Jill Wisoff

Jill Wisoff
Born United States
Occupation Filmmaker, composer, actress

Jill Wisoff is an American filmmaker, performer, actress and film composer[1][2] best known for original music and songs in Welcome to the Dollhouse,[3] Todd Solondz's critically acclaimed 1996 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize winner.

Works

Her original musical scores can be heard in such representative work as Second Skin by filmmaker Amy Talkington,[4] a 1999 Sundance Film Festival selection that sold to television worldwide.[5] For producer Alan Sacks, she scored Melissa Gilbert's 1996 directorial debut,[6] Me and My Hormones,[7] an ABC Afterschool Special; in Smart House, a 1999 TV movie for Disney Channel directed by LeVar Burton, she co-wrote the song "The House is Jumpin'"[8] with Barry Goldberg and Joel Diamond, and contributed additional score.[9] Working with filmmaker Adam Goldstein and produced by William Kennedy, she scored Woman Found Dead in Elevator (2000), based on a story by Ruth Tarson with special material provided by Hunter S. Thompson[10] and starring Wit Broadway star Kathleen Chalfant and[11] George Plimpton.[12]

Biography

Born in Queens,[13] New York, her training in composition began while a student in the Manhattan School of Music Preparatory Division and later at Bennington College[14] under Vivian Fine and Henry Brant. She directed, composed music and performed in stock and off-off Broadway.[15] As a musician, she performed as lead guitarist for the all-girl reggae band, Steppin' Razor, produced by Chris Spedding,[16] who later produced her own band, The Con Artists, some songs of which are included in the Welcome to the Dollhouse soundtrack.[17] She later toured as bassist in Europe and the U.S. for the legendary Johnny Thunders as a member of his last band, The Oddballs.[18] Between tours, she completed reshoots co-starring as Sharon opposite Todd Solondz's Ira[19] in his lesser known first feature film, Fear, Anxiety & Depression,[20] theatrically released in 1989 through the Samuel Goldwyn Company, for which she was cited for her "comic flair" in Caryn James' review in The New York Times.[21] She made her directorial debut with the feature comedy film, Creating Karma,[22] theatrically released[23] in 2009. Her documentary produced with Harris Salomon, The Day After, she completed in 2010 with footage she shot at Ground Zero on September 12, 2001. Following a screening series by New York Women in Film and Television called Life in the Aftermath of 9/11, it was invited to be included in the memorial library collection of the naval ship USS New York, and the archives of the Tribute WTC Visitor Center.[24]

Film Scores

Discography

References

External links