Award with wins for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Cinematography. Prior to Black Swan, Darren directed The Wrestler. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival where it won the esteemed Golden Lion making it only the third American film in history to win this grand prize. He also directed The Fountain, starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz, and Requiem for a Dream, which was named to over 150 Top Ten lists. Darren’s first feature, π, won the Director’s Award at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival and an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay. He is currently at work on Noah, based on the biblical story of Noah’s ark. Among his honors, the American Film Institute gave Darren the prestigious Franklin J. Schaffner Alumni Medal, the Stockholm Film Festival presented him the Golden Horse Visionary Award, and he has won three Independent Spirit Awards.
Scott Z. Burns
Scott Burns is screenwriter, director and producer. He wrote the original screenplay for Contagion, directed by Steven Soderbergh, starring Matt Damon, penned the screen adaptation of Soderbergh's The Informant! and co-wrote the Academy Award® winning Bourne Ultimatum, directed by Paul Greengrass. He was a producer on An Inconvenient Truth, the Academy Award® winning documentary, for which he received the Humanitas Prize and the Stanley Kramer Award from the Producers Guild of America. Scott recently completed production on Side Effects, a psychological thriller, slated for release in early 2013. It stars Jude Law, Rooney Mara, Catherine Zeta Jones and Channing Tatum and is again directed by Steven Soderbergh with Scott writing and producing along with Greg Jacobs and Lorenzo Di Bonaventura. Currently, Scott is writing The Library, a stage play based on the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School with Steven Soderbergh directing and Kennedy/Marshall producing. The play is under development at the Public Theater in New York City. Scott began his career in advertising and was part of the creative team responsible for the original "Got Milk?" campaign. His advertising work has been recognized by the Clio Awards, the Cannes Film Festival, and the New York Film Festival.
Dr. André Fenton
Dr. André Fenton, is a neuroscientist, biomedical engineer and entrepreneur working on three related problems: how brains store information in memory; how brains coordinate knowledge to selectively activate relevant information and suppress irrelevant information; and how to record electrical activity from brain cells in freely-moving subjects. André and colleagues identified PKMzeta as the first memory storage molecule, a discovery identified by Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s journal, as one of the ten most important breakthroughs in all the science reported in 2006. Recordings of electrical brain activity in André’s lab are elucidating the physiology of cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia. It was recently discovered that preemptive cognitive training during adolescence changes the brain sufficiently to prevent the adult brain dysfunction and cognitive impairments that arises from brain damage during early life in a schizophrenia-related animal model. André is a Professor of Neural Science at New York University’s Center for Neural Science. He founded Bio-Signal Group Corp., which is developing an inexpensive, miniature wireless Eeg system for functional brain monitoring of patients in emergency medicine applications and other clinical scenarios.
Dr. Lisa Randall
Dr. Lisa Randall studies theoretical particle physics and cosmology at Harvard University where she is Frank J. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science. Her research connects theoretical insights addressing puzzles in our current understanding of the properties of matter, the universe, and space. Dr. Randall is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is the recipient of many awards and honorary degrees. Professor Randall was included in Time Magazine's “100 Most Influential People” of 2007, was among Esquire Magazine's “75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century," and was one of 40 people featured in “The Rolling Stone 40th Anniversary issue" in 2008. Dr. Randall's two books, Warped Passages (2005) and Knocking on Heaven’s Door (2011) were featured on the lists of New York Times 100 Most Influential Books. Her ebook, Higgs Discovery: The Power of Empty Space, was published last summer.
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Founded in 1934, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is a non-profit philanthropy that makes grants in science, technology and economic performance. This Sloan-Sundance partnership forms part of a broader national program by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to stimulate leading artists in film, television, and theater; to create more realistic and compelling stories about science and technology; and to challenge existing stereotypes about scientists, engineers, and mathematicians in the popular imagination. Over the past decade, the Foundation has partnered with some of the top film schools in the country – including AFI, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Nyu, UCLA, and USC – and established annual awards in screenwriting and film production and an annual first-feature award for alumni. The Foundation has also started an annual Sloan Feature Film Prize at the Hamptons International Film Festival and initiated new screenwriting and film production workshops at the Hamptons and Tribeca Film Festival and with Film Independent. As more finished films emerge from this developmental pipeline—four features were completed this year, with half a dozen more on deck—the foundation has also partnered with the Coolidge Corner Theater and the Arthouse Convergence to screen science films in up to 40 theaters nationwide. The Foundation also has an active theater program and commissions over a dozen science plays each year from the Ensemble Studio Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club and Playwright Horizons.
The Sundance Film Festival®
A program of the non-profit Sundance Institute®, the Festival has introduced global audiences to some of the most ground-breaking films of the past two decades, including sex, lies, and videotape, Maria Full of Grace, The Cove, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, An Inconvenient Truth, Precious, Trouble the Water, and Napoleon Dynamite, and through its New Frontier initiative, has showcased the cinematic works of media artists including Isaac Julien, Doug Aitken, Pierre Huyghe, Jennifer Steinkamp, and Matthew Barney. The 2013 Sundance Film Festival® sponsors include: Presenting Sponsors – Hp, Acura, Sundance Channel and Chase Sapphire PreferredSM; Leadership Sponsors – Directv, Entertainment Weekly, Focus Forward, a partnership between Ge and Cinelan, Southwest Airlines, Sprint and YouTube; Sustaining Sponsors – Adobe, Canada Goose, Canon U.S.A., Inc., CÎRoc Ultra Premium Vodka, FilterForGood®, a partnership between Brita® and Nalgene®, Hilton HHonors and Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts, Intel Corporation, L'Oréal Paris, Recycled Paper Greetings, Stella Artois® and Time Warner Inc. Sundance Institute recognizes critical support from the Utah Governor's Office of Economic Development, and the State of Utah as Festival Host State. The support of these organizations will defray costs associated with the 10-day Festival and the nonprofit Sundance Institute's year-round programs for independent film and theatre artists. www.sundance.org/festival.
Sundance Institute
Founded by Robert Redford in 1981, Sundance Institute is a global, nonprofit cultural organization dedicated to nurturing artistic expression in film and theater, and to supporting intercultural dialogue between artists and audiences. The Institute promotes independent storytelling to unite, inform and inspire, regardless of geo-political, social, religious or cultural differences. Internationally recognized for its annual Sundance Film Festival and its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, film composers, playwrights and theatre artists, Sundance Institute has nurtured such projects as Born into Brothels, Trouble the Water, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Amreeka, An Inconvenient Truth, Spring Awakening, Light in the Piazza and Angels in America. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
- 2/2/2013
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The Sundance Institute and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation announces the members of the Sloan Jury at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Included are director Darren Aronofsky (who launched his career with "Pi" over a decade ago in Park City) and writer Scott Burns ("Side Effects," "Contagion"). Full list below. 2013 marks the 10th anniversary of the Alfred P. Sloan Science in Film Initiative, a collaboration with Sundance to support film projects that explore science or technological ideas, or that depict scientists, engineers or mathematicians in engaging new ways. The members of the 2013 Sloan jury are: Paula Apsell (Senior Executive Producer, Nova and Nova ScienceNow, Director, Wgbh Science Unit) Darren Aronofsky ("Black Swan," "The Fountain," "Pi") Scott Burns (writer, "Side Effects," "Contagion," "Pu-239," "The Informant" and producer, "An...
- 1/17/2013
- by Beth Hanna
- Thompson on Hollywood
The Sundance Film Festival is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, the festival is a showcase for new work from American and international independent filmmakers. The Festival has changed over the decades from a low-profile venue for small-budget, independent creators from outside the Hollywood system to a media extravaganza for Hollywood celebrity actors, paparazzi, and luxury lounges set up by companies that are not affiliated with Sundance.
Now the festival is getting ready for the 2012 edition and today they announced the jury members for this year’s Festival. They include Shari Berman, Scott Burns, Charles Ferguson, Nick Fraser, Mike Judge, Justin Lin, Anthony Mackie, Cliff Martinez, Julia Ormond, Dee Rees and Lynn Shelton.
Here is the official press release:
Park City, Ut — Sundance Institute announced today the 22 members of the six juries awarding prizes at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival,...
Now the festival is getting ready for the 2012 edition and today they announced the jury members for this year’s Festival. They include Shari Berman, Scott Burns, Charles Ferguson, Nick Fraser, Mike Judge, Justin Lin, Anthony Mackie, Cliff Martinez, Julia Ormond, Dee Rees and Lynn Shelton.
Here is the official press release:
Park City, Ut — Sundance Institute announced today the 22 members of the six juries awarding prizes at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival,...
- 1/10/2012
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
Six Things We Learned From The 'Bourne Ultimatum' Writer While perhaps best known for writing the blockbuster smash, "The Bourne Ultimatum," which grossed a healthy $442 million worldwide, screenwriter Scott Z. Burns is possibly better known within the film industry for his collaborations with Academy Award-winning filmmaker Steven Soderbergh. An Oscar winner himself (as producer of "The Inconvenient Truth"), Burns has collaborated with the "Erin Brokovich" director several times, including the writer's directorial debut "Pu-239" and scripts for "Ocean's 12" (uncredited work), "The Informant!" and this weekend's virus thriller, "Contagion." An intense, terrifying and hyper-realistic portrait of what happens when…...
- 9/10/2011
- The Playlist
Writer and sometime director Scott Z. Burns’ next movie, Contagion, is directed by that little-known director, Steven Soderbergh, and everything we’ve seen from it has looked fantastic so far. If you’ve missed it, you can catch the trailer here.
The Playlist report that his next project, The Side Effects, will see him return behind the camera for a feature film for the first time since 2006’s Pu-239, starring Paddy Considine, his writing and directorial debut.
Burns’ writing credits are more than a little impressive, including The Bourne Ultimatum, the Golden Globe-nominated The Informant!, and Steven Soderbergh’s upcoming The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and he produced the Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. Certainly not a résumé to overlook lightly.
His work writing Contagion has me especially interested, and this news of his next project is definitely something to look forward to as well.
“It deals with people and their moods.
The Playlist report that his next project, The Side Effects, will see him return behind the camera for a feature film for the first time since 2006’s Pu-239, starring Paddy Considine, his writing and directorial debut.
Burns’ writing credits are more than a little impressive, including The Bourne Ultimatum, the Golden Globe-nominated The Informant!, and Steven Soderbergh’s upcoming The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and he produced the Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. Certainly not a résumé to overlook lightly.
His work writing Contagion has me especially interested, and this news of his next project is definitely something to look forward to as well.
“It deals with people and their moods.
- 9/8/2011
- by Kenji Lloyd
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Scott Z. Burns is on the rise as a well-respected screenwriter. He has written such films as The Bourne Ultimatum, Oceans 12, The Informant! and Contagion. Burns also has some cool films that will be released soon, such as David Fincher's 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea and Steven Soderbergh’s adaptation of the TV show The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Burns is also an Oscar winning producer of An Inconvenient Truth and director of the nuclear fallout drama, Pu-239. The Playlist reports that he has found his next project, a psychological thriller set in the world of pharmaceuticals, called The Side Effects.
Here is what he had to say:
“It deals with people and their moods. It’s about how we as a society can’t tolerate sadness and what that makes us vulnerable to,” Burns said. The idea came to him, like many of his ideas evidently do,...
Burns is also an Oscar winning producer of An Inconvenient Truth and director of the nuclear fallout drama, Pu-239. The Playlist reports that he has found his next project, a psychological thriller set in the world of pharmaceuticals, called The Side Effects.
Here is what he had to say:
“It deals with people and their moods. It’s about how we as a society can’t tolerate sadness and what that makes us vulnerable to,” Burns said. The idea came to him, like many of his ideas evidently do,...
- 9/8/2011
- by Tiberius
- GeekTyrant
The writer has lent his talents on the page to films like The Bourne Ultimatum, and upcoming projects like David Fincher's new spin on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and the big screen adaptation of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (which will team the Contagion writer with Steven Soderbergh again), but Scott Z. Burns has also directed his own film in the form of the nuclear fallout drama Pu-239. Now it sounds like his next project is already lined up as The Playlist recently spoke with Burns who revealed that he will direct The Side Effects, a new psychological thriller set in the world of pharmaceuticals. More info below. Though it sounds like the project could be very similar to Contagion, Burns description and talk about research done at New York's Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital while working on the series "Wonderland" with Peter Berg: "It deals with people and their moods.
- 9/7/2011
- by Ethan Anderton
- firstshowing.net
The role of the screenwriter in studio filmmaking is sometimes marginalized by the more prominent role of the director or the involvement of the studio in the creative process, which often makes it a rarity for a screenwriter who starts on a project to be on it until the bitter end. Scott Z. Burns has been fairly lucky in that regard as he has collaborated with filmmakers like Steven Soderbergh, David Fincher and Paul Greengrass, all whom appreciate the importance of the screenwriter in allowing for a cohesive vision. After his directorial debut Pu-239 , starring Paddy Considine as a Russian worker at a nuclear facility who gets exposed to radiation, Burns was called upon to work on the script for The Bourne Ultimatum (along with Tony Gilroy and The Adjustment Bureau helmer...
- 9/6/2011
- Comingsoon.net
The Dallas International Film Festival Announces Scott Z. Burns to receive the Dallas Shining Star Award
Horton Foote to be posthumously honoured with the Dallas Star Award
Chris Sanders and Dean Deblois named as recipients of the Texas Avery Animation Award
Additions to the Festival Line Up
The Dallas International Film Festival presented by Cadillac (March 31 . April 10, 2011) announced today that two new Honorees have been added to the slate of Dallas Star Award recipients . writer, producer and director Scott Z. Burns (The Informant, The Bourne Ultimatum) and posthumously to Texas legend and Academy-Award winner Horton Foote(To Kill A Mockingbird, Tender Mercies). The popular Texas Avery Animation Award presented by Reel FX Entertainment will be awarded to the writers and directors of the Academy Award nominated How To Train Your Dragon and Lilo & Stitch, Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders. Previous recipients include Pete Docter (Up), Henry Selick (Coraline),Chris Wedge (Robots)and Brad Bird (Ratatouille,...
Horton Foote to be posthumously honoured with the Dallas Star Award
Chris Sanders and Dean Deblois named as recipients of the Texas Avery Animation Award
Additions to the Festival Line Up
The Dallas International Film Festival presented by Cadillac (March 31 . April 10, 2011) announced today that two new Honorees have been added to the slate of Dallas Star Award recipients . writer, producer and director Scott Z. Burns (The Informant, The Bourne Ultimatum) and posthumously to Texas legend and Academy-Award winner Horton Foote(To Kill A Mockingbird, Tender Mercies). The popular Texas Avery Animation Award presented by Reel FX Entertainment will be awarded to the writers and directors of the Academy Award nominated How To Train Your Dragon and Lilo & Stitch, Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders. Previous recipients include Pete Docter (Up), Henry Selick (Coraline),Chris Wedge (Robots)and Brad Bird (Ratatouille,...
- 3/30/2011
- by Melissa Howland
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
In 2006, a young Polish composer named Abel Korzeniowski moved to Los Angeles to pursue film composition as his career. Although he had an impressive resumé, including a specialization in cello, studying from Krzysztof Penderecki and numerous awards (Golden Lions from the Gdynia festival, a Golden Knight Award from Russia), the film music business is very saturated in Los Angeles. Three years later Korzeniowski is in the gate of international fame with a Golden Globe nomination for the score he wrote for Tom Ford's A Single Man. We discussed his work on the movie, the special methods he used for the score's recording and what the future holds for this bright talent.
How did you first get in touch with A Single Man?
This actually goes back to my first movie in the U.S. called Pu-239. This is when I met editor Tania Riegel and she recommended me for A Single Man three years later.
How did you first get in touch with A Single Man?
This actually goes back to my first movie in the U.S. called Pu-239. This is when I met editor Tania Riegel and she recommended me for A Single Man three years later.
- 12/22/2009
- Daily Film Music Blog
Special Report: Branded to Sell
As if making, acquiring, marketing and distributing movies through Myriad isn't enough, Kirk D'Amico also has joined with his wife, producer Zanne Devine, to launch a Canadian distributor they are calling Pacific Motion Pictures.
Kirk D'Amico
"It made sense to combine Devine's production experience and her being Canadian to set up that company primarily as a distribution company and secondarily being involved in production, so that's what we're doing," D'Amico says of the venture they will launch this year.
Although Devine is from Toronto originally, and that is where almost all Canadian film distributors are located, Pacific is setting up headquarters in Vancouver. "There's a terrific community of filmmakers on the west coast (of Canada), and the proximity to Los Angeles make it something that is of interest to us," Devine says.
Devine is former president of the Kennedy/Marshall Co., senior vp of Polygram...
As if making, acquiring, marketing and distributing movies through Myriad isn't enough, Kirk D'Amico also has joined with his wife, producer Zanne Devine, to launch a Canadian distributor they are calling Pacific Motion Pictures.
Kirk D'Amico
"It made sense to combine Devine's production experience and her being Canadian to set up that company primarily as a distribution company and secondarily being involved in production, so that's what we're doing," D'Amico says of the venture they will launch this year.
Although Devine is from Toronto originally, and that is where almost all Canadian film distributors are located, Pacific is setting up headquarters in Vancouver. "There's a terrific community of filmmakers on the west coast (of Canada), and the proximity to Los Angeles make it something that is of interest to us," Devine says.
Devine is former president of the Kennedy/Marshall Co., senior vp of Polygram...
- 5/12/2009
- by By Alex Ben Block
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
I'll confess up front that I know zilch about the video game Army of Two. It came out in March, and it has apparently sold a couple million copies, which is a good number. Variety reports that fans of the game won't have to wait to long to either see or publicly decry a movie version of the game (because it's always one or the other), as Universal has picked up the rights and will begin production next year.
The studio has hired Scott Z. Burns to write the script, and his laptop was one of three working on the script for The Bourne Ultimatum. Burns is still fairly new to this racket, however; Bourne is probably the only film you've seen, and it would have to be if you missed The Half Life of Timofey Berezin (aka Pu-239). And I'm taking it by your blank stare that you did,...
The studio has hired Scott Z. Burns to write the script, and his laptop was one of three working on the script for The Bourne Ultimatum. Burns is still fairly new to this racket, however; Bourne is probably the only film you've seen, and it would have to be if you missed The Half Life of Timofey Berezin (aka Pu-239). And I'm taking it by your blank stare that you did,...
- 10/25/2008
- by Colin Boyd
- GetTheBigPicture.net
- You might not have a damn clue as to who these folks are (I’d say I’m familiar with half the names) but this annual list compiled by Filmmaker Magazine is a precursor for many folks you’ll be foaming at the mouth for their original projects to come. Producers, writers, directors and actors are highlighted and ranked by the folks at. This year’s crop has actually got a name that I’d put at the top of my list. Number 8 – Carter Smith gave us the short film that was selected for Cannes and Sundance and it is perhaps my favorite of the year with Bugcrush. Our correspondent Barbara Celis would probably rank the Pastor brothers (#17 on the list) as a pair to watch for. Below I’ve included some links to some of these folks work, but obviously for the complete 25 you would want to head over here.
- 8/3/2006
- IONCINEMA.com
Radha Mitchell and Paddy Considine are boarding PU-239, a black comedy crime drama that Scott Burns is writing and directing. George Clooney's and Steven Soderbergh's Section 8 will exec produce alongside Armyan Bernstein's and Charlie Lyons' Beacon Pictures for HBO Films. Picturehouse will release the movie. The story follows a nuclear facility technician (Considine) who, after an accident, travels to Moscow with his wife (Mitchell) in search of work and finds his life intersecting with that of a Russian gangster. PU-239 is the atomic number for plutonium.
- 8/25/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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