Standup Live opens in downtown Phoenix
As promised, the new comedy club, Standup Live opened in downtown Phoenix, Arizona this month with Jo Koy as the headliner. And I was there to take the pictures. Beautiful club and great people… drove up to Sedona. Go north and suddenly the landscape transitions from a dry tan dust to vivid red landscape. Amazing. More to come soon!
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The Jackie Mason feature film "Jackie Goldberg – Private Dick" opens at the Boca Raton Film Festival in April
Almost a year to-date, I was contacted by the Jackie Mason peeps. Mason was planning on making a comedy feature film about an old detective who is in the twilight of his career. Films, even low budget films usually have a “Unit Photographer” to photograph elements of a film. Of course, I jumped at the opportunity to perform a job I had never done. That was on the job training experience. The hours are long (at least 12 hours a day) and tedious and the photographer has be almost invisible on set. Working on a movie set is like living with a variety of tribes. The tribes stick together. The photographer, no membership to any tribe. I answer to the Directors and the Executive Director. It is stay out of the way of the all the tribes, the actors, be invisible and get the shots. A hell of task! My experience, priceless.
The film stated out as “In a Pickle” but I recently discovered the title has been changed… “Jackie Mason – Jackie Goldberg Private Dick” which was accepted for screening at the Boca Raton Film Festival. Yeah, I get film credit. My name is lights, listed at the end of the movie. It was a great experience and totally appreciate the opportunity provided to me and I can now post some them after a year of post production.
And, for those of you who may not be familiar with Jackie Mason… here is your history lesson.
Information:JackieMason.com
Once in a generation, a performer emerges who is so extraordinary, so brilliant, that he or she become the standard to whom all others are compared. Jackie Mason is such a performer, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest stand-up comics of all time. Now more popular than ever, Mason combines pungent political satire, insightful observations on the foibles of modern life and impeccable timing to create material that leaves audiences laughing until they cry and critics raving show after show.
Born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, Jackie Mason was raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan surrounded by rabbis. His father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great, great-grandfather were all rabbis, as are his three brothers. No surprise that at age 25, Jackie Mason was ordained a rabbi. Three years later, he quit his job in a synagogue to become a comedian because, as he says, “Somebody in the family had to make a living.”
From humble comic beginnings in New York, the Borscht Belt, and comedy clubs around the country, Jackie Mason rose to be one the hottest comics in America in the early 1960′s. He reached the apex of American entertainment culture when he became a regular performer on the nation’s preeminent television variety program, “The Ed Sullivan Show,” only to fall into Sullivan’s disfavor over the interpretation of a now legendary hand gesture during a live performance in 1962, an incident which cast a shadow over Mason’s career for more than a decade.
Mr. Mason first emerged from that shadow in Los Angeles, where his one-man show, “The World According to Me” originated in 1984 to wide acclaim. Yet the great triumph was his return to New York and his extraordinary success as a one-man show on the Great White Way.
“The World According to Me” began its unprecedented two and a half year run on Broadway began in December 1986 winning triumphant reviews and reestablishing Mason as one of the nation’s premier comics. The show earned Jackie Mason a Tony Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award, an Ace Award, an Emmy Award, and a Grammy nomination, and it toured successfully in America and Europe for two years.
Mason returned to Broadway in 1990 with “Jackie Mason: Brand New”; in 1994 with “Jackie Mason: Politically Incorrect”; in 1996 with “Love Thy Neighbor”; in 1999 with “Much Ado about Everything”; in 2002 with “Prune Danish”; in 2005 with “Freshly Squeezed”; and in 2008 with “The Ultimate Jew.” He garnered consistent commercial success and collected an impressive array of nominations and awards including an Emmy and an Ace award for the HBO special, “Jackie Mason on Broadway” and his latest show “No Holds Barred” is still touring the world.
Over the years, Jackie Mason has appeared in a variety of films and television shows, most notably “Caddyshack II” which won him a new, younger, hipper urban following and the TV sitcom, “Chicken Soup”, which taught him that he’s only happy when he’s performing his own material. Recently, Jackie started a new phase of his career, producing feature films with his manager and wife Jyll, and also starring in them. ”One Angry Man,” his first, is currently running in theaters nationwide, and he recently just finished shooting “Jackie Goldberg: Private Dick,” which will be released in 2011.
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South Beach Comedy Festival 2011 – Gabriel Iglesias
Went down to the South Beach Comedy Festival this month to photograph comic, Gabriel Iglesias, also lovingly known as “Fluffy”. Ever since he started using the term fluffy, fans love to send him cake! Gabe performed at the Jackie Gleason Theater to a late but full house.
Gabe’s credits include; “Last Comic Standing”, ABC’s “My Wife & Kids,” Showtime’s “Resurrection Boulevard,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” “Good Morning America,” “The Late Late Show,” FOX TV’s “The Family Guy,” “Showtime at the Apollo” and BET’s “Comic View.”
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