Granny Ranny's Coming Attractions

ABC’s popular thriller Revenge follows the story of Emily Thorne [played by Emily VanCamp], a new arrival in the Hamptons. By all appearances, Emily is a friendly and sophisticated ‘girl next door’, whose disarming charm and generosity allow her seamless access to the restricted circles of Hamptons’ high society. But the affluent, exclusive world she’s immersed herself in is tied to a dark family history, and Emily Thorne is anything but what she seems. When Emily was just nine years old, her father was framed for a horrific crime by neighbors he trusted, and was sentenced to life in prison. Emily never saw her father again and spent her childhood consumed by rage, loss and betrayal.

Now, 17 years later, she has returned under an assumed identity with one endgame: REVENGE. Emily’s goal is unwavering, and her sharp mind is always five steps ahead. However, when her past begins to catch up, her true heart may get caught in the crossfire as she prepares to battle with Victoria and Conrad Grayson [played by Madeleine Stowe and Henry Czerny]; the high-brow Hamptons couple that hide many of the secrets about the events that destroyed Emily’s life.

With Revenge: The Complete First Season about to be released on DVD, we catch up with actress Emily VanCamp – who plays Emily Thorne and Amanda Clarke in the show – to find out more…

What attracted you to Revenge?
As soon as I read the script for Revenge, I fell in love with the project. I wanted to do something different from Brothers & Sisters, so I waited for the right show to come along – and Revenge was exactly that. I didn’t want to jump into the next project unless I really felt excited about it, but I was enthralled with Revenge. We had no idea if the audience would respond to the show and we didn’t know if it would do well, but I really wanted to do the pilot and see where it went from there because the script really spoke to me. It was certainly the most challenging role I read that pilot season, and it was the most juicy and exciting part. From the beginning, I could see myself enjoying the show for a very long time.

Is it easy to play a character like this?
A lot of research goes into a role like Emily. It’s a lot less about drawing on my own personal experiences, but drawing on more of the pool of research that I had to do. There was a lot of thinking and a lot of developing the character, which was so much fun for me. I was ready to do that. I really wanted to tackle something different and I really wanted to be challenged. I was really excited.

Have you felt any pressure in being the star of the show?
Absolutely! There’s an immense amount of pressure that came with this role. I never really experienced anything like this before, but I just had to take it day by day. It’s so much about remembering that it’s about the process and just enjoying every moment of being on set and getting to play this great character.

Is it easy to deal with the pressure?
People are either going to like the show or not. You can’t obsess about it too much or you’ll drive yourself crazy. Now that the show has become popular, we can breathe a little bit and I feel like the weight has lifted. That makes it much more fun to work on. I can relax a little, at least for a little while.

How much do you rely on your cast mates for support?
To be honest, this really is an ensemble cast. We all like being around each other and we all want to make the best show possible. We’re also really appreciative and glad to be here. For me, there are a lot of long hours involved in creating Revenge – but it certainly doesn’t feel like that because I’m incredibly happy. The show focuses on this one girl’s journey of revenge, but we’re all doing this together. We’re all in the grind together. Plus, there are so many other storylines explored as well, which makes it that much more interesting for everyone involved. They’ve all been wonderful.

What can you tell us about Emily’s feelings for Daniel Grayson at the start of Season One?
I think Emily struggles with this person that she’s become and, ultimately, that little girl that she longs to feel like again. It’s a major struggle, and at the end of the day she’s still a young woman who does have the potential to feel love. At the start of the season, she’s really shutting that part of herself off – but Daniel is not who she thought he was and she is torn.

In what way is Daniel different?
Emily imagined it would be much easier to infiltrate the family through this guy because she thought he was just another high-society boy. In fact, he turns out to be the opposite and he’s actually really good. That’s why she struggles with whether or not she has feelings for him, and whether she’s taking this too far with him. The lines are really going to blur between what she truly feels for him and how much she’s using him. She struggles with that, and also with her relationship with Jack. It’s a constant struggle for Emily.

Do you feel there are more questions to be answered about Emily?
Definitely. How many people were involved in the framing of her father and what else has she done? Where did she go for those eight years where she learned the art of revenge? What did she do? Was she in the military? Those are fun questions to answer – and I hope they get answered soon.

Do you believe in revenge?
If it’s justified, I suppose I believe in revenge – but I’m more into the idea of positivity and forgiveness. I’m not going to lie, it’s a lot of fun to play and to live all these feelings through the character, but she’s definitely not like me.

Why did you decide to sign up for another television show?
Every time I finish a show, I always say that I’m going to leave that part of the business alone for a while and tackle other things – but I’m always drawn to it. To be honest, I absolutely love doing television. It’s a huge attraction for me.

What is the attraction of TV?
I love building a character that hopefully has longevity; that I can take through a long journey. I love feeling connected to my characters in that way and TV really allows that. I feel like I’m constantly practicing my craft, but I also love the stability of it. I love this character. It was really important for me to choose something wisely because I know how long you can be connected to a show. This is the character that I know I will have so much fun with for a very long time.

Is there a specific genre of television show that you’d like to try next?
I’d love to try everything. I’m open to it all. I haven’t done comedy yet. Well, not much of it – but I think that would be fun to tackle. I’d also love to do a zombie movie. I’m obsessed with the zombie genre, so that’s definitely on the list.

You started your career as a ballet dancer. Why did you move to acting?
I always knew in my heart that I wasn’t going to pursue ballet as my career. I thought about it, but in order to be a ballerina, you have to love it so much because it becomes your life. When I started taking acting classes, it gave me a different sense of excitement and freedom and joy that I wasn’t getting from ballet, so it was an easy transition. Once I started working more steadily as an actress, I knew that part of my life was over. I was fine with it.

How do you stay fit and trim?
Pilates has been one of my favorite activities. I’m also outside all the time, so I love hiking and I love to do just about anything outside. The other day, someone told me about a big camping trip around New Zealand, which is supposed to be a really lovely journey. At some point, I’ll definitely make that happen, too. I just need to finish the next season of Revenge first. I can’t wait.

DVD Release Date: August 21, 2012

Cinemark Theatres announced that the “Fall Classics Series,” featuring six legendary Hollywood movies, will  take place in over 150 Cinemark theatres across the country.  All of these digitally restored movies are scheduled to play each Thursday, during the months of August and September, at two separate show times, 2 pm and 7pm.

“Cinemark’s Classic Film Series has proven to be a fan favorite for movie lovers of all ages,” states James Meredith, VP of Marketing & Communications for Cinemark. “Customers are taking advantage of this great opportunity to see some of Hollywood’s legendary films in crystal clear digital projection and incredible surround sound. Some of our locations will be featuring these titles on our Cinemark XD Extreme Digital Cinema screen!”

Cinemark has selected six titles that were visionary films at their time of release, and still stand as true “classics” in every sense of the word. The list of films and dates of their presentation are:

• August 23            Jaws (1975)                                        Rated PG
• August 30            High Noon (1952)                                Not Rated
• September 6        Doctor Zhivago (1965)                          Rated PG-13
• September 13      Chinatown (1974)                                 Rated R
• September 20      The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)       Rated PG
• September 27      The African Queen (1951)                      Not Rated

A full list of participating Cinemark locations, advance ticket purchases and show time information can be found at www.cinemark.com.

Kids can vote in the 2012 Presidential Election through the Scholastic Student Vote. The vote, which is live now at www.scholastic.com/vote, is a longstanding tradition for Scholastic News® classroom magazines. The Scholastic Student Vote was launched during the 1940 Presidential election, and has continued every election year since then with the outcome reflecting that of the General Election in every contest but two (in 1948 when students chose Thomas E. Dewey over Harry S. Truman and in 1960 when more students voted for Richard M. Nixon than John F. Kennedy).

This year, kids will choose between President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor and presumed Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, to become the next President of the United States. In addition to the online vote, students who receive fall issues of Scholastic Classroom Magazines at school will have the option of casting their vote via paper ballot. The deadline to vote online is October 10th.

“The Scholastic Student Vote has a rich history and plays an important role in educating students in the United States about our nation’s democratic process,” said Suzanne McCabe, Editor-at-Large, Scholastic Classroom Magazines. “We’re excited to see who the students choose as their next President in this mock election, and hope that teachers will take this opportunity to teach an important civics lesson about why every eligible voter should exercise his or her right to vote.”

Before voting, kids can check out the Scholastic 2012 Election site. Launched in the early days of campaigning, the site houses news articles, free resources, games and interactive maps that can help kids better understand the electoral process. The site also features campaign coverage by the Scholastic News Kid Reporters, a team of more than 50 student journalists from across the country who report “news for kids, by kids.”  In addition to covering the candidates on the campaign trail, the reporters are examining the issues that matter most to kids   during this election. Coverage will continue through Election Day.

For more information on Classroom Magazines, visit the media room.

According to Kids and Consumer Electronics: 2012 Edition, the latest report from leading market research company, The NPD Group, when compared to 2011, portable and console video game (VG) systems continue to have the highest usage levels among kids ages 4-14, but media tablets experienced the highest increase in usage at 13 percent in 2012 vs. only 3 percent in 2011.

While usage of more sophisticated devices such as computers and VG devices tend to increase as kids get older, tablet usage is highest among younger children, which highlights how important it is for manufacturers to make their devices easy to use.

According to the report, households with kids ages 4 – 14 own an average of 10 different devices, with kids using an average of five of those devices.

Televisions, computers and cell/smartphones continued to maintain the highest household ownership. Household ownership of console and portable VG systems, media tablets, and digital video cameras experienced the most significant increases.

Portable VG systems are the most popular devices personally owned by kids ages 4-14, with six years of age being the average age of adoption; this is slightly younger than 2011 where the average age was 6.4.

“Kids are using tablets to game, watch movies and TV shows, read books and listen to music-even occasionally for taking pictures- so they have embraced the utility of these devices quite rapidly,” said Russ Crupnick, senior vice president, industry analysis, The NPD Group. “Older kids also use the tablets for social media and communication, which squarely places these devices at the center for discovery and evangelism of new services and applications, as well as for brands and entertainment of all sorts.”

For more information, go to NPD Group.

Universal Pictures announced today that it has begun the search for new talent to appear in “Starships,” the official music video for Pitch Perfect, the studio’s upcoming musical comedy that hits theaters on October 5.  With the chance to join the film’s cast and Internet music sensation Mike Tompkins in the video, amateur musicians and dancers are encouraged to submit their best vocals; signature moves; beatbox; and/or guitar, bass, synth and back-up sounds to accompany this cover of Nicki Minaj’s worldwide smash.

With multiple options for participation, fans may submit their entries at www.pitchperfectmovie.com/musicvideo.  Those selected for the project will have their video showcased on both the Blu-ray DVD of Pitch Perfect and Tomkins’ YouTube channel, which currently has more than 550,000 subscribers.

“Pitch Perfect celebrates everyone out there who is following his or her true passion,” said the film’s director, Jason Moore.  “Mike Tompkins embodies passion for music, and we’re thrilled to be able to partner with him on this project.  I can’t wait to watch the undiscovered talent that I know we’ll find.”

“When Universal approached me with the idea to make a video for Pitch Perfect, I knew it would be a fun partnership,” noted Tompkins.  “Making music has driven me since I was a kid, and I know there are many others out there who love it as much as I do.  I’m looking forward to seeing what we are able to create together.”

This is the first time Tompkins has collaborated with filmmakers, talent and a studio on the official music video for a movie.  Tompkins, represented by Maker Studios—a next-generation talent-first music company—is best known for creating his own unique twist on music covers using only his voice and mouth.  As his popularity rose, he was noticed by some of the biggest names in entertainment and has since collaborated as a producer and writer with Timbaland and been featured on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, NBC’s TODAY show and PerezHilton.com, among others.  Tompkins and Alana Da Fonseca arranged this new a cappella version of “Starships,” which was written by Nicki Minaj, RedOne, Carl Falk, Rami Yacoub and Wayne Hector.

All submissions must be received by August 22, 2012.  Please visit www.pitchperfectmovie.com/musicvideo for entry details and terms and conditions.

Walt Disney Animation Studios (WDAS) is making its breakthrough BRDF Explorer available to the industry through a new open source site (github.com/wdas/brdf), it was announced August 7, 2012, at SIGGRAPH in Los Angeles by Brent Burley, the project’s principal engineer from WDAS software group. Burley, who gave a presentation at Tuesday’s conference on Disney’s proprietary approach to creating physically-based BRDFs (Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function, the mathematical description of how a surface reflects light), created the BRDF Explorer with his Disney colleagues Greg Nichols and Jared Johnson. He is a key player on the software team managed by Dan Candela, director of technology for WDAS.

Disney’s BRDF Explorer is an advanced physically-based shading and rendering toolset that evaluates BRDFs (a four-dimensional function that defines how light is reflected at an opaque surface) and how they compare to real life. It is capable of exploring the MERL 100 (Mitsubishi’s set of empirically measured data) and MIT CSAIL data sets, along with programmatic BRDF functions that can be defined by the user.

Said Burley, “We developed the BRDF Explorer to gain an intuition about the large number of BRDF models that have been developed over the years, to understand how well they fit real-world materials, and more importantly, see where they fall short. During this process, we discovered new ways to view the BRDF data more intuitively and holistically, and gained insights that allowed us to develop a robust new model. Somewhat surprisingly, our artists have also found this to be a very useful tool for crafting materials. We are happy to contribute this back to the graphics community and are excited to see what new BRDF innovations this tool will inspire.”

Peter Shirley, renowned principal research scientist at NVIDIA Research and adjunct professor for the School of Computing at University of Utah, added, “I have been doing research related to BRDFs for over 20 years, and yet I immediately learned new basic things from the output of this viewer. Often the key to scientific insight is getting the right picture, and this viewer accomplishes exactly that. It will become a staple in my own work.”

Naty Hoffman, vice president of technology at 2K and a pioneer in advancing realistic graphics in games and film, said, “The Disney BRDF Explorer is an excellent tool for analyzing, researching, developing and tuning BRDFs. I am sure that it will prove immensely useful for improving CG realism in film and games, as well as helping advance research in this important area.”