FLASHPOINT ACADEMY - FIRST FILM "THE COLLECTOR" DIRECTED BY DEAN PAULA FROEHLE SELECTED FOR SANTA FE FILM FESTIVAL FROM ALMOST 1000 FILMS

Congrats to Paula, Amy Rising, John Murray and all the other Flashpoint staff, students and faculty who worked so hard on this film.

The Festival showcases over 200 films in more than 10 different venues in Santa Fe and in choosing The Collector, the selection panel said

We have deemed your title among the cream of the crop, not only meeting the high standards to which we aspire but also representing the strongest quality of contemporary cinema worldwide.

Our film will compete for one or more of 14 different awards given at the Festival which are chosen by esteemed jurors. Many of these awards have specific sponsors who offer awards and prizes, including the Heineken Red Star Award and Wallflower Press Award to an Emerging Filmmaker.

The film or a trailer will be made available for additional exposure at eyesoda.com. Trailers may also be posted on isuma.tv for additional exposure.

FLASHPOINT ACADEMY TEAM JOINS NINE OTHER 2008 INNOVATION AWARD WINNERS AT AWARD CEREMONY AT GOODMAN THEATRE

Last night, many members of the Flashpoint Academy team were pleased to join nine other winners of this year’s 2008 Chicago Innovation Awards as well and many nominees in a crowd of close to 1000 supporters of innovation at a festive celebration and awards ceremony held at the Goodman Theatre. This was really an extraordinary event and wonderful recognition for our new College and an acknowledgement of all of the hard work that so many people here and so many others have expended over the last two years in order to bring about the successes we have had to date.







During the evening, we were able to spend time visiting with some of the other award winners and meeting a number of new prospective students and employers and then to watch a very entertaining presentation by the MCs, (Tom Kuczmarski and Dan Miller), introductory comments by various city VIPs including Michael Krause, and a humorous and thoughtful presentation by Barry Moltz. Of course, all of our incoming Flashpoint students were privileged just a few weeks ago to have Barry come and give a similar presentation exclusively for Flashpoint students at the College and then to spend a considerable amount of time with our students in Question and Answer sessions.










HOWARD TULLMAN - ACCEPTANCE REMARKS FOR FLASHPOINT ACADEMY AWARD

We have slightly fewer employees than Abbott’s 68,000 so I thought we would try to bring all of them (along with a couple of our best students) on stage tonight.
Our thanks go to Tom, Dan and Eddie and the sponsors of tonight’s amazing evening. I also want to congratulate Barry Moltz on his presentation which I believe contained the only intentional humor tonight.

We want to congratulate all the other 2008 innovation award winners here tonight as well as all the other nominees and invite everyone to our reception at Flashpoint Academy on November 6th honoring this year’s 10 winners which will be sponsored by Microsoft. There will be some important news that evening for all new entrepreneurs.

I want to thank our entire team and especially our Chairman, Ric Landry who’s apparently too modest to attend these kinds of things. We, on the other hand, are all shameless glory hounds. But it is important to note and we say every day that no one succeeds by themselves – it’s all a team effort.

I want to thank Mayor Daley and the City for its encouragement and support for our dream.

I want to thank all our investors, and the parents of our students and the students themselves who believed in our vision when the college was just an idea and some empty space across the street.

And, as I said, we have two of our students here with us tonight – our “first” student (Dan) and the student body president (Kieran) to represent every one of the almost 400 Flashpoint students.

And lastly I want to thank my wife Judy who, as Barry noted, suffers through all the ups and downs of each new business, who is always supportive, and who never complains.

As everyone in this room knows, dreams and ideas are a dime a dozen, it's the day-in, day-out hard work of turning dreams into concrete realities that is what innovation is all about.

Thanks again.




We have provided a number of pictures below of parts of the evening, and as I said in my remarks, which are also reproduced above, we are grateful to everyone, and especially the sponsors, who made it possible for Chicago to celebrate innovation and for Flashpoint Academy to be recognized as the innovative leader in education that we all believe it to be.

HUGE WEEK FOR FLASHPOINT ACADEMY AS THE CHICAGO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL NEARS COMPLETION WITH FLASHPOINT TEAMS EVERYWHERE

AFTER A BUSY OPENING NIGHT FOR THE FILM FESTIVAL WHERE FLASHPOINT FILM CREWS JOINED NATIONAL MEDIA TEAMS ON THE RED CARPET AND THE STEP AND REPEAT LINE TO INTERVIEW STARS OF "THE BROTHERS BLOOM" INCLUDING DIRECTOR RIAN JOHNSON AND STAR RACHEL WEISZ, THE TEAMS DISPERSED TO COVER EVENTS THROUGHOUT THE FESTIVAL VILLAGE.

FLASHPOINT ACADEMY FILM CREWS WERE LITERALLY EVERYWHERE THAT ANYTHING IMPORTANT WAS HAPPENING THROUGHOUT THE WEEK AT THE FILM FESTIVAL AND THE ONLY CREWS ALLOWED EXCLUSIVE FILM ACCESS TO THE MOST INFORMATIVE AND INFLUENTIAL QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSIONS WITH ALL THE GREAT AND TALENTED DIRECTORS IN TOWN TO TALK ABOUT THEIR LATEST FILMS.

THE BUSY WEEK WRAPPED UP WITH A PANEL OF EXPERTS HELD AT FLASHPOINT ACADEMY ENTITLED: "MAKING IT IN THE MIDWEST". NEXT UP - FLASHPOINT TEAMS WILL BE HANDLING THE RED CARPET FOR THE CLOSING AND AWARD SESSIONS AND THE SCREENING OF "GOOD" DIRECTED BY VINCENTE AMORIM.

Q & A SESSIONS

MIKE LEIGH - "HAPPY-GO-LUCKY"



GAVIN O'CONNOR - "PRIDE AND GLORY"



DANNY BOYLE - "SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE"



CHARLIE KAUFMAN - "SYNECDOCHE,NEW YORK"



DARREN ARONOFSKY - "THE WRESTLER"

CNBC Stock Guru Interviews Glen Tullman, Recommends MDRX

CNBC Stock Guru Interviews Glen Tullman, Recommends MDRX

For the second time in less than three months, Allscripts CEO Glen Tullman appeared Friday night on CNBC’s prime time hit Mad Money. The last time Glen was on the television program, stock guru Jim Cramer, the show’s host, praised Allscripts for having the “best e-prescribing system in the world.”

This time, Cramer went further … recommending the stock as “a pure Barack Obama play” because Allscripts fits into the Democrat’s plans to cut healthcare costs through broader use of information technology.

Referring to last week’s sudden $5.23 drop in stock value following the payment of the special merger-related dividend, Cramer added that “(this) is not a crisis, the stock did not get killed. (Tullman) returned the money to you. He’s got a better company than he did the last time he was on. If you’re looking for a pure Barack Obama play, then Allscripts is for you.”

As CNBC noted in its online coverage of Glen’s appearance, “the newly combined companies have a ‘shared vision,’ and investors shouldn’t be worried about integration problems. So Allscripts, on top of the $70 million already invested in research and development and the one out of three doctors who use the company’s e-prescribing software, now has a better base to sell into and that should accelerate growth over time.”

To watch the video, copy and paste the following URL into your web browser’s address bar: http://www.cnbc.com/id/27240088)

NOTE: You’ll notice that Mad Money managed to misspell and misstate the company’s name a couple of times, got Glen’s spelling and title wrong and used the old Allscripts logo. Thankfully, those are minor quirks compared to the value of Cramer’s endorsement, which has been known to drive double-digit spikes in a stock’s value.

Flashpoint Academy Hosts Chicagoland Innovation Leadership Network for Reception, Tours and Speech on Innovation by HAT

Chicagoland Innovation Leadership Network

TED FIELD - MUSIC MOGUL AND FILMMAKER - VISITS FLASHPOINT ACADEMY - FP STUDENTS WILL WORK ON TED'S NEXT FILM WHICH WILL BE SHOT IN CHICAGO

Ted Field owns Los Angeles-based film production company, Radar Pictures, formerly Interscope Communications. Beginning in 1982, as Chairman of Interscope, Field served as Producer or Executive Producer on more than 50 major theatrical motion pictures generating cumulative worldwide box office gross receipts of over $3 billion. These films include The Last Samurai starring Tom Cruise, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Runaway Bride, Jumanji, Mr. Holland's Opus, The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, Three Men and a Baby, Cocktail, Bird on a Wire, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Outrageous Fortune.

In 1990, Field and partner Jimmy Iovine created Interscope Records. One of the most innovative labels in the music business, Interscope Records has achieved platinum-selling success with artists such as Eminem, No Doubt, Dr. Dre, Snoop Doggy Dogg, The Wallflowers, Smash Mouth, BLACKstreet, 2Pac, Nine Inch Nails, Bush, 4 Non Blondes, etc. In 1999, Universal's acquisition of Polygram resulted in an Interscope-led record group, headed by Field and Iovine, which included such venerable labels as Geffen and A&M. Field sold Interscope Records to Universal in 2001 and became Chairman of online music company ARTISTdirect, Inc. and launched a new record label, ARTISTdirect Records, with a diverse roster including hip-hop, rap, alternative and rock artists.

Born Frederick Woodruff Field, Field grew up in Chicago, Illinois and Anchorage, Alaska. At 21, he permanently settled in Southern California.

Until 1984, Field was a co-owner of Field Enterprises, Inc. a media conglomerate that owned numerous television stations and the Chicago Sun Times newspaper, as well as Cabot, Cabot and Forbes, a large real estate company. The company also acquired Panavision Incorporated from Warner Communications, Inc. Panavision was ultimately sold in 1987. In addition, Field has been an investor in partnerships formed for the purpose of acquiring control of public corporations, among which was the acquisition of Crown Zellerbach Corporation.

Field's extensive philanthropic work includes support for organizations ranging from American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), the Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders Association, The Sundance Institute, The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Rainforest Foundation, The Los Angeles Music Center and the Rape Treatment Center.

FILMS

Cast Off for Catalina
The Onion Field
Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice
Cast Off for Mexico
Murphy's Romance
Dad
AFI's 100 Years
Freak Talks About Sex
Blood Crime
What Dreams May Come

Nice Mention of Flashpoint Academy in Marilyn Ferdinand's Ferdy on Films Blog

2008 Chicago International Film Festival



Shorts 2: Animation Nations

By Marilyn Ferdinand

Is it an exercise in futility to review short films, either animated or live action? Outside of film festivals, the chances of seeing any short films is slim to none—that is, if you’re thinking about standard film venues.

Of course, the fortunes of short films have never been better. We may never get those cartoons before the feature films anymore, but I’d argue that short films are more numerous and internationally available than any other type of film. The Internet has made distribution a reality for both fledgling filmmakers who want to go on to full-length films and veterans of the short form who have been producing high-quality work for decades. Animation specifically has exploded with the advent of affordable desktop technology and multitudes of media schools like Flashpoint, “The Academy of Media Arts and Sciences,” which is a sponsor of the CIFF and where I viewed screeners for the festival on wide screens using the best set of headphones I’m ever likely to clamp over my ears.
It’s important for cinephiles to support short films as the proving ground for the great filmmakers and innovators of tomorrow. I’ve enjoyed watching our very own Jonathan Lapper of Cinema Styles master the short form and get the interest and opinions of cinephiles around the globe. I don’t know if the traditional movie industry will ever truly embrace short films as they once did, but through virtual film festivals, websites, and various social networking venues, film fans will once again be able to experience the unique pleasure of the short stories of cinema.

Ferdy on Films, etc. is considering making short-film reviews part of our regular fare. We’d like your opinions on this possible new direction. Email us or comment here.

DON WADE AND ROMA FROM WLS RETURN FOR ANOTHER VISIT TO FLASHPOINT ACADEMY AND TOUR OF NEW MART STAGES

PAWS ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION AT THE ADOPTION CENTER