Mic Neumann
| Mic Neumann | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1968 (age 55–56) Seattle, Washington |
| 🏳️ Nationality | American |
| 💼 Occupation | |
| 📆 Years active | 1999-Present |
| 🌐 Website | MicNeumann.com |
Michael "Mic" Neumann (born c. 1968 in Seattle, Washington) is an American multimedia entrepreneur and television program creator based in New York City.[1] He has been called a "Cultural Engineer"[2] for creating the Kung Faux television series[3] with his audiovisual repurposing company Dubtitled Entertainment.[4] Neumann also co-founded the music-driven Tommy Boy Films with Tommy Boy Records CEO Tom Silverman,[4] and co-founded the lifestyle publication Nylon (magazine)[5] with Ray Gun (magazine) publisher Marvin Scott Jarrett[6] and supermodel Helena Christensen.[7]
Career[edit]
Nylon Magazine[edit]
Neumann co-founded Nylon (magazine)[5] with supermodel Helena Christensen[7] and Ray Gun (magazine) publisher Marvin Scott Jarrett in 1999.[6] Variety (magazine) described Nylon (magazine) in its heyday as, "a strong indie on the New York publishing scene with its emphasis on fashion, beauty, music and pop-culture".[8] First launched as a print publication for young women, it later evolved through a series of partnerships into an online only multimedia brand.[9] Bustle Digital Group ultimately bought the Nylon (magazine) media brand in 2019 with plans to relaunch printed editions of the publication once again in the United States, while also continuing to expand the brand into foreign markets, building on the international editions of Nylon (magazine) being produced in countries like Spain, China,[10] Germany[11] and Japan.[12]
Dubtitled Entertainment[edit]
Neumann also founded Dubtitled Entertainment in 1999 as an audiovisual repurposing company[4] that came as a result of his work with video game publishers Acclaim Entertainment[13] and Rockstar Games;[1] consulting on repurposed music sources and audio effects for their licensed soundtracks,[14] as well as casting a variety of artists into voice acting roles for their video games.[15]
Tommy Boy Films[edit]
Neumann co-founded Tommy Boy Films with Tommy Boy Records CEO Tom Silverman in 2001.[4] The first project produced and distributed by Tommy Boy Films under the direction of Neumann was a documentary film and music video in partnership with the We Are Family Foundation, which began on September 22, 2001, when Nile Rodgers and Tommy Boy Records CEO Tom Silverman brought 200 musicians, celebrities, and personalities together in New York City and Los Angeles to re-record the Nile Rodgers written song "We Are Family" (best known in its 1979 hit version performed by Sister Sledge) in the hope of repurposing the song to encourage the healing process after the tragic September 11th attacks that occured in 2001.[16] Director Spike Lee filmed the "We Are Family" music video,[17] and director Danny Schechter filmed a documentary entitled "The Making and Meaning of We Are Family", which depicts the recording session. The documentary was chosen as a Sundance Film Festival Special Selection in 2002.[18] The last audiovisual repurposing project to be produced under the Tommy Boy Films banner[19] was the remixing of the critically acclaimed television series known as Kung Faux for an Entertainment One distribution deal in 2005.[20] Then as part of Tom Silverman's dissolution of his joint venture with Warner Music Group,[21] the Tommy Boy Films brand was merged with the Tommy Boy Records catalog of content to create Tommy Boy Entertainment in an effort by Silverman to independently maintain the iconic legacy of the record label,[22] while also continuing to venture into new forms of audiovisual content distribution and multimedia program production under the direction of Neumann.[23]
Kung Faux Show[edit]
Neumann is the current showrunner and original creator of the Kung Faux television series,[1][24] soundtracks,[25][26] branded merchandise,[27][28] and video game.[13][29] He has been called a "Cultural Engineer" by the writer Conor Herbert in a featured tribute for the DJ Booth Network's digital music and media platform from 2019 titled, "An Ode to Kung Faux – The Show That Married Martial Arts and Hip-Hop".[2]
Mic Neumann, the “cultural engineer” behind Kung Faux, began working on the program in the late ‘90s. Neumann described the process as treating the original films “like a DJ treats a record," with a specific focus on “the melting pot of music” and pop culture that crops up in each episode as a collision of sounds and pallettes. The program incorporates elements of comic book culture–namely, with superimposed text and supernatural embellishments, edited in a cut-and-paste style reminiscent of hip-hop production techniques, and if the original film is a record, then the 30-minute edit is a coherent sample: though comprised of mere elements, it still tells a cohesive story, like the best flips. The inspired transitions and overlaid frames are scratches on the wax; the thrilling punctuation that breaks up the sample, while the dubbing is the rhymes themselves, loaded with regional slang and cultural references.[2]
Additionally, the writer Mark Matthews at the Orlando Sentinel credited Neumann for creating the "first ever" hip-hop action comedy kung fu series for television.[30] The Orlando Weekly went on further to say in their review of Kung Faux that "the result is one of the most hilarious seasons of TV ever created", "the ultimate TV mashup", and when they ventured to describe a scene from the Kung Faux episode titled "Funky Bottoms", they said that "hearing a music track by Paris (rapper) play while a Chinese martial artist (re-)named Young Paris is getting his ass kicked is the sort of middle-culture postmodernism that would have made Jacques Derrida's head spin." [31] Billboard (magazine) said that the repurposing premise of Kung Faux is "simple yet smart" and that "the combination of vintage kung-fu films injected with voiceovers from rappers and comic-book-style special effects mixed with a hip-hop soundtrack results in a high-flying, hilarious send-up of the kung-fu genre."[32] Arts and culture reporter, Beth Accomando summarized in both her KPBS (TV) broadcast review, and in her written review for Cinema Junkie, that Mic Neumann has created an audiovisual series with Kung Faux that is "Hilarious, Fresh and Inspired," an "Absolute Delight."[33]
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Mic Neumann - IMDb Bio - Filmography Credits by Amy Gray, IMDb, July 3rd, 2009.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Ode to Kung Faux - The Show That Married Martial Arts & Hip Hop by Conor Herbert, DJBooth.net, May 8th, 2019.
- ↑ TV in the USA: A History of Icons, Idols & Ideas by Vincent LoBrutto, ABC-CLIO, January 4th, 2018.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Tommy Boy Branches Out with Film/TV Division by Jill Kipnis, Billboard Magazine, October 19, 2002.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 All About Nylon Magazine by Stephanie Trong, The FMD, retrieved April 15, 2020.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Nylon Magazine Co-Founders by Helen Lee, Sassy Bella Magazine, November 7, 2007.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Helena Christensen's Nylon Magazine with Mic Neumann Top Models, Artist Bio, Retrieved July 21, 2019.
- ↑ Nylon Media Brand and BDG by Todd Spangler, Variety, June 27, 2019.
- ↑ Nylon Magazine Merges with Fashion Indie by Emma Bazilian, Ad Week, May 3, 2014.
- ↑ Bustle Digital Group Buys Nylon Magazine by Kayleigh Barber, Folio Magazine, June 27, 2019.
- ↑ Nylon Germany Nylon Germany, website, retrieved December 23, 2019.
- ↑ Nylon Japan Nylon Japan, website, retrieved December 23, 2019.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Acclaim Games include Kung Faux by Paul Loughrey, GameIndustry.biz, April 26, 2006.
- ↑ Dubtitled Entertainment and Tommy Boy Films Companies Database by IMDb, retrieved December 23, 2019.
- ↑ Dubtitled and Rockstar Games Collaborations Development Partners List by Rockstar Games, retrieved May 29, 2020.
- ↑ Spike Lee's Family Affair by Evan Serpick, Entertainment Weekly, October 5, 2001.
- ↑ We Are Family directed by Spike Lee by WAFF, August 20, 2008.
- ↑ We Are Family Film at Sundance by Nenad Bach, CW Network, January 6, 2002.
- ↑ Tommy Boy Films and Dubtitled Entertainment are Ninja Sweet by Staff Picks, The OU Daily, April 7, 2003.
- ↑ Tommy Boy Films Distribution Deal by James Scileppi, Koch/Entertainment One, August 1, 2005.
- ↑ Kung Faux by Mic Neumann from WEA Corp. Warner Music Group Releases 2002, retrieved January 7, 2020.
- ↑ Tommy Boy's New Beat by Ethan Brown, New York Magazine, February 25, 2002.
- ↑ Muchmusic Launches Dubtitled Entertainment by Lily Oei, Variety Magazine, March 24, 2003.
- ↑ Kung Faux Episodes: Funky Bottoms by TVdb, The Televison Database, retrieved December 21, 2019.
- ↑ NxWorries Sampled Kung Faux's Funky Bottoms by Jeremy Yahb, WhoSampled.com, Retrieved December 20, 2019.
- ↑ Above The Law Compilation Produced by Mic Neumann Kung Faux Original Soundtrack, Futon Revolution, November 2, 2016.
- ↑ Kung Faux Toy: Break Boy Minimate Database, retrieved January 11, 2020.
- ↑ Kung Faux Clothing by J. Chan, Kustom Work, July 9, 2005.
- ↑ Acclaim Games Intellectual Properties by Simon Carless, Gamasutra, September 9, 2005.
- ↑ Rap Meets Martial Arts in The Action Comedy Kung Faux by Mark Matthews, Orlando Sentinel, March 28, 2004.
- ↑ Ninja, Please - Dubtitled Entertainment and Tommy Boy Films by The Orlando Weekly, July 6, 2006.
- ↑ Kung Faux Billboard Review by Rashaun Hall, Billboard Magazine, Page 46, May 3, 2003.
- ↑ Bruce Campbell and Kung Faux by Beth Accomando, KPBS, Cinema Junkie, February 9, 2009.
External links[edit]
- Mic Neumann on IMDb
- Mic Neumann on Twitter
This article "Michael Neumann (showrunner)" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Michael Neumann (showrunner). Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
- People from Seattle
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- Dubbing (filmmaking)
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- Voice directors
- Multimedia artists
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- American record producers
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