Production/Post


God Save the City

I was asked to create this video at the beginning of the Covid - 19 Pandemic in early April of 2020. I had known Marc Shaiman from the Early 80's and Club 57. Robert I Rubinsky I knew as a wonderful New Yorl based performer and original cast member of "HAIR!". The project was ceated to raise money for the frontline medical workers of New York at a time when there was true desperation regarding supplies to protect these courageoous nurses, doctors, EMTs and patients!

God Save The City"
from the musical "DEMENTOS"
Lyrics by Robert I Rubinsky
Music by Marc Shaiman
Lead Vocal by Jenifer Lewis
Video by Eric Marciano

In the late 1970’s, Robert I. Rubinsky (conceiver/lyricist) and Marc Shaiman (composer) wrote a musical called “DEMENTOS", that looked compassionately at the NYC street scene, the homeless, the marginalized. The finale was a song called “God Save The City”.

Video designer Eric Marciano has created this moving video accompanying Jenifer Lewis’ striking vocal, with background vocals by Capathia Jenkins, Shayna Steele, Jason Paige and Billy Porter, from a live recording of an AIDS benefit in NYC in 1995.

And now, it's a message of gratitude to those on the front lines of the Covid -19 pandemic, the tireless workers around the world doing their best to help us through.

GOD SAVE THE CITY
THE PEOPLE ARE HURTING TOO BAD
GOD SAVE THE CITY
TONIGHT THE CITY FEELS SAD
CITY OF HOPE, CITY OF FEARS, CITY OF PLANS
CITY OF YEARS OF WAITING, WAITING, WAITING

GOD SAVE THE CITY
DON'T FORGET THE RICH OR THE POOR
GOD SAVE THE CITY
THE CALL GIRL, THE HUSTLER AND THE WHORE
CITY OF PLANS, CITY OF DREAMS, CITY OF HOPE
A CITY OF YEARS OF WAITING
I'M TIRED OF WAITING!

GOD!
GOD, DON'T FORGET ANYONE
FILL THE CITY WITH SUN

GOD SAVE THE CITY
SHINE YOUR LIGHT FROM ABOVE
GOD SAVE THE CITY
FILL THE CITY WITH YOUR LOVE
CITY OF PLANS, CITY OF SCHEMES, CITY OF HOPE
CITY OF DREAMS WE NEED TO SEE TOMORROW
DREAMS WE NEED TO SEE THROUGH TODAY
TODAY!

GOD, OH GOD
GOD SAVE THE CITY

If this presentation moves you to, please donate to
The Actor’s Fund
actorsfund.org/support-our-work
or
Broadway Cares
broadwaycares.org/donation-options-page
or
any of these Medical Support Institutions at this link:
cnn.com/interactive/2020/health/coronavirus-how-to-help/#medical-efforts

Special thanks to the friends who helped us put this music together: Scott M. Riesett, Samuel Hoad, Julia Walker, Shayna Steele and Dave Cook.

Special thanks to the friends who gave us their images and help for this special video: Meredith Jacobson Marciano, Fred Hatt, Peter Nolan Smith, Jack Ramey, Nancy Rodgers, Viv Mainwaring, Robert Morrison and ZacK Zeng!

Additional thanks to the journalists, news photographers and videographers, news agencies, networks and production companies whose work is in this piece: CNN, Reuters, Sky News, The New Yorker and Condé Nast, Business Insider and JT Magen.

CLUB 57 AT MOMA

The East Village of the 1970s and 1980s continues to thrive in the global public’s imagination. Located in the basement of a Polish Church at 57 St. Marks Place, Club 57 (1978–83) began as a no-budget venue for music and film exhibitions, and quickly took pride of place in a constellation of countercultural venues in downtown New York fueled by low rents, the Reagan presidency, and the desire to experiment with new modes of art, performance, fashion, music, and exhibition. A center of creative activity in the East Village, Club 57 is said to have influenced virtually every club that came in its wake.

Club 57: Film, Performance, and Art in the East Village, 1978–1983 is the first major exhibition to fully examine the scene-changing, interdisciplinary life of this seminal downtown New York alternative space. The exhibition will tap into the legacy of Club 57’s founding curatorial staff—film programmers Susan Hannaford and Tom Scully, exhibition organizer Keith Haring, and performance curator Ann Magnuson—to examine how the convergence of film, video, performance, art, and curatorship in the club environment of New York in the 1970s and 1980s became a model for a new spirit of interdisciplinary endeavor. Responding to the broad range of programming at Club 57, the exhibition will present their accomplishments across a range of disciplines—from film, video, performance, and theater to photography, painting, drawing, printmaking, collage, zines, fashion design, and curating. Building on extensive research and oral history, the exhibition features many works that have not been exhibited publicly since the 1980s.

La MaMa 50th Anniversary Portraits

The original La MaMa 50th Anniversary Gala film that American Montage created for Mia Yoo was designed to include these fantastic portraits of artists that were interviewed for the project. Fred Hatt is simply a superb artist. Not only is he an accomplished illustrator and painter (including exquisite body painting) he is also wonderful photographer, cinematographer and videographer. He is also a great guy and a long time collaborator with American Montage, inc.. Please visit his site at www.fredhatt.com.

Credits
Name: 
Produced by Eric Marciano
Created and Illustrated by Fred Hatt

GLOBAL GASTRONOMY AWARD 2017

The Global Gastronomy Award is a yearly prize awarded to a chef of crucial importance to the restaurant world whose work has deeply impacted how we think about food, gastronomy and hospitality.

Mexican food is a universe in itself, spanning a vast diversity of regional produce, ingredients and traditions, some pre-Columbian. Yet, sophistication is not what first comes to mind when imagining Mexican food, but rather frozen Margaritas, nachos and guacamole, which may be more Tex-Mex than authentic Mexican.

Enrique Olvera is about to change all that. He successively redefines and elevates this ancient and rustic cooking into contemporary gastronomy, with full respect for its roots and unique qualities. With a little tweaking from the inspired hands of Chef Olvera the legacy of Mexican cooking plays out in new and sometimes unexpected ways at his restaurants, especially at Pujol in Mexico City. Based on his stock of native ingredients like heirloom corn, wild herbs and greens, rare endemic seeds, nuts, chillies, and indeed insects like maguey worms and flying chicatana ants, he is not only moving Mexican cuisine forward, but expanding our notion of food itself.

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT'S BETH SHOLOM SYNAGOGUE

This clip is a brief introduction to a documentary video created for Beth Sholom Synagogue's Visitor Center and the Synagogue's Preservation Foundation in order to bring awareness to the 50th anniversary of Beth Sholom, the only synagogue to be designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The film, narrated by Leonard Nimoy and written by James Sanders, is co-directed by Alison Cornyn and James Sanders and produced by Picture Projects in Brooklyn, NY. The full 22 minute film can only be seen upon visiting the Synagogue.

THE MEANING OF PURE

This is the first in a series of Photo Romans written and read by Peter Nolan Smith and produced and edited by Eric Marciano. This particular piece is a journey to find calm after loss. In the words of Peter:

we are both new englanders.

family is everything.

The story is from 1995.

Romana's Pilates - Power Mat Workout

Barbara Ligeti is a writer, producer and director who started life as an actress and dancer. She discovered Pilate’s at Romana Kryzanowska’s New York studio in the 70’s.

She approaches any project with incredible energy and insight. “Romana's Pilates: Powerhouse Mat Workout” was no different. Barbara needed a place to complete this superb program of exercise and rejuvenation with Romana one of Mr. Pilates’ special students. American Montage provided her with edit suite, editor and the atmosphere to post-produce this wonderful multiple camera video how to series.

Credits
Name: 
Producer and Director: Barbara Ligeti, Jeffery Altshuler
Editor: Steven Giuliano

VNU Video Wall

Initiated through the AMI website, this project brought together
a diverse and exciting creative team to produce a high-definition video wall for VNU’s new corporate headquarters in New York City. VNU, Inc. is the corporate parent of ACNielsen, Billboard Magazine, Hollywood Reporter and other media.

American Montage and Steven Meyer, in association with Tulsa Productions, Anthony Naglemann and Landor Design focused intensely on creating an atmospheric, technologically complex video installation. Ten (10) six-foot-wide high-definition video monitors reveal choreographed motifs that represent the VNU core business of media measurement.

Credits
Name: 
Client: Landor Design, VNU
Director/Photographer: Anthony Nagelmann
Producer/High-Definition Consultant: Steven Meyer
Designer: Junji Hase Design Coordinator: Robert Matza
Editor/Post Production: Eric Marciano
After Effects: Joe Piazzo

Pass the Torch

The "Pass the Torch" speaker series features discussions with outstanding artists, entertainers, journalists and media personalities whose careers have been distinguished by their social consciousness and activism.

In this unique forum sponsored by the Black Filmmaker Foundation, dvRepublic.com and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and Institute of African American Affairs, these mentors and griots in the fight for social and racial justice are invited to "pass the torch" to the next generation of activists.

These illustrious speakers include: Harry BelafonteMichael MoorePam GrierSonia BragaKatherine DunhamJamal JosephJames MtumeFelipe LucianoDerrick Bell, and C. Daniel Dawson. These lectures include a comprehensive biography of each speaker and are broken into convenient 16 part series of 30-minute programs.

Credits
Name: 
Exectuive Producer: Warrington Hudlin
Director/Producer: Eric Marciano
Editor: Emilie Agniel
Associate Producer: Andrea Sherrel
Cameras: Joe Piazzo, Fred Hatt, Gary Brewer