Oscar (TM) AMPAS

“Made in NY” films are well represented among the nominees for the 81st annual Academy Awards Ceremony tonight.

Doubt, the Miramax film which shot on location in New York City in late 2007 and early 2008, was nominated for five awards, including four in the acting categories.

Meryl Streep earned her fifteenth Oscar nomination for her leading role as Sister Aloysius, the headmistress at a Catholic school in the Bronx in the 1960s. Her co-stars Amy Adams and Viola Davis were both nominated for their supporting roles in the film as was Philip Seymour Hoffman in his supporting role as a parish priest cast under the suspicion of doubt. Writer-director John Patrick Shanley was nominated for his adapted screenplay as well.

In addition, Richard Jenkins was nominated for his leading role in The Visitor from Overture Films. The “Made in NY” film follows a college professor who returns to his New York apartment to find a young couple living there.

Anyone living in or visiting Manhattan the past year will notice the familiar movie crews throughout Manhattan's neighborhoods. While the city faces losses of billions of dollars in revenue from Wall Street, the film and television industry in the city is booming.

More and more productions are being filmed here. Thanks to tax discounts and incentives recently instituted by New York City and New York State. More TV shows are being filmed in New York, at sound stages in Long Island City and locations throughout the five boroughs. 19 prime time shows are expected to be produced in New York this season.

Over 100,000 New Yorkers work in film and television production. NY is the birthplace of film and television technology.

Many entertainment industry movers and shakers live and work in New York City. Many say they can't get the real flavor of NY on a Hollywood set and they love the energy of the city. New York City has great film schools, a thriving industry, a creative community and talent pool.

New York City Movie Trivia:

First location shoot in NYC
The first movie footage ever shot on location in New York was filmed at 2 pm on May 11th, 1896 by William Heise, a cameraman with the Edison Company, showing 51 seconds of activity at the corner of Herald Square and 34th Stree

America's first movie studio
The first movie studio in America, the Vitagraph Studio on East 14th Street in Brooklyn, was begun in 1903. Sold to Warners Bros, in the 1920s, then used by NBC Television in the 1950s, it was later the home of The Cosby Show and continues to serve as an active production center to this day.

The "Big House"
In 1920, Paramount Pictures opened its massive East Coast studio in Astoria, Queens. Known as the "big house," the 14-acre complex contained one of the largest stages ever built, a fifty seat screening room, and a publicity department equipped to handle 10,000 stills a day. Used by the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War II, it was refurbished in the 1970s and 80s, and is known today as Kaufman Astoria Studios

NYC's feature debut
The first modern feature film to be produced as well as filmed in New York and its surroundings, On the Waterfront, stunned the Hollywood establishment when it won eight Oscars, including Best Picture, at the 1954 Academy Awards. The following year, the second New York-produced feature, Marty, also won Best Picture and three other Oscars.

Marilyn Monroe on 52nd Street
On the night of Wednesday, September 15th, 1954, over 1500 onlookers gathered on the corner of 52nd Street and Lexington Avenue to watched Marilyn Monroe perform her legendary "skirt-blowing" scene for The Seven Year Itch. The director, Billy Wilder, required Monroe to repeat the sequence through fifteen takes before he was satisfied

Congratulations to all the nominees and winners ... enjoy the show:

The Academy Awards will air live on ABC on Sunday, February 22, 2009. For a full list of nominees, visit http://www.oscars.org/.

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©Mitchell Hall 2006-2009

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