Johannes Grenzfurthner wants to invite you to informal formalities!
Want to be part of Sierra Zulu or just learn more about what’s going on?
Are you located somewhere in or near London? Join the movement for a coffee!
London: Sunday, April 22, 12 noon thru 3 PM @ Department of Coffee and Social Affairs / 14-16 Leather Lane, London EC1N 7SU, United Kingdom / Facebook event
Futurezone’s Dan Taylor interviewed director Johannes Grenzfurthner on the production process and philosophy of Sierra Zulu.
Whether the residents of Soviet Unterzoegersdorf realize it or not, their small village is under scrutiny. With an explosion happening inside Soviet territory, the small group of UN peacekeeping soldiers stationed at its borders are about to be thrown into a conspiracy of industrial espionage, a media frenzy, and political intrigue.
Link (to full article)
Bolsheviks! We want to keep you updated about the audacious proceedings on Sierra Zulu’s casting front!
Today we are excited being able to introduce our first actors: Jeff Ricketts and Joi Ito!
Jeff Ricketts will reprise his role as General Huub Van Hulzen (UN Strategic Command Center for Central Europe) — and Joi Ito will play a small, but very honorable part.
Jeff Ricketts?
Jeff is an American League-trained theater, film and television actor. He has performed in over 100 plays in New York, regional theater, Shakespeare Festivals and international theater. While in New York, he played the title role in Richard Schechner’s critically acclaimed production of FaustGastronome. Dr. Faustus, in this production, was an alchemist-turned-master chef and the show performed in New York, London, and Glasgow.
In Hollywood, Jeff has appeared in many dramatic and comedic television series’ including CSI, Drew Carey, NYPD Blue, 24, Star Trek Enterprise, Charmed and he did Joss Whedon’s hat trick having guest-starred on all three of his shows: Buffy, Angel, and Firefly.
In 2011 Jeff has played the Captain of the International Space Station in monochrom’s ISS. This improvisational sitcom was filmed before live audiences in Vienna and Berlin.
Jeff’s films include Holes, Clockstoppers and he recently wrapped shooting The Boundary Man starring Klaus Maria Brandauer.
Joi Ito?
Joi is an influential thinker, speaker, and seed investor driving the international development of the Internet. He was selected as a “Global Leader for Tomorrow” by the World Economic Forum; as one of the 25 Most Influential People on the Web by BusinessWeek; as a member of the “Cyber-Elite” by Time magazine; as a “Leader of the Pack” by Newsweek, and as a member of “The Next Establishment” by Vanity Fair.
By the early 1990s, Joi had already realized the power and potential of the Internet, and in 1994, at the age of 28, he founded one of the first web development companies in Japan, Eccosys, which eventually became Digital Garage, now one of the most actively traded public Japanese Internet companies; he also helped establish, and became CEO of, the first commercial Internet service provider in Japan. He helped to found Infoseek Japan–the first commercial search engine in Japan–and served as its chairman. Subsequently, Joi shifted his focus to early-stage venture investing and was an early investor in over 40 companies including Flickr, Six Apart, Last.fm, Kongregate, Kickstarter, and Twitter. He continues to invest in start-up companies through his venture fund, Neoteny Labs, which focuses on Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
In addition to private-sector work, Joi has been part of a wide range of governmental, arts, and non-profit organizations, and has participated in dozens of central and local government study groups, committees, and advisory boards.
Joi has served on numerous non-profit boards involving computing and the Internet, including the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN); the Open Source Initiative (OSI); Computer Scientists for Social Responsibility (CPSR); and the Internet Association of Japan; the Mozilla Foundation; WITNESS; Startl; and Global Voices, a network of bloggers focusing on free speech and promoting the less-heard voices around the world. For the past 10 years he has served as a juror for Prix Ars Electronica.
In 2003, Joi was invited to join the board of Creative Commons, and in 2011 he was announced head of the MIT Media Lab.
Location scout Sarah Strauss and director Johannes Grenzfurthner went on another day trip to check out a possible camp area for Sierra Zulu’s UNASZMOG.
They visited TÜPl Großmittel — one of the proving grounds of the Austrian Military. Pretty impressive nothingness.
December 13, 2011 marked the production team’s first visit to the United Nations building in Vienna. It will be the shooting location for Sierra Zulu’s prequel “Earthmoving.”
Director Johannes Grenzfurthner stated: “I did nothing more than many others; I did my duty as member of the team.”
(More images on our Flickr page.)
His Excellency Commissar Nikita Perostek Chrusov of Soviet Unterzoegersdorf is being greeted by Bernd Buder, director of Connecting Cottbus.
Take this, pitches!
His Excellency Commissar Nikita Perostek Chrusov of Soviet Unterzoegersdorf will be giving a motivational speech and hands-on demonstration at Connecting Cottbus in Cottbus (Eastern Germany). He will be joined by Sierra Zulu’s producer Sabine Gruber.
The aim of this military exercise is to improve international cooperation and financial stability.
Connecting Cottbus is an East-West co-production market which paves the way for ideas to be realized. Producers could submit new feature film projects together with their screenwriter or director. An expert jury selects the projects which are presented to the professional audience of experienced producers, buyers and financiers – often for the first time outside of the home country.
The audience reaction soon makes it clear whether the project will have a chance of finding its audience in the various countries. Topical insights into the production landscape of East and Central European countries are offered in discussions and case studies. Over time, not only exiting co-productions but also a lively network have been created between Eastern and Western Europe.
November 1-4, 2011.
Link
Our director Johannes Grenzfurthner will talk about traditional narrative cinema, its problems and its promise — and Sierra Zulu.
Join the discourse, knowledge workers!
Saturday, October 22, 2011 @ TEDxVienna (Studio 44 Rennweg 44, 1038 Vienna).
(Above: consultants, directors, sticky rice)
What does a movie production really need? Experts. At least a few.
Our wonderful script & production consultants Ben Rock and Tore Schmidt live and work in Los Angeles — and that’s why monochrom’s Johannes Grenzfurthner met them for a decadent Thai dinner to talk about business and perversions.
Let us introduce our friends…
Ben Rock began his career as a production designer, breaking out with the blockbuster 1999 movie The Blair Witch Project. As one of the creators of the mythology of the film (as well as creating the infamous “stickman”), Ben moved into directing in 2000 in the budding “viral marketing” industry. Following that, Rock wrote, directed, and produced the mock-documentary The BPRD Declassified to market the release of Hellboy, directed a series of award-winning shorts produced for Audi, directed 29 viral videos for USA Network’s The 4400 and 56 viral videos for HBO’s series True Blood. Rock directed his first feature, Alien Raiders, for Warner Brothers’ signature genre label Raw Feed. The film, which was shot in fifteen days with a modest budget, took the film festival world by storm, winning numerous awards and playing to packed houses across the country.
Tore Schmidt studied Film and Communication Sciences at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television and Georg-August-University in Goettingen, Germany. He began his career working as a producer and production manager on narrative and documentary features in his native Germany; he then returned to Los Angeles to join Venice-based Menemsha Films as VP Acquisitions and Marketing where he was involved in the distribution of foreign art house films for the American market. Mr. Schmidt then moved to Gail Mutrux’ Pretty Pictures (Kinsey, Quiz Show, Nurse Betty) where he served as Story Editor and CE and was actively involved in the development and production of all company projects. He is currently the Head of Development at Pretty Pictures at Universal Studios.
They are currently giving us feedback on version 3.6 of our script. Let’s hope they will soon be able to help us with hands-on aspects of our production… but that’s another story.
Party members!
Investors!
Yesterday we finalized the glorious bureaucratic creation of a US-based company for monochrom.
US collaborators, actors and film festivals are easier to deal with if you can show that you are ‘one of them.’ Let’s call it financial mimicry, comrades.
Applause for
monochrom Propulsion Systems, LLC
Based in Washington, DC
(Left: our financial consultant Nick Farr and monochrom’s producer Guenther Friesinger)
Our marvelous casting agent Khris Brown has a message for the People of the World!
I’m very excited to have the opportunity to cast such a smart project. In the same way that early Monty Python skewered outdated social norms and Catch-22 satirized military absurdities, SZ sends up contemporary notions of commerce & social justice. The characters are all vibrant and essential to the lampoon, but, far from being cutouts to serve a point, they experience real arcs and anchor the story in strong human emotion. I expect the show to surpass its creators’ expectations and become a cult hit – it’s too insightful & funny to do anything less. We’re on the hunt for a diverse & international cast to add to our already-impressive roster. Interested parties can send their headshot, resume, union status & reel to me at SeniorEditor2011 AT gmail.com.
Comrade! Comradette! Get involved!