|
Sep 11
|
Student finds his soundtrack to success
The past few weeks of Grant Fonda’s life would not make for a very stirring motion picture.
Although Fonda participated in an international contest that tested his skill and resolve, there was no final scene of victory, only quiet affirmations. No triumphant hoisting of a trophy over his weary head, only subtler moments to be cherished and worthwhile lessons to be tucked away for a future date.
University of Missouri graduate student Grant Fonda recently traveled to Poland to compete in the Transatlantyk Instant Composition Contest.
The graduate student at the University of Missouri School of Music traveled to Poland earlier this month to compete in the Transatlantyk Instant Composition Contest, a compositional pressure cooker that tested his ability to write emotive music for motion pictures. Although Fonda did not achieve a level of glory worthy of having his own tale captured on celluloid, he came home with a better understanding of what it means to be part of the film industry.
Fonda applied to the competition — founded by Oscar-winning composer Jan Kaczmarek (“Finding Neverland”) — almost as an afterthought, engaging the process between finishing a commission and heading to his native California for vacation. In addition to submitting previously composed works, he was required to score two short film clips that were distinct but equally daunting. The first, a climactic scene from the 2009 film “Get Low,” included a stirring soliloquy from Oscar winner Robert Duvall; it was an “intense” and “delicate” moment with dialogue that needed to be preserved, not drowned out, he said. The second was from a “bizarre” French cartoon in which a young girl, among other things, falls into a bowl of alphabet soup and is attacked by zombies.
For the Duvall clip, he evoked themes of mystery and absolution through the use of unresolved dissonances, inverted chords and pedal tones; Fonda balanced “menacing” and “childlike” themes for the latter. For his work, he was selected as one of 30 participants, which meant trekking to Poland, watching a short film, and composing and performing an accompaniment before a panel of American and Polish judges on the spot.
Fonda was shown a five-plus-minute piece called “Walking,” produced by a Canadian travel commission decades ago; the work was bizarre and psychedelic, with no discernible plot or dialogue, he said. Immediately upon leaving the screening room, he sat at the piano and performed his level best. His strategy: attach a winning theme to the film’s central character and balance out its more extreme elements with a relatively accessible, melodic score. Ultimately, Fonda did not take his place among the 10 finalists. He received praise from the American panelists but was told the European judges wished he’d taken more risks; other contestants incorporated elements of prepared piano or relied on a more serial, clustered set of tones.
Although Fonda did not advance in the competition, his compositional sensibilities were advanced by encouraging, “invaluable” interactions with the likes of composers Christopher Young (“Spider-Man 3,” “The Grudge”), George S. Clinton (the “Austin Powers” films), Bruno Louchouarn (“Total Recall”) and producer Roy Conli (“Tangled,” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”); these professionals offered lessons on life and art in master classes and specific feedback in personal conversations.
Among the comments Fonda received were praiseworthy pronouncements on his ability to convey mood and character and his capacity to musically captain viewers through a spectrum of emotions in a short period of time. Clinton remarked on his remarkable capacity for suggesting and creating color through orchestration. Additionally, he was told he had a fitting temperament for composition and was encouraged to stand up for his abilities, even while avoiding walking on others in collaboration. Ultimately, he was deeply encouraged by Young’s comments on the relationship between a composer’s maturity and the potency of his or her music.
“He said, ‘You’re not going to be able to evoke the right emotion for a romantic scene if you’ve never been married,’ ” Fonda recalled. “ ‘You’re not going to be able to evoke the right emotion for a funeral if you’ve never witnessed somebody close to you die.’ He said there’s just a certain advantage that being older in the industry has than being younger. … All this time I had been thinking,” as someone who’s closer to 30 than 20, “I’d missed my stride.”
Fonda said he’s likely to reapply next year — this year’s contest might not have provided a feel-good movie ending, but, as he exercises his talent and applies messages received an ocean away, there’s little doubt a sequel is in the works.
Reach Aarik Danielsen at 573-815-1731 or e-mail ajdanielsen@columbiatribune.com.
Copyright 2011 Columbia Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
This article was published on page C2 of the Sunday, August 28, 2011 edition of The Columbia Daily Tribune.
|
Sep 05
|
Daniels went down to Fonda
Concert among events at fair
September 5, 2010 By AMANDA WHISTLE, The Leader-Herald
Charlie Daniels plays his fiddle during the song “Devil Went Down to Georgia” during his concert at the Fonda Fair on Saturday.
FONDA, NY – With the stroke of a bow on a fiddle, a crowd in the sold-out arena at the 169th Fonda Fair knew what Charlie Daniels was going to play next. The unmistakable notes followed by the unforgettable lyrics, “The devil went down to Georgia, he was looking for a soul to steal,” and with that the crowd rushed the stage for the classic they’d been waiting for all night. Seating for 2,000 people was set up in the Arena between chairs and bleachers. The show sold out shortly after 7:30 p.m. as people took their seats in anticipation of one the fair’s most well-known bookings to date. Tickets were sold in advance at Price Chopper and at the door.
As Daniels walked to the stage dressed in blue jeans, boots and cowboy hat, fans lined up along the ropes raising their cameras and cell phones hoping to get a nod and a photo from the legendary fiddler. Sue Yamrozy of Scotia got to the show early enough to snag a seat in the front row for her first time to see the Charlie Daniels Band live. This year also marks the first year Yamrozy has attended the Fonda Fair. “It was something to do on a Saturday night,” she said, adding that the $20 charge to see an American legend was a steal.
For 9-year-old John Cressy of Glen, who plays the fiddle, seeing Charlie Daniels was the highlight of the fair. John, donning his cowboy hat and a red handkerchief around his neck, is a fair regular with his family, who are members of 4-H and compete in many of the livestock competitions and horse shows. “This is awesome,” said his mother, Margie Cressy. “It’s Charlie Daniels right here in Fonda.”
Daniels played a variety of classic favorites, including “Long Haired Country Boy” and “The Legend of Wooley Swamp.” Drummer Pat McDonald also stole the show for about 10 minutes with a solo. “Here’s a small gesture of thank you,” Daniels said as he played “In America” for the those in the U.S. Armed Forces after saying the pledge of allegiance. This year’s Fonda Fair Junior Princess, Tiffany Sargalis, looked forward to meeting Daniels all week, her mother, Wendy Sargalis, said.
All of the winners in the pageant are invited to meet the fair’s Saturday night performers each year. Wendy said Tiffany’s sister, Kimberly, met Trent Tomlinson when she won Junior Princess in 2005 and Tiffany remembered the excitement. Kelly Knoop of Fort Plain and her friend, Nicole Casolari, both 23, also had passes to meet Daniels and said he seemed like he was just excited to meet them as they were to meet him.
“He was very polite. It was wonderful,” said Casolari, of Rochester. “I let him know I think I’ve been listening to his music my whole life and he said ‘I think I’ve been playing music since before you were born.'” Knoop said though past acts at the fair have been great, the Charlie Daniels Band is legendary. “It’s a huge deal for us,” she said. “Others have come here, but he’s a legend.”
Daniels said before the show that meeting fans is something he looks forward to at each show. “Every night before we play we have a meet and great,” Daniels said. “I always enjoy that.” As for Daniels’ favorite song to perform, he said he loves them all.
Saturday was “Country Folks Day” and also featured open gymkhana, 4-H livestock shows, the 4-H aerospace exhibition and rocket shoot and a demolition derby. The Fonda Fair continues today with fireworks tonight at 10 p.m. The last day is Monday with a parade scheduled at noon.
Amanda Whistle covers Montgomery County news. She can be reached at montco@leaderherald.com
|
Jun 03
|
Olga Fonda Finally Arrives
September 2011 Interview in Melroze Magazine.
Casting Bits: Hope Davis, James Rebhorn and Olga Fonda Join Real Steel
slashfilm.com – June 1, 2010 – Hope Davis (About Schmidt), James Rebhorn (Independence Day, The Game) and Olga Fonda (Love Hurts) has been cast in Shawn Levy’s futuristic robot boxing movie Real Steel. No word on what roles they will play.
General Information (Olga Fonda)
tvrage.com – Olga Fonda was born Olga Tchakova on October 1, 1982. She is 28 years old. She was married under the name Olga Fundamynsky until 2008. Born and raised in Moscow, Olga came to the United States at 14 years of age. She has been seen in several small uncredited upcoming roles in films including Little Fockers, Crazy Stupid Love, and Reel Steal.
Former Winthrop exchange student takes on Hollywood
Olga Tchakova has made it to Hollywood and adopted one of its famous last names: Fonda.
Olga Tchakova has made it to Hollywood and adopted one of its famous last names: Fonda.
Some people might remember her as a 14-year-old exchange student at Winthrop High School in 1996-1997 who came from Uhtka, just above the Arctic Circle in Russia. She later returned to attend the University of Maine at Augusta. Now she’s in a much warmer place and making her way as an actress and model as Olga Fonda. “Living in Los Angeles has given me an opportunity to pursue my dreams and has been able to open the doors to unlimited possibilities,” she said recently via e-mail.
Fonda’s introduction to America began with the Auclair family in East Winthrop. “Well, first of all, I was able to learn English,” she said. “I was also introduced to the beauty of the American culture through my lovely host family, my teachers and all of my friends in Maine. They believed in me and encouraged me to always follow my dreams.”
Fonda now speaks English with a hint of a Russian accent. “Her English is really great,” said Debora Hillier (formerly Auclair), who was her host mother. “From the third month she was a chatterbox; she has such a wonderful command of languages.” Several members of her former host family joined her recently in Boston for the East Coast premier of the movie “Love Hurts,” where she appears as Valeriya. “Olga plays a Russian ballerina love-interest of the young star,” said Hillier said. “She very convincingly breaks his heart as she did to a few of the Winthrop boys.”
“Love Hurts” premiered at the Strasbourg International Film Festival, the Temecula Valley International Film and Music Festival in California, the 15th Annual Boston Film Festival, La Femme Film Festival in Los Angeles, and the Savannah Film Festival. Fonda said it will be screened at the Orlando Film Festival and the Big Apple Film Festival and has a theatrical opening in Los Angeles on Nov. 13. More info about “Love Hurts” is at www.lovehurts-movie.com .
Hillier, her husband Jim Hillier, and her son, Paul Auclair, attended the Boston Film Festival where the movie won Barra Grant the best director award and took the best comedy award at the Boston Film Festival. “Lovely Olga wanted to be a model,” Hillier said. “It was her aspiration and she never lost sight of that goal.”
At the UMA admissions department, Kristen Duplessis recalled Fonda as a bubbly, outgoing work/study student. “She was very successful doing student tours,” Duplessis said. “She’s such a sweetheart.” At UMA, Fonda majored in financial management. “I want to thank everyone at Winthrop and at UMA for letting me become a part of the exchange program and welcoming me into their schools, community, lives and hearts,” Fonda said. “It was an unforgettable experience and I will cherish the memories and friendships I have made in my heart forever.” When she’s back East, Fonda tries to visit her friends in Winthrop and Augusta. Hillier is hoping she can make it to Maine for a visit this year, and Fonda, too, said she hopes to be back soon.
Fonda still models for television and print commercials. She stands about 5-foot-8, and spent time modeling in Japan, Italy and the United States. She has appeared in “Nip/Tuck,” “How I Met Your Mother,” “Melrose Place,” “Entourage,” and in many television commercials and advertising campaigns, including print ads in “Vogue,” “Bazaar,” and “Cosmopolitan.” “I am looking forward to continue working with creative and dedicated directors and actors,” Fonda said. “There is so much that I want to do, people to meet, places to visit. I want to do it all! As an actress, I would love to take the audience through the journey of a story in the most believable way.”
links: Olga Fonda on IMDB, Facebook, Wikipedia
|
May 03
|
Queen of the workout video Jane Fonda gets back in the old routine
By Daily Mail Reporter – Last updated at 1:47 AM on 3rd May 2010
Trim: Jane Fonda launches World Fitness Day at the weekend looking as fit as ever
It takes more than hip and knee replacement surgeries to stop the queen of the workout video. Jane Fonda defied her 72 years at the weekend, sliding into her 1980s leotard to host the first annual World Fitness Day in Atlanta, Georgia. The Oscar-winning actress looked as trim as ever as she demonstrated her trademark exercise moves in the tightly-fitted yellow and black number.
‘I’m part of a demographic that’s kind of ignored,’ She said. ‘We have to go into it with guns blazing and be as healthy as possible.’ The appearance comes just a year after she was photographed being pushed round New York’s JFK Airport in a wheelchair. Fonda had knee replacement surgery last year after wearing of the cartilage in her left knee left bone rubbing on bone. The surgery followed a hip replacement five years ago and years of painful back problems. In the past she has succumbed to plastic surgery, going under the knife for breast implants and cosmetic surgery to remove the bags under her eyes. But more recently she has insisted she is determined to grow old gracefully and naturally and has spoken out about cosmetic surgery.
Fonda became a Hollywood star after her appearance in Barbarella in 1968. But she is arguably more renowned for her vast exercise empire, making millions in the Eighties and Nineties from her gyms, keep fit books and videos. She famously encouraged her viewers to ‘go for the burn’ – which they did, by the millions. Her first exercise video, ‘Jane Fonda’s Workout’ released in 1982, remains one of the highest selling fitness videos of all time.
|
Feb 10
|
The Prince Street House
Tuesday, February 9, 2010 – West Oakland Beat“The Prince Street House,” located on Prince Street in Berkeley’s south end, is filled with messy-hair-sporting, big-glasses-wearing, thrift-store-junkie type kids drinking cheap wine. Milling around the collection of paintings, photographs and other mixed media, Anthony Fonda instructs the crowd to go ahead and listen to that music on the Ipod nailed to the wall. It works and yes, it’s art.
Fonda, an eccentric local artist from West Oakland, was showing at the Prince Street House art show Saturday night along with many other local artists. Fonda, with his piercing black eyes and the wild hand gestures he threw while speaking about just about anything, stood out amongst the other artists by his palpable passion for creating. Desiree Dedolce, who has known Fonda since he moved to Oakland two years ago, gushes of the passion Fonda feels for things in his life. “He goes 100 percent for whatever he wants. He just manifests things, I wish I had that trait,” says Dedolce.
West Oakland Beat
Fonda, 24, originally from Santa Monica, California, moved up to the Bay Area in August 2007 to escape the dead-end road he was traveling on. “I just worked two sh–ty jobs in restaurants, making no money and unable to make art from the hours,” said Fonda. “I just packed up and left trying to find an environment I fit into better.” He could not have found a better place. Fonda lives in the Vulcan Lofts on West Oakland’s San Leandro Street. These lofts and others located in West Oakland’s warehouses are a popular place for young artists to take over.
Although Fonda says there is no “real apex” for the art scene in the East Bay, West Oakland seems to be one of them. The cheap rent and relative freedom an artist has to do what he or she wants with the property keeps the art scene strong in this part of Oakland. Young artists are able to live in the many warehouse lofts for rent hovering around $100 to $200 a person, if they decided to live with others. Artists from West Oakland, and other parts of the Bay Area, will get together and hold events to showcase their budding talents. Interdisciplinary shows are mostly on the bill, which include an assortment of different media, music, painting, collage, performance art, and interactive art.
Fonda’s passion for art crosses many mediums, but his main focus is paint and collage. At the recent art show at “The Prince Street House,” Fonda showcased two huge oil paint portraits of a pelican and a zebra. Both, though dull in color mostly, had such detail and layering it looked as if the animals were alive within the canvas. Swapping is a main factor Fonda focuses on in his interview. He speaks often of the “art world” and those who inhabit it with such distaste. “I’m into swaps because artists don’t have a bunch of money,” says Fonda. “The art world is full of elitists who use money to buy creativity, galleries are full of garbage.”
“People like to buy into that sh-t, the art scene, young people scene. It’s all about appealing to someone,” said Fonda. Where does school fall into place with these kids, and even Fonda? Many of the young artists have been to some form of instruction yet most drop out after a few years. Elise Mahan, an art history major at San Francisco State University, says she can see where the mindset of these kids comes from. “I think they see art as an extension of themselves and not necessarily as a career,” says Mahan, “When they are in school they feel like it is as if they are working towards a career, that takes the passion out of it, makes it mechanical.” It’s not something Fonda has a choice in either. When asked if he ever thought about quitting art he said, “it’s not something you quit, it’s not an occupation.” Fonda’s philosophy on life seems very Marxist in nature. The swapping of goods according to one’s ability, the communal living and the freedom of “chance operations” would suggest this.
Fonda hopes to perpetuate the environment he so craves and to keep the creative spirit alive in his neighborhood of Oakland. A steady art space and “maybe” an art buyer, someone to commission and sell his art for him, are two of his main dreams. “I want a place where kids can come and just create,” says Fonda, “ trade pieces, just keep the flow of creative ideas out there.” Every hello is triumphant, every good bye a heartbreak with Fonda. In his usual dominant manner he exclaims, “Here’s your theme, I’m looking to be successful as an anti-academic, which will probably fail, but I have a lot of fun.”
Posted by Jocie at 2:33 PM