This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2012)

A body double is a general term for someone who substitutes for the credited actor of a character in any recorded visual medium, in shots where the character's body is shown but the face is either not visible or shown indistinctly, or in shots where the image of the credited actor's face is joined, usually by digital image processing, to the image of the body double's body. Body doubles are most often used for shots involving nudity. More specific terms are often used in special cases; a stunt double is used for dangerous or sophisticated sequences. This is in contrast to a stand-in who replaces an actor for non-filming purposes such as scene arrangement and lighting adjustments.

Stunt double or body double can both be used for cases where special skills are needed—anything from playing the piano, to competitive skiing.

Also, if only a part of the body is shown, the term might be more specific; probably the most common is a hand double, who is used to shoot inserts where only the hand or arm is in the shot. These inserts are often shot by the second unit with a double at a later point in production primarily because it allows the main unit to use the lead actors' time more efficiently. Another common body double is the butt double, mostly used with TV, since whole-body nudity isn't as common in that medium. The term stunt butt is also attested,^[1] as is stunt cock.

A production scene photodouble portrays a double of the lead actor for the director. A double will be seen on camera during the movie. Some of these many double-acted scenes could be long or wide establishing shots, complicated over-the-shoulder main lead actor's dialogue sequences or in quick insert close-up shots involving only showing actor's body parts.

The photodouble must say the dialogue lines in the same lead actor timing and also reproduce the exact physical actions in co-ordination with the other principal actors in that scene to make this scene suitable for the final cut.

Usually, the double's face is kept from being seen on camera. This way the lead actor can work in fewer scenes and can apparently be filming in two scenes at once. And in this way, a well cast photodouble can help speed up the day's production and is a necessary and valuable cast person for a film.

In some productions, this technique (use of a double whose face is not seen on camera) is used where one actor is credited as playing more than one character. If both characters (played by the same actor) appear on camera in the same scene, the credited actor plays the character whose face is seen, and the double plays the other character (usually seen only from the back). An example of this is the identical cousins on The Patty Duke Show.

The 1984 film Body Double, directed by Brian De Palma, featured a plot that hinged on the discovery that one character had in fact served as a body double for another.

See also[link]

• Doppelgänger
• Impersonation
• Political decoy
• Look-alike
• Simulacrum
• Stand-in
• Dave (film)

References[link]

Giuseppe "Pino" Donaggio (born 24 October 1941) is an Italian composer.

Born in Burano (an island of Venice), into a family of musicians, Donaggio began studying violin at the age of ten, first at the Benedetto Marcello conservatory^[1] in Venice, followed by the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory^[2] in Milan. At the age of 14, he made his solo debut in a Vivaldi concert for Italian radio, then went on to play for both the I Solisti Veneti and the Solisti di Milano.^[3] The discovery of rock and roll during the summer of 1959 ended Donaggio's classical career when he made his singing debut with Paul Anka. He then began to write his own songs and established himself as one of Italy's prominent singer-songwriters. He took part in the Sanremo Festival with "Come sinfonia" (1961) and had a string of successes including "Il cane di stoffa".

However, his greatest hit was the 1963 hit "Io che non vivo",^[4] which sold 80 million records worldwide and was performed most popularly in English as "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" by Dusty Springfield and Elvis Presley.^[5]

His first film was the British/Italian horror film Don't Look Now. Since then he has worked on many films, and composed music for several more, including: Dario Argento's Trauma and Due occhi diabolici. He works regularly with US director Brian De Palma, scoring De Palma's Carrie (1976), Home Movies (1979), Dressed to Kill (1980), Blow Out (1981), Body Double (1984), Raising Cain (1992) and Seed of Chucky (2004) .

References[link]

External links[link]

• Pino Donaggio at the Internet Movie Database
• Pino Donaggio in Epdlp (Spanish)

This article about an Italian composer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Brian De Palma
Brian De Palma, 2007
Born	Brian Russell De Palma (1940-09-11) September 11, 1940 (age 71) Newark, New Jersey, U.S.
Occupation	Film director and writer
Years active	1960–present
Spouse	Nancy Allen (1979-1983) Gale Anne Hurd (1991-1993) Darnell Gregorio-De Palma (1995-1997)

Brian Russell De Palma (born September 11, 1940) is an American film director and writer. In a career spanning over 40 years, he is probably best known for his suspense and crime thriller films, including such box office successes as the horror film Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Scarface, The Untouchables, and Mission: Impossible.

Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, De Palma worked repeatedly with actors Jennifer Salt, Amy Irving, Nancy Allen (his wife from 1979 to 1983), Gary Sinise, John Lithgow, William Finley, Charles Durning, Gerrit Graham, cinematographers Stephen H. Burum and Vilmos Zsigmond (see List of noted film director and cinematographer collaborations), set designer Jack Fisk, and composers Bernard Herrmann, John Williams and Pino Donaggio. De Palma is credited^{[by whom?]} with fostering the careers of or outright discovering Robert De Niro, Jill Clayburgh, John C. Reilly, John Leguizamo, Andy Garcia and Margot Kidder.

Early life[link]

De Palma, whose background is Italian Roman Catholic, was born in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Vivienne (née Muti) and Anthony Federico De Palma, an orthopedic surgeon.^[1] He was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire in various Protestant and Quaker schools, eventually graduating from Friends' Central School. He won a regional science-fair prize for a project titled "An Analog Computer to Solve Differential Equations".

1960s and early career[link]

Enrolled at Columbia as a physics student, De Palma became enraptured with the filmmaking process after viewing Citizen Kane and Vertigo. De Palma subsequently enrolled at the newly coed Sarah Lawrence College as a graduate student in their theater department in the early 1960s, becoming one of the first male students among a female population. Once there, influences as various as drama teacher Wilford Leach, the Maysles brothers, Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Luc Godard, Andy Warhol and Alfred Hitchcock impressed upon De Palma the many styles and themes that would shape his own cinema in the coming decades. An early association with a young Robert De Niro resulted in The Wedding Party. The film, which was co-directed with Leach and producer Cynthia Munroe, had been shot in 1963 but remained unreleased until 1969, when De Palma's star had risen sufficiently within the Greenwich Village filmmaking scene. De Niro was unknown at the time; the credits mistakenly display his name as "Robert Denero." The film is noteworthy for its invocation of silent film techniques and an insistence on the jump-cut for effect. De Palma followed this with various small films for the NAACP and The Treasury Department.

During the 1960s, De Palma began making a living producing documentary films, notably The Responsive Eye, a 1966 movie about The Responsive Eye op-art exhibit curated by William Seitz for Museum of Modern Art in 1965. In an interview with Gelmis from 1969, De Palma described the film as "very good and very successful. It's distributed by Pathe Contemporary and makes lots of money. I shot it in four hours, with synched sound. I had two other guys shooting people's reactions to the paintings, and the paintings themselves."^[2]

Dionysus in 69 (1969) was De Palma's other major documentary from this period. The film records The Performance Group's performance of Euripides’ The Bacchae, starring, amongst others, De Palma regular William Finley. The play is noted for breaking traditional barriers between performers and audience. The film's most striking quality is its extensive use of the split-screen. De Palma recalls that he was “floored” by this performance upon first sight, and in 1973 recounts how he "began to try and figure out a way to capture it on film. I came up with the idea of split-screen, to be able to show the actual audience involvement, to trace the life of the audience and that of the play as they merge in and out of each other."^[3]

De Palma's most significant features from this decade are Greetings (1968) and Hi, Mom! (1970). Both films star Robert De Niro and espouse a Leftist revolutionary viewpoint common to their era. Greetings was entered into the 19th Berlin International Film Festival, where it won a Silver Bear award.^[4] His other major film from this period is the slasher comedy Murder a la Mod. Each of these films contains experiments in narrative and intertextuality, reflecting De Palma's stated intention to become the "American Godard" while integrating several of the themes which permeated Hitchcock's work.^[5]

Greetings is about three New Yorkers dealing with draft. The film is often considered the first to deal explicitly with the draft. The film is noteworthy for its use of various experimental techniques to convey its narrative in ultimately unconventional ways. Footage was sped up, rapid cutting used to distance the audience from the narrative, and it was difficult to discern with whom the audience must ultimately align. "Greetings" ultimately grossed over $1 million at the box office and cemented De Palma's position as a bankable filmmaker.

After the success of his 1968 breakthrough, De Palma and his producing partner (Charles Hirsch) were given the opportunity by Sigma 3 to make an unofficial sequel of sorts, initially entitled Son of Greetings, and subsequently released as Hi, Mom!. While "Greetings" accentuated its varied cast, Hi, Mom! focuses on De Niro's character, Jon Rubin, an essential carry-over from the previous film. The film is ultimately significant insofar as it displays the first enunciation of De Palma's style in all its major traits – voyeurism, guilt, and a hyper-consciousness of the medium are all on full display, not just as hallmarks, but built into this formal, material apparatus itself.

These traits come to the fore in Hi, Mom!'s "Be Black, Baby" sequence. This sequence parodies cinéma vérité, the dominant documentary tradition of the 1960s, while simultaneously providing the audience with a visceral and disturbingly emotional experience. De Palma describes the sequence as a constant invocation of Brechtian distanciation: “First of all, I am interested in the medium of film itself, and I am constantly standing outside and making people aware that they are always watching a film. At the same time I am evolving it. In Hi, Mom! for instance, there is a sequence where you are obviously watching a ridiculous documentary and you are told that and you are aware of it, but it still sucks you in. There is a kind of Brechtian alienation idea here: you are aware of what you are watching at the same time that you are emotionally involved with it.”

"Be Black, Baby" was filmed in black and white stock on 16 mm, in low-light conditions that stress the crudity of the direct cinema aesthetic. It is precisely from this crudity that the film itself gains a credibility of “realism.” In an interview with Michael Bliss, De Palma notes “[Be Black, Baby] was rehearsed for almost three weeks... In fact, it's all scripted. But once the thing starts, they just go with the way it's going. I specifically got a very good documentary camera filmmaker (Robert Elfstrom) to just shoot it like a documentary to follow the action.” Furthermore, “I wanted to show in Hi, Mom! how you can really involve an audience. You take an absurd premise – “Be Black, Baby” – and totally involve them and really frighten them at the same time. It's very Brechtian. You suck ‘em in and annihilate ‘em. Then you say, “It's just a movie, right? It's not real.” It's just like television. You’re sucked in all the time, and you’re being lied to in a very documentary-like setting. The “Be Black, Baby” section of Hi, Mom! is probably the most important piece of film I’ve ever done.”

Transition to Hollywood[link]

In the 1970s, De Palma went to Hollywood where he worked on bigger budget films. In 1970, De Palma left New York for Hollywood at age thirty to make Get To Know Your Rabbit, starring Orson Welles and Tommy Smothers. Making the film was a crushing experience for De Palma as Tommy Smothers didn't like a lot of De Palma's ideas.^[6]

After several small, studio and independent released films that included stand-outs Sisters, Phantom Of The Paradise, and Obsession, a small film based on a novel called Carrie was released directed by Brian De Palma. The psychic thriller Carrie is seen by some as De Palma's bid for a blockbuster. In fact, the project was small, underfunded by United Artists, and well under the cultural radar during the early months of production, as Stephen King's source novel had yet to climb the bestseller list. De Palma gravitated toward the project and changed crucial plot elements based upon his own predilections, not the saleability of the novel. The cast was young and relatively new, though the stars Sissy Spacek and John Travolta had gained considerable attention for previous work in, respectively, film and episodic sitcoms. Carrie became a hit, the first genuine box-office success for De Palma. It garnered Spacek and Piper Laurie Oscar nominations for their performances. Preproduction for the film had coincided with the casting process for George Lucas's Star Wars, and many of the actors cast in De Palma's film had been earmarked as contenders for Lucas's movie, and vice-versa.^[7] The "shock ending" finale is effective even while it upholds horror-film convention, its suspense sequences are buttressed by teen comedy tropes, and its use of split-screen, split-diopter and slow motion shots tell the story visually rather than through dialogue.

The financial and critical success of Carrie allowed De Palma to pursue more personal material. The Demolished Man was a novel that had fascinated De Palma since the late 1950s and appealed to his background in mathematics and avant-garde storytelling. Its unconventional unfolding of plot (exemplified in its mathematical layout of dialogue) and its stress on perception have analogs in De Palma's filmmaking. He sought to adapt it on numerous occasions, though the project would carry a substantial price tag, and has yet to appear onscreen (Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Philip K. Dick's Minority Report bears striking similarities to De Palma's visual style and some of the themes of The Demolished Man). The result of his experience with adapting The Demolished Man was The Fury, a science fiction psychic thriller that starred Kirk Douglas, Carrie Snodgress, John Cassavetes and Amy Irving. The film was admired by Jean-Luc Godard, who featured a clip in his mammoth Histoire(s) du cinéma, and Pauline Kael who championed both The Fury and De Palma. The film boasted a larger budget than Carrie, though the consensus view at the time was that De Palma was repeating himself, with diminishing returns. As a film it retains De Palma's considerable visual flair, but points more toward his work in mainstream entertainments such as The Untouchables and Mission: Impossible, the thematic complex thrillers for which he is now better known.

For many film-goers, De Palma's gangster films, most notably Scarface and Carlito's Way, pushed the envelope of violence and depravity, and yet greatly vary from one another in both style and content and also illustrate De Palma's evolution as a film-maker. In essence, the excesses of Scarface contrast with the more emotional tragedy of Carlito's Way. Both films feature Al Pacino in what has become a fruitful working relationship. In 1984, he directed the music video of Bruce Springsteen's song "Dancing In The Dark".

Later into the 1990s and 2000s, De Palma did other films. He attempted to do dramas and a few thrillers plus science fiction. Some of these movies (Mission: Impossible, Carlito's Way) worked and some others (Mission to Mars, Raising Cain, Snake Eyes, The Bonfire of the Vanities) failed at the box office. Of these films, The Bonfire of the Vanities would be De Palma's biggest box office disaster, losing millions. Another later movie from De Palma, Redacted, unleashed a torrent of controversy over its subject of American involvement in Iraq, and supposed atrocities committed there. It received limited release in the United States.

De Palma today resides in Los Angeles.

Trademarks and style[link]

Themes[link]

De Palma's films can fall into two categories, his psychological thrillers (Sisters, Obsession, Dressed to Kill, Blow Out, Raising Cain) and his other commercial films (Scarface, The Untouchables, Carlito's Way, and Mission: Impossible). He has often produced "De Palma" films one after the other before going on to direct a different genre, but would always return to his familiar territory. Because of the subject matter and graphic violence of some of De Palma's films, such as Dressed to Kill, Scarface and Body Double, they are often at the center of controversy with the Motion Picture Association of America, film critics and the viewing public.^[8]

De Palma is known for quoting and referencing other director's work throughout his career. Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup and Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation plots were used for the basis of Blow Out. The Untouchables' finale shoot out in the train station is a clear borrow from the Odessa Steps sequence in Sergei Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin. The main plot from Rear Window was used for Body Double, while it also used elements of Vertigo. Vertigo was also the basis for Obsession. Dressed to Kill was a note-for-note homage to Hitchcock's Psycho, including such moments as the surprise death of the lead actress and the exposition scene by the psychiatrist at the end.^[8]

Camera shots[link]

Film critics have often noted De Palma's penchant for unusual camera angles and compositions throughout his career. He often frames characters against the background using a canted angle shot. Split-screen techniques have been used to show two separate events happening simultaneously.^[8] To emphasize the dramatic impact of a certain scene De Palma has employed a 360-degree camera pan. Slow sweeping, panning and tracking shots are often used throughout his films. Split focus shots, often referred to as "di-opt", are used by De Palma to emphasize the foreground person/object while simultaneously keeping a background person/object in focus. Slow-motion is frequently used in his films to increase suspense.^[8]

Significant collaborations[link]

De Palma has collaborated with many of the same actors and crew members throughout his career. Robert De Niro starred in The Wedding Party, Greetings, and Hi, Mom!. Nancy Allen had acting roles in Carrie, Home Movies, Dressed to Kill and Blow Out. Other actors that De Palma has worked with on more than one occasion include Jennifer Salt (The Wedding Party, Hi, Mom!, and Sisters), Charles Durning (Hi, Mom!, Sisters, and The Fury), Al Pacino (Scarface and Carlito's Way), John Lithgow (Obsession, Blow Out and Raising Cain), Sean Penn (Casualties of War and Carlito's Way), Amy Irving (Carrie, The Fury and Casualties of War (uncredited voice-over)), and John Travolta (Carrie, Blow Out).

De Palma has consistently worked with a group of screenwriters, cinematographers, editors and composers throughout his career. Screenwriter David Koepp worked with him on Carlito's Way, Mission: Impossible, and Snake Eyes. He commonly works with cinematographers Vilmos Zsigmond (Obsession, Blow Out, The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Black Dahlia) and Stephen H. Burum (Body Double, The Untouchables, Casualties of War, Raising Cain, Carlito's Way, Mission: Impossible, Snake Eyes, Mission to Mars). De Palma has also worked with composers Pino Donaggio (Carrie, Home Movies, Dressed to Kill, Blow Out, Body Double, Raising Cain), Ennio Morricone (The Untouchables, Casualties of War, and Mission to Mars) and Ryuichi Sakamoto (Snake Eyes, Femme Fatale). Furthermore, De Palma has used editors Bill Pankow (Body Double, The Untouchables, Casualties of War, The Bonfire of the Vanities, Carlito's Way, Snake Eyes, The Black Dahlia, Redacted) and Paul Hirsch (Phantom of the Paradise, Carrie, Raising Cain, Mission to Mars).

Personal life[link]

De Palma has been married and divorced three times, to actress Nancy Allen (1979-1983), producer Gale Anne Hurd (1991-1993), and Darnell Gregorio (1995-1997). He has one daughter from his marriage to Gale Anne Hurd, Lolita de Palma, born in 1991, and one daughter from his marriage to Darnell Gregorio, Piper De Palma, born in 1996.

Legacy[link]

De Palma at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival

De Palma is often cited as a leading member of the New Hollywood generation of film directors, a distinct pedigree who either emerged from film schools or are overtly cine-literate.^[8] His contemporaries include Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, John Milius, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, John Carpenter, and Ridley Scott. His artistry in directing and use of cinematography and suspense in several of his films has often been compared to the work of Alfred Hitchcock.^[8][9][10] Psychologists have been intrigued by De Palma's fascination with pathology, by the aberrant behavior aroused in characters who find themselves manipulated by others.^[11]

De Palma has encouraged and fostered the filmmaking careers of directors such as Quentin Tarantino, Mark Romanek and Keith Gordon. Tarantino said - during interview with De Palma, that Blow Out is one of his all time favourite films, and that after watching Scarface he knew how to make his own film. Terrence Malick credits seeing De Palma's early films on college campus tours as a validation of independent film, and subsequently switched his attention from philosophy to filmmaking.

Critics that frequently admire De Palma's work include Pauline Kael, Roger Ebert and Armond White, among others. Kael wrote in her review of Blow Out, "At forty, Brian De Palma has more than twenty years of moviemaking behind him, and he has been growing better and better. Each time a new film of his opens, everything he has done before seems to have been preparation for it."^[12] In his review of Femme Fatale, Roger Ebert wrote about the director: "De Palma deserves more honor as a director. Consider also these titles: Sisters, Blow Out, The Fury, Dressed to Kill, Carrie, Scarface, Wise Guys, Casualties of War, Carlito's Way, Mission: Impossible. Yes, there are a few failures along the way (Snake Eyes, Mission to Mars, The Bonfire of the Vanities), but look at the range here, and reflect that these movies contain treasure for those who admire the craft as well as the story, who sense the glee with which De Palma manipulates images and characters for the simple joy of being good at it. It's not just that he sometimes works in the style of Hitchcock, but that he has the nerve to."^[10] White said in defense of De Palma's Mission to Mars, "[The film] is a litmus test. It can be said with certainty that any reviewer who pans it does not understand movies, let alone like them."^[13]

Criticisms[link]

De Palma is frequently criticized for his filmmaking style. "Many critics," according to Julie Salamon, "argued that De Palma dressed up his woman-hating wickedness so artfully that the intelligentsia didn't see him for what he was: a perverse misogynist."^[11] David Thomson wrote in his entry for De Palma, "There is a self-conscious cunning in De Palma's work, ready to control everything except his own cruelty and indifference."^[14]

Filmography[link]

* Listed in order of release date

Feature films[link]

Directed by De Palma

Co-directed by De Palma

• The Wedding Party (1969)
• Dionysus (1970)

Short films[link]

• Icarus (1960)
• 660124: The Story of an IBM Card (1961)
• Woton's Wake (1962)
• Jennifer (1964)
• Bridge That Gap (1965)
• Show Me a Strong Town and I'll Show You a Strong Bank (1966)

Documentary films[link]

• The Responsive Eye (1966)

References[link]

Footnotes[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Thomson, David (October 26, 2010). The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Fifth Edition, Completely Updated and Expanded (Hardcover ed.). Knopf. ISBN 978-0-307-27174-7.
• Salamon, Julie (1991). Devil's Candy: The Bonfire of the Vanities Goes to Hollywood (Hardcover ed.). Houghton. ISBN 0-395-56996-6.

Further reading[link]

• Bliss, Michael (1986). Brian De Palma. Scarecrow.
• Blumenfeld, Samuel; Vachaud, Laurent (2001). Brian De Palma. Calmann-Levy.
• Dworkin, Susan (1984). Double De Palma: A Film Study with Brian De Palma. Newmarket.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Brian De Palma

• Brian De Palma at the Internet Movie Database
• Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
• Photos and discussion around the director
• Literature on Brian De Palma
• Brian De Palma bibliography (via UC Berkeley)

Jeremy Piven
Jeremy Piven on Monday, February 23, 2009.
Born	Jeremy Samuel Piven (1965-07-26) July 26, 1965 (age 46) New York City, United States
Occupation	Actor Producer
Years active	1983–present

Jeremy Samuel Piven (born July 26, 1965)^[1] is an American film producer and actor best known for his role as Ari Gold in the television series Entourage for which he has won a Golden Globe Award and three Emmy Awards as well as several other nominations for Best Supporting Actor.

Early years[link]

Piven was born in Manhattan, New York, and grew up in Evanston, Illinois, a suburb north of Chicago.^[1] He was raised in a Jewish household.^[2] He graduated from Evanston Township High School,^{[3][dead link]} and attended Harand Theater Camp in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, as a teenager. He played the part of "Bernardo" in West Side Story there. In Illinois, he trained at Piven Theatre Workshop,^[4] founded by his parents, Byrne Piven and Joyce Piven, both of whom were actors and drama teachers.^[1][5] He also attended Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa,^[6] and is a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity.^[7] He spent a semester at the National Theater Institute in Waterford, Connecticut. He has appeared in a number of films with John Cusack, who is also from Evanston and is a fellow alumnus of the Piven Theatre Workshop (as are Cusack's sisters Joan and Ann). Piven and Cusack once shared an apartment and have been friends since high school.

Career[link]

Piven's first significant role came in 1992 when he became a regular cast member on HBO's The Larry Sanders Show, where he played the head writer Jerry. In 1993, he portrayed George Costanza on the show-within-a-show scene in the Seinfeld episode, "The Pilot". Piven has appeared in several successful films, including Lucas, Grosse Pointe Blank, Singles, Very Bad Things, The Family Man, Black Hawk Down, The Kingdom, Heat, PCU, Old School, Rock N Rolla, Serendipity, Smokin' Aces, and Runaway Jury. He has also made cameo appearances in Rush Hour 2 and the US release of Cars.

Since 2004, Piven has reinvigorated his career by playing a fast-talking, acerbic Hollywood agent Ari Gold in the HBO series Entourage. He received Emmy^[8] nominations for best supporting actor four straight years from 2005 to 2008, and won the award in 2006, 2007, and 2008. 2009 was the first year in which he did not receive an Emmy Award nomination for his work on Entourage. Piven was also the star and producer of the short-lived ABC dramedy series Cupid, and was a supporting cast member on the last three seasons of the sitcom Ellen. He played the part of Ellen's cousin, Spence. He also voiced Elongated Man in three episodes of Justice League Unlimited.

In 2007, Piven appeared in the video for "Drivin' Me Wild", the third single taken from rapper Common's seventh album Finding Forever. The two were co-stars in Smokin' Aces, and appeared together when Piven hosted SNL in January 2007.^[9]

Piven appeared in the first Broadway revival of David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow, co-starring Mad Men star Elisabeth Moss and three-time Tony nominee Raul Esparza. The production began preview performances on October 3, 2008, and opened on October 23, 2008; the play was due to run through February 22, 2009. After Piven missed several performances, on December 17, 2008, Piven's rep announced that due to an undisclosed illness, Piven would be ending his run in the play effective immediately.^[10] The illness was revealed to be hydrargaria, a disease caused by exposure to mercury or its compounds, though the source is unknown. Rumours have indicated that the high level of mercury could potentially have been caused by Piven's habit of consuming fish twice a day for the past 20 years.^[11] An alternative explanation is that the herbal remedies Piven was taking were responsible for his high levels of mercury.^[12] Mamet joked that Piven was leaving the play "to pursue a career as a thermometer."^[13] On September 1, 2009, Piven, in a guest appearance on Late Show with David Letterman, explained that he had given up red meat and poultry, and had been getting all of his protein from fish for the past 20 years. William H. Macy and Norbert Leo Butz replaced Piven in the Broadway show.^[14] In August 2011, Piven stated he was interested in portraying the late drummer from The Who, Keith Moon.^[15] He is going to star in the new and upcoming show Mr. Selfridge along with Katherine Kelly

Personal life[link]

Piven was born to Jewish parents (of Russian origin)^[16][17] and considers himself a Jewish Buddhist.^[18] He starred in the Travel Channel special Jeremy Piven's Journey of a Lifetime detailing his journey across India. Piven resides in Malibu, California.

Filmography[link]

Awards[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Jeremy Piven on Twitter
• Jeremy Piven at the Internet Movie Database
• Jeremy Piven on Charlie Rose
• Works by or about Jeremy Piven in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Jeremy Piven collected news and commentary at The Guardian
• Jeremy Piven collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Interview on WHO.com with Jeremy Piven and Doug Ellin^{[dead link]}
• Piven on "Speed-The-Plow" and Mercury Poisoning at Yahoo!^{[dead link]}
• Jeremy Piven at Emmys.com

Imogen Heap
Background information
Birth name	Imogen Jennifer Jane Heap
Born	(1977-12-09) 9 December 1977 (age 34)
Origin	Havering, Essex, England
Genres	Electronica, alternative, indie, synthpop,[1] folktronica, ambient, dream pop, rock
Occupations	Musician, singer, songwriter, visual artist
Instruments	Vocals, keyboards, array mbira, cello, clarinet, guitar, drums, keytar, nail violin, vocal percussion, synthesizer, sampler, organ, Hang, vocoder
Years active	1997–present
Labels	Almo Sounds (1998–2001) Megaphonic (2005–present) RCA Victor (2006–present)
Associated acts	Frou Frou Urban Species IAMX MIKA
Website	imogenheap.com

Imogen Jennifer Jane Heap ( /ˈɪmədʒɨn ˈhiːp/; born 9 December 1977 in the London Borough of Havering)^[2] is a Grammy Award-winning English singer, composer and songwriter from Havering, Essex. She is known for her work as part of the musical duo Frou Frou and her solo albums, which she writes, produces, and mixes. She has produced three solo albums, the latest of which is 2009's Ellipse, which was a North American chart success and earned Heap two Grammy nominations, winning Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical.^[3]

Musical and songwriting style[link]

For her solo work (as well as her work with Frou Frou and Acacia), Heap plays heavily produced and arranged singer-songwriter pop incorporating elements of rock, dance and electronica. As a guest player and collaborator she has played rock (Jeff Beck), hip-hop (Urban Species) and theatre/film music.

A skilled multi-instrumentalist, Heap extensively uses manipulated electronic sounds as an integral part of her music. She also mixes ambient sound into her music (such as the sound of a frying pan in use cooking food, in the background of her song "My Secret Friend") and has commented that "certain sounds give the music a width and a space, and that's important."^[4]

Heap states that her song lyrics come from personal experience, but are not straightforwardly confessional. She has stated "Most of the time, the lyrics are kind of like my secret messages to my friends or my boyfriend or my mum or my dad. I would never tell them that these songs are about them or which specific lyric is about somebody. Often, when I sit down to write a lyric, it is in the heat of the moment, and something has just happened."^[4]

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Heap played music from an early age, becoming classically trained in several instruments including piano, cello and clarinet. She attended Friends School, a private, Quaker-run boarding school in Saffron Walden. Heap's mother (an art therapist) and her father (a construction rock retailer) separated when she was twelve. By the age of thirteen, she had begun writing songs.

Heap did not get along well with the music teacher at her boarding school, so she principally taught herself sequencing, music engineering, sampling and production (on Atari computers). She also taught herself to play the guitar and drums, and subsequently two percussion/idiophone instruments, the array mbira and the Hang.^[5] After school, she went on to study at the BRIT School for Performing Arts & Technology in Croydon, South London.

Early work as musician (including work with Acacia)[link]

After being introduced to Nik Kershaw by his manager Mickey Modern, Heap and Kershaw recorded four demos that Mickey Modern took to Rondor Music. Consequently, a few months later she signed her first record contract at 18 to independent record label Almo Sounds^[6]. Modern and Wood formed Modernwood Management, and managed Heap until 2006, when Modernwood was dissolved. Wood continues to manage the artist via his new company, Radius Music^[7].

During 1996, Heap began working with an experimental pop band called Acacia, which featured her future collaborator Guy Sigsworth and was fronted by the singer Alexander Nilere. While never a full member of the band, Heap was a guest vocalist (as a counterpart to Nilere) and contributed to various Acacia single and album tracks. One Acacia song, "Maddening Shroud", would later be covered by Frou Frou^[8].

Mickey Modern asked Dennis Arnold to place Imogen in the line up in the 1996 Prince's Trust Concert in Hyde Park, London organized by Harvey Goldsmith. Heap performed four songs between sets by The Who and Eric Clapton.

[edit] 1998–2000: iMegaphone

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (September 2010)

Heap's debut album, iMegaphone (an anagram of "Imogen Heap") was a mixture of self-penned and self-produced tracks, alongside tracks co-written and produced with established producers such as David Kahne, former Eurythmic Dave Stewart and Guy Sigsworth. The album was released in 1998 internationally via Almo Sounds, to favorable reviews comparing Heap's angst-filled songs to work by PJ Harvey, Kate Bush and Annie Lennox. Promotion for the record included a tour of America and performances around Europe. Three singles were commercially released in the UK: "Getting Scared", "Shine" and "Come Here Boy". "Oh Me, Oh My" was sent to US radio stations in place of "Shine".

Heap's early success was soon replaced by problems. Almo Sounds cut funding for UK promotion and gave Heap a deadline to deliver songs for her second album. Upon delivery of the songs, she was told that they lacked "hit potential". It was announced that the record label would be sold to Universal and its artists moved to other labels or released. Heap was one of the artists who was dropped from the label, leaving her without a record contract. iMegaphone had, however, been licensed from Almo Sounds to Aozora Records in Japan, who eventually re-released and re-promoted the album in January 2002, featuring "Blanket" and "Aeroplane" (a Frou Frou remix/remake of one of her B-sides, "Airplane" of the Shine single released in 1998). The album featured new packaging, all-new artwork, and a previously unavailable hidden track, entitled "Kidding", recorded live during her 1999 tour.

Copies of the original Almo Sounds release remain rare. A Brazilian label, Trama Records, currently claims to hold the license to the record and has started re-printing copies of the album in limited quantities. The album was released digitally on the US iTunes Music Store in early 2006. After achieving commercial success with her work with Guy Sigsworth as the duo Frou Frou and her second solo album, Speak for Yourself, Heap was able to secure the re-release of iMegaphone.

2001: Interim work[link]

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (September 2010)

In the gap between the end of promotion for iMegaphone internationally and the re-promotion, Heap had also begun to think about her second solo album, and had started writing songs, both solo, as well as working with Guy Sigsworth; however, as she was without a record deal, the songs were shelved. During the time when she was unsigned, Heap appeared on two UK singles, "Meantime" (a track written by her former Acacia colleagues Guy Sigsworth and Alexander Nilere for the soundtrack to the independent British film, G:MT – Greenwich Mean Time) and "Blanket" (a collaboration with Urban Species). In 2000, Heap sang on the album You Had It Coming by Jeff Beck.

2002–2003: Frou Frou[link]

Heap had kept in contact with Guy Sigsworth (who had co-written and produced "Getting Scared" from iMegaphone) and this led to the pair of them establishing the collaborative project Frou Frou.

The initial concept for Frou Frou was Sigsworth's, and the project was to have been an album written and produced by her with each track featuring a different singer, songwriter, poet or rapper. Heap explains that Sigsworth invited her over to his studio to write lyrics to a four-bar motif he had, with one condition – that she include the word "love" somewhere. The first line she came up with was "lung of love, leaves me breathless", and the Details album track, "Flicks" was born. A week later, Sigsworth phoned Heap up again, and together they wrote and recorded the future single "Breathe In".

Throughout the process, Frou Frou work was an equal partnership, with Heap and Sigsworth making equal contributions to writing, arrangement, production and instrumental performance and Heap handling all of the vocals.

In August 2002, they released the Details album and singles "Breathe In", "It's Good To Be In Love", and "Must Be Dreaming" (although the latter two were not commercially available). The album was critically acclaimed, but did not enjoy the commercial success that they had been hoping for.

In late 2003, after an extensive promotional tour of the UK, Europe and the US, the duo were told that their record label, Island Records would not be picking up the option for a second album.

Heap and Sigsworth remain firm friends, and have worked together since the project, including their temporary re-formation in late 2003, when they covered the Bonnie Tyler classic, "Holding Out for a Hero", which was featured during the credits of the movie Shrek 2 after Jennifer Saunders version in the film. Frou Frou saw a resurgence in popularity in 2004, when their album track "Let Go" was featured in the film Garden State.

In a 2005 interview Heap said of frou frou "(it) was really like a kind of little holiday from my own work. Guy and I, we have always worked together, and then over the years, it became clear that we wanted to do a whole album together. It was very organic and spontaneous - just one of those wonderful things that happens. But there was never a mention of a second record from either of us, and not uncomfortably. We're just both kind of free spirits. I love to work with a lot of different people, but I was also just gagging to see what I could do on my own. But I'm sure in the future, Guy and I will get back together to do another record, or to record a few songs together."^[4]

[edit] 2004–2005: The O.C. and Speak for Yourself

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (September 2010)

Performing at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival

In December 2003, Heap announced on her Web site that she was going to write and produce her second solo album, using her site as a blog to publicise progress.

Heap set herself a deadline of one year to make the album, booking a session to master the album one year ahead in December 2004. She re-mortgaged her flat to fund production costs, including renting a studio at Atomic Studios, London (previously inhabited by UK grime artist, Dizzee Rascal), and purchasing instruments.

At the end of 2004, with the album completed, Heap premiered two album tracks online, selling them prior to the album's release – "Just for Now" and "Goodnight and Go".

In April 2005, The O.C. featured the vocoded-vocal track, "Hide and Seek" in the closing scenes of their season two finale. The track was released immediately to digital download services, such as iTunes, in the US, where it charted. The track was released to iTunes UK on 5 July 2005 (the same day as the UK airing of the season finale) and entered the official UK download chart.

Heap made a decision to put out the album on her own in the UK, starting her own record company, titled Megaphonic Records. The album was titled Speak for Yourself.

Speak for Yourself was released in the UK on 18 July 2005 on CD and iTunes UK, where it entered the top 10 chart. The initial 10,000 physical copies pressed sold out, distributed through large and independent record stores and Heap's own online shop.

In August 2005, Heap announced that she had licensed Speak for Yourself to Sony BMG imprint RCA Victor for the album release in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The album was released in November 2005 and debuted at #144 in the Billboard Top 200 album chart. In concert, Heap performed solo, controlling the sound through her Apple PowerBook laptop, as well as singing and playing the piano and array mbira.

She returned from the US, already having sold over 120,000 copies.

2006–2007: The year of the 'White Rabbit'[link]

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (September 2010)

Heap also announced, on her return to the UK, that she had signed a deal for the album to be released internationally, as well as re-promoted in the UK, with a new imprint of Sony BMG, White Rabbit, run by former Sony BMG UK A&R vice president Nick Raphael. The deal meant that the album could have the promotional backing provided by a respected major label, whilst Heap retained sole control and the team she established for Megaphonic Records.

Speak for Yourself was re-released on the label on 24 April 2006, ahead of a full promotional push on 15 May, a week after the second single, "Goodnight and Go", was commercially released in the UK.

In August 2006, Heap performed a set at the V Festival, where it was announced that "Headlock" was to be the third single to be lifted from the album, and released on 16 October 2006 in the UK.

In late September and early October, Heap embarked on a tour of the UK, holding a competition on MySpace for different support acts for each venue, before touring throughout Canada and the US in November and December. This was her first tour of North America that included a band, incorporating upright bass, percussion, and support acts Kid Beyond and Levi Weaver on beatbox and guitar, respectively. In December 2006, Heap was featured on the front page of The Green Room magazine.

On 7 December 2006, Heap received two Grammy nominations for the 49th Annual Grammy Awards, one for Best New Artist and the other for Best Song Written For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media for "Can't Take It In".

[edit] 2007–2009: Ellipse

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (September 2010)

Throughout the creation of her album Ellipse, Heap posted vlogs, or VBlogs as she called them, through YouTube.^[9] She used these to comment on the album as well as update on its release. The album's release was pushed back multiple times. These included Heap being asked to perform at the annual event PopTech in October 2008. During the event, she premiered one of her album's songs, "Wait it Out".

Heap announced on her Twitter page that Ellipse's first single would be "First Train Home". On 17 August 2009 Heap made the entire album Ellipse available for live streaming via her webpage.

Ellipse was released in the United Kingdom on 24 August, and in the United States on 25 August.

[edit] 2011–present: Heapsongs

On 14 March 2011 Heap officially started work on a new record as fans sent in nearly 900 "sound seeds", or samples of everyday sounds such as a "dishwasher door", a "bicycle" or a "burning match". Heap has stated that the concept for this record will be to record one track over a two week period every 2 months. Each song and video will be released immediately.^[10] According to her website, the album will be completed in roughly 1.5 years.

The first song, initially entitled #heapsong1 and later retitled "Lifeline", premiered worldwide on 28 March 2011 via Ustream^[11] along with a live remix by Tim Exile. "Lifeline" was released on 30 March 2011 as a digital download from Imogen's website and via iTunes, Amazon and other digital retailers. Released alongside this was a 12 page 3DiCD package (a 3D virtual CD) including crowd sourced (and paid for) images, the instrumental version of the song, the "seeds and solos only" version and "heap speaks seeds and solos" - an-18 minute commentary by Heap on how the sounds and solos were used in "Lifeline".

On 6 May 2011 Heap tweeted that she and Deadmau5 were working on a collaboration. The song is tentatively titled "Telemisscommunications".^[12][13][14]

List of heapsongs so far[link]

1. heapsong1 is entitled "Lifeline" and was released on 30 March 2011.
2. heapsong2 is entitled "Propeller Seeds" and was released on 5 July 2011.
3. heapsong3 is entitled "Neglected Space" and was released on 17 October 2011.
4. heapsong4 is entitled "Minds Without Fear" and was released on 21 October 2011. It was the first song to be featured on 2011 Indian show, The Dewarists.
5. heapsong5 is entitled "Xizi She Knows" and was released on 24 January 2012. It is the fifth song off the forthcoming album overall.^[15]
6. heapsong6 is entitled "Me The Machine" and was performed live by Heap on 22 April 2012. The song premiered along with the film, Love the Earth, as part of Earth Day 2012.

Recordings for television and film[link]

Heap has recorded several songs for films, including a cover of the Classics IV hit "Spooky" for the soundtrack to the Reese Witherspoon film Just Like Heaven. Her song "Hide and Seek" was featured in The Last Kiss, starring Zach Braff (who used her former band Frou Frou's "Let Go" in his 2004 film Garden State), and was also used in a 2007 episode of Saturday Night Live, hosted by Shia LaBeouf. "The Moment I Said It" was also used in the episode "Seven Seconds" of the CBS crime drama Criminal Minds.

In 2004, while recording her second solo album, she was commissioned to record a cover of a short nursery rhyme for the HBO television series, Six Feet Under, entitled "I'm A Lonely Little Petunia (In An Onion Patch)".

In late 2005, Heap was asked to write a track for the soundtrack of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe entitled "Can't Take It In", when a track that fellow Brit singer Dido submitted was deemed unfitting. Heap's track is played at the end of the film in an orchestral version produced by Heap and Harry Gregson Williams, who scored the movie. In addition, she composed a track for the film The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, but it was deemed to be too dark in tone for the film. Instead, it was included in her album Ellipse as "2-1". 2-1 has also featured in CSI Miami (Season 8 Episode 9), as well as promotional trailers for the film The Lovely Bones.

In March 2006, Heap completed a track about locusts, entitled "Glittering Cloud", for a CD of music about the plagues of Egypt entitled Plague Songs, accompanying The Margate Exodus project, for musical director Brian Eno.

Heap recorded an a cappella version of the Leonard Cohen track "Hallelujah", for the season three finale of The O.C., and her "Not Now But Soon" was included on the original soundtrack for the NBC show, Heroes.

Song usage[link]

Imogen Heap and Frou Frou songs have been featured in various TV shows, movies, advertisements, and marching band productions, notably including CSI, The OC, SNL, Garden State, and So You Think You Can Dance.

Also notable is the sampling of Heap's song "Hide & Seek" in Jason DeRulo's single "Whatcha Say",^[16] which peaked at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The Bluecoats Drum and Bugle Corps used Heap's song "Aha" in their 2010 production titled, "Metropolis: The Future is Now"

The Pack rapper Young L's 2001 mixtape 'As I Float: The Great John Nash' makes extensive use of samples of Imogen Heap songs on nearly every track.

Collaborations[link]

Heap has collaborated as a guest vocalist, co-writer, remixer or producer with many various artists throughout her career. Among them co-writing and producing By The Time for Mika and Now or Never for Josh Groban. The diverse range of other musicians Heap has worked with include IAMX, Jeff Beck, Temposhark, LHB, J. Peter Schwalm, Way Out West, Jon Bon Jovi, Mich Gerber, Sean Lennon, Urban Species, Matt Willis, Jon Hopkins, MIKA, Acacia, Britney Spears, Nik Kershaw, Blue October, Joshua Radin, Nitin Sawhney, I Fight Dragons and Deadmau5.^[12][13][14]

Use of technology[link]

Heap is an outspoken advocate of using new technology to interact and collaborate with her fans. In August 2009 she used Vokle, an online auditorium, to take questions from listeners over video chat.^[17]

Imogen also teamed up with Vokle to hold open cello auditions for her North American tour. She provided sheet music for “Aha” on her website and encouraged local fans to learn the part and audition live via Vokle. Imogen would then pick the cellist to accompany her for that particular city - sometimes with the help of viewers and her puppet Lion, Harold.

In 2010 Imogen opened her online auditions to singers and choirs and invited them to audition via submitted YouTube videos to accompany her on stage as she performed the song "Earth" from Ellipse. The winner of each local show was also invited to do a 15 minute gig of their own. In the studio, the official album recording of "Earth" was made up entirely of numerous tracks of vocals.

July 2011 saw Imogen unveil a pair of in development, high-tech musical gloves at the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh, Scotland.^[18] Inspired by the VAMP ^[19] system developed by Elly Jessop at MIT’s media lab, Imogen set out to develop the musical gloves in collaboration with Thomas Mitchell, a lecturer in music systems at the University of the West of England, Bristol. The gloves combine sensors developed by 5DT,^[20] x-io Technologies ^[21] with Shure microphones.

Using nothing but hand gestures, Imogen is currently able to amplify/record/loop acoustic instruments and her voice, play virtual instruments and manipulate these sounds live. Imogen has for many years been working toward a less constricting live set up which enables her to be mobile while performing live multiple musical production tasks, songs and improvising spontaneously without the need 'to go back to basecamp'. The gloves enable the audience to instinctively understand and connect with the process of what's going on on stage - the 'hidden' 50% of her performance. This is part of a larger audio/visual performance project Imogen has been working towards for a couple of years with the aim of touring in 2013.

Charity[link]

In 2008 she participated in a music album called Songs for Tibet: The Art of Peace, which is an initiative to support Tibet, Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso and to underline the human rights situation in Tibet. The album was issued on 5 August via iTunes and on 19 August in music stores around the world.^[22] On 12 October 2008, Heap also participated in "Run 10k: Cancer Research UK," placing fifth of the women in the actual run and raising over £1000 for the cause with the help of her fans.

In 2008 Imogen was asked to perform at POP!Tech in Camden, Maine (US). There she performed selections from her then forthcoming album Ellipse. After her set and an encouraging plea for another performance later in the conference by the audience and organizers, Imogen agreed. Having nothing else prepared though, she decided to improvise a song on the spot with parameters (tempo, key) suggested by the audience. After the show, Imogen was asked by a Poptech attendee if she would give the newly created piece of music to his charity. A ‘lightbulb’ moment occurred in Heap’s head and she saw the potential in doing these improvised pieces for local charities at each show during the tour she would soon begin.

The first of these songs materialized at Imogen’s show at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, in London on the 19th of February 2010. Using the same parameters and audience participation from POP!Tech, Imogen improvised a song titled, "The Shepherdess". After the show, Imogen made the song available worldwide as a digital download on her website asking for donations per download. All proceeds went to the Great Ormond Street Hospital where Imogen was diagnosed with osteomyelitis and underwent life-saving surgery as a little girl. Loving the concept, Imogen rolled this out for her North American Tour, donating all the proceeds for each song to a local charity from that city.

In 2011 Imogen was set to play a benefit concert in New Zealand's Christchurch city to help rebuild the Unlimited Paenga Tawhiti High School, following a severe 6.3 aftershock in February originating from the 7.1 earthquake that struck the Canterbury region in September 2010. The concert was held at the Burnside High Aurora Centre, also featuring performances from Roseanna Gamlen-Greene, and The Harbour Union including The Eastern, Lindon Puffin, Delaney Davidson and The Unfaithful Ways.^[23]

Live 4 X[link]

In 2010, Imogen Heap partnered with Thomas Ermacora of Bubbletank^[24] to organize a series of online charitable events called Live 4 X.

The initial event was inspired by the 2010 Pakistan floods. Triggered by monsoon rains, the floods left approximately one-fifth of the country of Pakistan underwater, affecting over 14 million people and damaging or destroying over 900,000 homes. Teaming up with Richard Branson’s Virgin Unite and Vokle.com, Heap and Ermacorda create an online webcast/fundraiser to raise awareness and money for the flood stricken. Hosted by comedian, creative, and internet personality Ze Frank, the webcast included a series of conversations with Cameron Sinclair of Architecture for Humanity, Gary Slutkin, and Anders Wilhelmson, (and later Richard Branson and Mary Robinson) with live performances by musicians Ben Folds, Amanda Palmer, Kate Havnevik, KT Tunstall, Josh Groban, Kaki King, Zoe Keating and Mark Isham.

The premise of Live 4 X thus established, Heap has since continued to refine the model, organize, host, and perform a number of charitable, streaming-live, concert events. By integrating live entertainment with educated discussion and technology, Live 4 X became an effective charitable outreach tool.

Following the devastating Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami of 2011, Heap told Washington Times Communities journalist and recording artist Jennifer Grassman, that she intended to continue organizing Live 4 X events to benefit various charitable causes.^[25]

Catalog of Live 4 X events to date:

• August 31, 2010 – Live 4 Pakistan raised funds for flood relief and recovery in that region. Musicians included Ben Folds, Amanda Palmer, Kate Havnevik, KT Tunstall, Josh Groban, and Zoe Keating. In an ironic turn of events, Heap, was kept from appearing on Live 4 Pakistan due to Hurricane Earl which at the time was progressing along the US eastern seaboard. Heap, stranded and unable to get an internet connection, later posted a video message as well as a performance of her song “Wait It Out” from Ellipse.^[26]
• February 3, 2011 – Live 4 Capetown^[27]
• April 11, 2011 – Live 4 Sendai raised funds for Japanese tsunami recovery following the disastrous Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011. The event was also used to solicit rebuilding design ideas on behalf of Architecture for Humanity. Performers included Amanda Palmer, Ben Folds, KT Tunstall and Jamie Cullum and hosted by Ze Frank.^[28]

Film[link]

After touring for nearly two years straight for her album Speak for Yourself Imogen continued her travels, this time with only a laptop and video camera on hand as she began her writing trip for her next album. Nine weeks later she returned to the UK with the beginnings of the award-winning Ellipse and footage (as requested by a fan to film the making of the album) from its quiet beginning. Back in Essex, Imogen sought the talents of long-time friend and film maker Justine Pearsall to continue documenting the creation of the album. The film documents every moment of joy, excitement, frustration, and even the renovation of the Imogen’s childhood home including turning her old playroom into her new home studio. Everything In-Between: The Story of Ellipse was released in November 2010.

On November 5, 2010 at the Royal Albert Hall, Heap conducted an orchestra (including friends and family) as they performed an original composition by Imogen herself orchestrated by Andrew Skeet. Heap also worked with London Contemporary Voices at this time, a scratch choir formed for this concert, which continues as a new choir in its own right. It was the score to the concept film Love The Earth - in creative partnership and co-production with Thomas Ermacora again for another Bubbletank production - in which fans were invited to submit video footage highlighting all of the breathtaking qualities of nature to be selected and edited into a film. This performance was broadcasted live worldwide.

In March for the Birds' Eye Festival at the Birds Eye View Film Festival at the Southbank Centre, Imogen composed in collaboration with Andrew Skeet an a cappella choral score to the first ever surrealist film ‘The Seashell and the Clergyman’ (Germaine Dulac, 1927) with the Holst Singers, a programme repeated at the Reverb Festival at the Roundhouse in February 2012 and in the Sage, Gateshead.

Heap also performed in the Film and Music Arena at Latitude Festival in 2011.

Discography[link]

• 1998: iMegaphone
• 2005: Speak for Yourself
• 2009: Ellipse
• 2012: Heapsongs

Frou Frou[link]

• Details (2002 • Island Records/MCA/Universal) (UK: #128)
• "Breathe In" (single) (2002 • Island Records/Universal) (UK: #44)
• "It's Good to be in Love" (single) (2002 • Island Records/Universal)
• "Must be Dreaming" (single) (2002 • Island Records/Universal)
• "Let Go" (Promotional single)

Guest appearances[link]

• Hate EP by Acacia (1996 • Radar Records)
• Sway EP by Acacia (1996 • Radar Records)
• Maddening Shroud EP by Acacia (1997 • WEA)
• Cradle by Acacia – all tracks except "Wire" (1997 • WEA)
• Blanket by Urban Species – "Blanket" and "Predictably Unpredictable" (1998)
• Amor Fati by Mich Gerber – "Embers of Love", "Sirens Call (Qishm)" and "Mare" (2000)
• ¡Viva Nueva! by Rustic Overtones – "Valentine's Day Massacre" (2001 • Tommy Boy Records)
• You Had It Coming by Jeff Beck – "Dirty Mind" and "Rollin' and Tumblin'" (2001 • Sony Music)
• Tell 'Em Who We Are by LHB^{[disambiguation needed ]} – "Coming Up For Air" (2003 • Telstar TV)
• Contact Note by Jon Hopkins – "Second Sense" (2004 • Just Music)
• It's Better To Have Loved EP by Temposhark – "Not That Big (Metronomy Remix)" (2005 • Paper & Glue)
• Foiled by Blue October – "Congratulations" (2006 • Universal Records)
• Musikain by J. Peter Schwalm – "P.I.N." (2006 • Musikain Records)
• The Invisible Line by Temposhark – "Not That Big" (2007 • Paper & Glue)
• London Undersound by Nitin Sawhney – "Bring It Home" (2008 • Cooking Vinyl)
• Kingdom of Welcome Addiction by IAMX – "My Secret Friend" (2009 • Metropolis Records)
• The Boy Who Knew Too Much by Mika – "By The Time" (2009 • Casablanca Records)
• Live at Ronnie Scott's - Jeff Beck - (2008 • Eagle Records) - (2009 • DVD)

Compilation appearances[link]

• New Dawn (Class of '94) – "Missing You" – (1994)
• I Still Know What You Did Last Summer soundtrack – "Getting Scared" – (1998 • Warner Music Group)
• Virtual Sexuality soundtrack – "Come Here Boy" – (1998 • EMI)
• G:MT – Greenwich Mean Time soundtrack – "Mean Time" (with GMT) – (1999 • Island Records/Universal)
• Serve Chilled – "Blanket" (with Urban Species) – (1999 • Hed Kandi)
• Women Talking Dirty soundtrack – "Getting Scared" – (2001 • Polygram International)
• American Psycho 2: All American Girl soundtrack – "Angry Angel" – (2002 • Rondor Music (London) Ltd)
• Garden State – "Let Go" – (2004 • Epic Records/Sony BMG)
• Nearing Grace Soundtrack – "The Walk" – (2005 • Sony BMG)
• Music from the OC: Mix 4 – "Goodnight and Go" – (2005 • Warner Music Group)
• Six Feet Under, Vol. 2: Everything Ends – "I'm A Lonely Little Petunia (In An Onion Patch)" – (2005 • Astralwerks/EMI)
• Just Like Heaven Soundtrack – "Spooky" – (2005 • Sony BMG)
• Music from the OC: Mix 5 – "Hide and Seek" – (2005 • Warner Music Group)
• The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – "Can't Take It In" – (2005 • Disney Records/EMI)
• The Last Kiss soundtrack – "Hide and Seek" – (2005 • Lakeshore Pictures)
• Plague Songs – "Glittering Clouds (Locusts)" – (2006 • 4AD)
• So You Think You Can Dance (US) – "Hide and Seek" – (2006)
• So You Think You Can Dance (US) – "Let Go" – (2006)
• The Black Donnellys – "The Moment I Said It" – (2007)
• In Search of Sunrise 6 – "Hide and Seek" (Tiëstos' In Search Of Sunrise Remix) – (2007)
• The Holiday – "Just For Now" and "Let Go" (Under 'Frou Frou') – (2006)
• So You Think You Can Dance – "The Moment I Said It" – (2007)
• Heroes Original Soundtrack – "Not Now, But Soon" – (2008 • NBC Records)
• Criminal Minds – "The Moment I Said It" – (2008)
• Songs For Tibet – The Art of Peace' – "Hide & Seek 2" – (2008)
• Greys Anatomy – "Bad Body Double" – (2009)
• So You Think You Can Dance (US) - "Aha!" - (2009)
• The Vampire Diaries - "Wait it Out" - (2009)
• Melrose Place - "Aha!" - (2009)
• Powder Blue - "Blanket" - (2009)
• Chuck – "Wait it Out" – (2010)
• CSI: NY - "Wait it Out" - (2010)
• Made in Chelsea - "Goodnight and Go" (2011)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Imogen Heap

• Official website
• London Contemporary Voices Choir