Imagine News

Caitlin McCarthy was named as a Woman to Watch by IMAGINE Magazine five years ago. Caitlin McCarthy earned her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Emerson College, which is ranked by U.S. News & World Report as one of the best graduate programs in the country.

An award-winning screenwriter at international film festivals and labs, Caitlin has written feature screenplays including: “Wonder Drug,” the story we are featuring here and now is heading into production with Rhino Films and producer Stephen Nemeth and previously a “Featured Script” on The Black List website, Bitch List honoree, and among the Top fifty screenplays and Top ten highest scoring women in the 2019 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting competition (out of 7,302 entries); and “A Native Land,” Academy Nicholl Top 10% and promoted as a “highly-rated script” by The Black List website.

In addition to screenwriting, Caitlin serves as an Acting MCAS/ Assessment Specialist at a high-poverty urban public high school with universal free breakfast and lunch. Before advancing to this position, she taught English Language Arts for sixteen years at the same school in Worcester, Massachusetts.

She was crowned senior prom queen at Worcester Academy, alma mater of legendary composer Cole Porter, Sixties icon Abbie Hoffman, and “Durango Kid” Charles Starrett.

CUT THROAT CITY, Starring Shameik Moore, Kat Graham, Ethan Hawke and Terrence Howard and Directed by RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan in theaters April 10th.

The theatrical release for CUT THROAT CITY starring Terrence Howard, Eiza González, Wesley Snipes, Denzel Whitaker, Ethan Hawke, Shameik Moore, T.I., Kat Graham, Robb Morgan and Demetrius Shipp Jr. is slated for April 10th, 2020. The film is produced through Massachusetts Native Sean Lydiard’s company Rumble Riot, distributed by Well Go USA and directed by legendary member of the Wu-Tang Clan and esteemed film director, RZA.

This dramatic thriller follows a group of young men who return to New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. Receiving no help from FEMA, they turn to local gangsters for help. Out of options, the four boyhood friends reluctantly accept an offer to pull off a dangerous heist in the heart of New Orleans.

The script of CUT THROAT CITY made its rounds through Hollywood for years before Sean helped bring it to life.

Sean, a country boy from Southwick, Massachusetts, who grew up riding dirt bikes and playing basketball, has built a career for himself by producing feature films such as OFFICE UPRISING (2018) starring Brenton Thwaites and Jane Levy, and WAKEFIELD (2016) starring Bryan Cranston. He maintains his relationship with New England through his brother and creative collaborator Noah Lydiard, who owns a commercial production company in Back Bay named Conductor Productions. CUT THROAT CITY is the sixth feature film produced by Lydiard’s Rumble Riot.

Sean Lydiard p.g.a. came to Hollywood through the world of finance. He was formerly the Vice President of Institutional Business Development at MBT Institutional, a division of MB Trading. Prior to joining MBT Institutional, Mr. Lydiard was a securities trader for the Electronic Trading Group in New York. He began his finance career in the “30 Year Treasury Pit” at the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). Mr. Lydiard was an active member of the Securities Traders Association of Los Angeles. He received his BA in Finance from the University of Colorado at Boulder and has held his Series 3, 7, 24, 55 and 63 industry licenses.

Because of his strong financial background and connections, Mr. Lydiard transitioned from Wall Street to film finance rather quickly. Lydiard has earned credits for the following movies: Daniel Alfredson’s BLACKWAY, starring Anthony Hopkins, Julia Stiles, Ray Liotta and Alexander Ludwig. Robin Swicord’s WAKEFIELD, starring Bryan Cranston and Jennifer Garner. DAISY WINTERS, starring Brooke Shields, Iwan Rheon, Carrie Preston and featuring Sterling Jerins. And STEALING CARS, starring Emory Cohen, William H. Macy and John Leguizamo.

Sean Lydiard p.g.a. launched “Rumble Riot Pictures,” a full-service film production company with Elliott Michael Smith p.g.a. Rumble Riots goal is to bring stories to life by empowering creatives to come together and create art.

The combined efforts of Smith and Lydiard first proved out in Rumble Riot’s Cult hit OFFICE UPRISING, produced by Sean Lydiard p.g.a. and is now featured on Sony Crackle domestically and worldwide on Netflix and Amazon. OFFICE UPRISING stars Brenton Thwaites (PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, MALEFICENT), Jane Levy (DON’T BREATH, MONSTER TRUCKS), Ian Harding (PRETTY LITTLE LIARS) Zack Levy (SHAZAM) and many others.

Lydiard was awarded the p.g.a. mark for his work on CUT THROAT CITY and is next set to produce the award winning script “Sunflower” co-written and directed by his brother Noah Lydiard. Additional projects include the horror comedy Don’t Bite! The Anna Faris comedy, Summer Madness, and Priority Records, a biopic based on the iconic rap record label of the same name.

CUT THROAT CITY is set to be released in theaters April 10th, 2020.
For more information about Rumble Riot Pictures visit
www.rumbleriot.com. or view the film’s IMDB entry here.

By Alecia Orsini Lebeda

Last year Women in Film and Video-New England (WIFVNE) decided
to do something bold – feature a woman a day working in the film
industry for Women’s History Month. WIFVNE Board member Chuck
Slavin came up with the idea and the board sprang into action,
featuring thirty-one women on the WIFVNE website and social media
with the popular hashtag #HerStory. This year WIFVNE is doing it
again! WIFVNE will feature women working in New England and
maybe include a female from our filmmaking history too.

WIFVNE was also marking the month by supporting a special event on
March 28th:
WGBH and WORLD Channel Present – A Day of Documentaries:
Celebrating Storytellers. Like many other industry events this day
of celebration has been cancelled due to the uncertainties of the
coronavirus.

Why make such a fuss about Women’s History Month? Why is it needed?
Or is it? The month has its origins as a national celebration when in 1981
Congress authorized and requested the President to proclaim the week
beginning March 7, 1982 as “Women’s History Week.” Coincidentally
or not, this coincides with the Girl Scouts of the USA’s celebration of
their organization (the largest leadership organization for girls in the
world) including their birthday on March 12th. Between 1988 and 1994,
Congress passed additional resolutions requesting and authorizing the
President to proclaim March of each year as Women’s History Month.

Some women do not like the idea of dedicated months for celebration
of any kind. The token month can be lumped in with the “pink” tax and
gendered job labels such as “female” scientist instead of just calling a
woman a scientist. However, there are real tangible reasons to have a
celebration and recognition in this way. Soraya L. Chemaly, an awardwinning writer and activist whose work focuses on the role of gender
in culture, politics, religion, and media sums it up this way:

“Women’s History Month, like Black History Month, is a pragmatic,
short-term response to persistent cultural marginalization and
misrepresentation. It’s an antidote to systemic erasure. It’s an attempt
to both create representation and explain why it’s important.”

While we pause to celebrate women this month, every day organizations
like WIFVNE are promoting and working on changing culture, and
on the massive issues around systemic erasure of women in the film
industry.. The Me Too and Times Up movements certainly do not wait
for a calendar date to make change in our society. We can simply think
of March at the anniversary of those efforts.

Chemaly wrote that summary in an article in 2014. She concluded with
the very real sentiment: “Boys and girls shouldn’t be taught that the
achievements of women are special—they should be taught that they
are standard.”

What advice would you give to a new female filmmaker? WIFVNE
members respond:

“Believe in yourself. Find your voice and amplify it. I got a lot of
pushback when I started out that fed on my insecurities. The minute
I chose to trust my vision, others did, too. It’s okay to be strong and
know what you want–go for it!” says Gabrielle Rosson.

“Build each other up, walk away when other people want to tear other
women down and be the mentor you wish you had” according to
Charlie Alejandro.

My advice to a new female filmmaker is to remember to have fun. I feel
that we all get so embedded in our work that we forget to enjoy the
process. Making films as an independent artist is really intense, but so
worth it!” adds Jessica Estelle Huggins.

Take risks, persist, don’t take no for answer, and believe in your ability
to learn on the job,” contributes Cheryl Eagan-Donovan.

One day, having any month dedicated to women’s history will seem
unnecessary. Until then, Happy Women’s History Month.

In the interest of celebrating Women’s History Month, IMAGINE has
included several images that cannot fail to impress.

For more information about Women in Film & Video, New England,
visit www.wifvne.org.

In this troubling and challenging time of the coronavirus, we need to “imagine” once again, with all our might that this shall pass, that we will all be safe, and sooner or later, we will return to our calling. Again, we must manifest our imaginations collectively as a novel virus is not a level playing field by any means. But, we can do it.
I’m planning a big celebration as soon as it is safe for us to be together again. And, as we need cash flow to sustain (we still have lots of work to do in behalf of our industry), I am offering reservations for this event for $22 – it will be much more when the time comes, but make no mistake, it will be an elegant and special celebration everyone will want to attend.

By Don Packer

In a time when the advertising and production industries are experiencing changing business models and increasing competition, one thing remains true: If you succeed in working with your client to significantly and efficiently grow their business they will keep coming back. Case in point: Boston Back Bay’s Conductor Productions and Fanatics.com.

In 2018, Fanatics called Conductor Productions looking to boost their presence on the national stage and their overall sales. Conductor had proved themselves in the sports/celebrity arena having previously worked with sports celebrities like Tom Brady along with golfers Keegan Bradley and Brendan Steele, to name a few.

Recognizing the opportunity, Conductor Productions got to produce their first campaign with Fanatics and it was quickly embraced.

The requirements were to conceive and create a broadcast campaign to celebrate the fans, highlight the apparel and provide a greater return on investment ( ROI).

They had to strategize a plan to efficiently shoot fan gear from all the major brands, leagues and teams (NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL)

It was also requested by Fanatics that they provide multiple national spots as well as market-specific versions to run locally in their top fifteen sales markets. In addition, there was a need to quickly and easily update creative to accommodate multiple offers, which would be tested in order to optimize media and (ROI).

Quickly moving forward in their creative design, Conductor built and lit staging that looks like an authentic entrance to a sports stadium. The set was created to be reusable so that they could organize multiple shoots throughout various sports seasons over and over.

Using scores of models and actors to portray fans in hundreds of different outfits with the scalable production workflow was critical to the final delivery and any future spots. This enabled Conductor to continually update Fanatics library of footage within each shoot. From there, the post-production team of editors and designers took over and created spot after spot for all channels.

Using 2017 Sportscaster of the year Kevin Harlan and Emmy Award Winner Mike “Doc” Emrick as voiceover talent along with music from Grammy Award Winners, Greta Van Fleet; the impact was immediate and overwhelmingly positive. The first shoot went off in April of 2018 and has continued with fresh work into this year.

“We were honored to be competing against much more established companies for the business, so that helped focus our resolve.” said Co-Owner and Director of Conductor Productions, Noah Lydiard. “We won by listening to the client and valuing their investment as though it was our own. By understanding what was at stake for them, we were able come up with a unique and efficient style that generates massive amounts of sales without compromising the company’s brand.”

When the spots launched, Fanatics realized and reported robust and exciting heightened brand awareness, increased visitors to their websites and more importantly, they got a drastic and immediate boost to their sales revenue. In fact, they reported six times more effectiveness than comparative league spots in 2018.

This further led to a full campaign rollout, with expansion into Canada and other key international television markets continuing well into 2019. Television spots with known sports celebrities such as, Tedy Bruschi, Mark Messier, Ed Reed, and Jim Kelly, as well as Sportscaster and television personality Erin Andrews were also created.

With over 300 television commercials, roughly 120 Social media posts and radio ads, the proof was in the pudding as they say, culminating in spots for the Stanley Cup championships, the Super Bowl and the NBA Finals.

We are starting to look at new designs and strategies for the campaign, but currently the creative continues to grow in effectiveness. It just goes to show the value of good team and honest, hardworking creative,” stated Noah Lydiard whose team included Ryan Donavon, SVP of Marketing at Fanatics and Scott McKinnon, Producer and Copywriter at Conductor Productions.

For more information about Conductor Productions, visit www.conductorproductions.com.