American Zoetrope

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American Zoetrope is the name of the studios founded by Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, named after a collection of zoetropes Coppola was given in the late 1960s by filmmaker and collector of early motion picture making equipment, Mogens Skot-Hansen.

Originally housed in a warehouse in San Francisco in 1969, and from 1980 to 1983 in what is now Hollywood Center Studios, the studio has produced not only the films of Coppola (Apocalypse Now, The Black Stallion, Bram Stoker's Dracula, etc.) but George Lucas's pre-Star Wars films, THX 1138 and American Graffiti, as well as many others by cutting edge directors, including Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi by Godfrey Reggio.

Its most recent productions included newly edited versions of films from Francis Coppola including Apocalypse Now Redux (2001), One from the Heart (2003), Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003), and The Outsiders - The Complete Novel (2005). Zoetrope also executive produced Thai film director Chatri Chalerm Yukol's international release of his 2002 Thai epic film The Legend of Suriyothai.

Lost in Translation (2002), which was written and directed by Sofia Coppola, Francis's daughter, won 2003's Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay.

Zoetrope offered many production and post-production services from 1970-2004, including Telecine, sound mixing, editing and screening rooms. In January of 2005, Kim Aubry, Zoetrope's long-time head of post production spun off the technical facility and DVD creative services into a new company called ZAP Zoetrope Aubry Productions.

"Zoetrope" is also the name by which Coppola's quarterly fiction magazine, Zoetrope All-Story, is popularly referred.

[edit] External links

• Zoetrope Virtual Studio American Zoetrope's official website
• Zoetrope All-Story the website of the fiction magazine.
• [1] the website of ZAP, the associated company that still provided DVD technical and creative mastering services.