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Notes From the 2018 Cinema Eye Honors

Cinema-Eye-Honors-2018

Last week John and Kenny from Kusiak Music met up in NYC to attend some of the Cinema Eye Honors Awards events. If you aren't familiar with Cinema Eye Honors, it fills a non-fiction gap in the other annual film awards of the season.

For example, the Oscars only have "Best Documentary Feature" and "Best Documentary Short Subject." However, Cinema Eye awards documentary achievements in directing, cinematography, score, et cetera.

Since John won Best Score for Tabloid in 2012, he is now a voting member.

Cinema-Eye-Luncheon

John was also invited to be in the CEH "kitchen cabinet," which will meet periodically to discuss improvements of the program going forward, and he attended a luncheon hosted by Netflix where some initial awards were given.

He and Kenny went to the Awards Night Ceremony together where most awards were given out. 

 

Highlights:

  • Meeting the composer for the hypnotic Dawson City: Frozen Time, Alex Somers
  • Meeting the talented animators (Matt and Shawna Schultz) who worked on Chasing Coral
  • Meeting Soeren Steen Jesperson, producer of the award winning Last Men in Aleppo
  • Meeting Alan Jacobsen, the cinematographer for Strong Island, winner of many awards
  • Seeing When We Were Kings in 35mm (recipient of the 2017 Legacy Award)
  • Reconnecting with friends (see picture above) and making new ones

TBT: Have You Seen Andy? (2008)

Have You Seen Andy? (HBO)

This 2008 Emmy Award Winner ("Best Investigative Journalism") tackles the mysterious abduction of ten-year-old Andy Puglisi in the summer of 1976.

Filmmaker Melanie Perkins searches for answers. 

"With special access and a unique perspective, Melanie Perkins, Andy's childhood friend, re-examines the day of his disappearance 30 years ago, reviews the police investigation and uncovers new and startling information, prompting the long-"cold" case to be reactivated. Through interviews with other kids from the neighborhood, Andy's family, local and state police officers and new forensic experts, Perkins begins to put the pieces of the puzzle together, ultimately focusing in on the suspects in the case, who were never charged at the time." (from Amazon.com)

John Kusiak composed the score for this HBO feature-length documentary. The Boston Globe's Leslie Brokaw stopped by the Kusiak Music studio in 2006 to observe the scoring process and discuss the challenges and rewards of composing film music with Melanie and John.

Boston Globe article from 2006 about the Kusiak Music composing process. 

Boston Globe article from 2006 about the Kusiak Music composing process.