Talk:Anthony Scarpa
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Anthony Scarpa is a filmmaker and musician born and raised in New York City. His family emigrated to Brooklyn from the small Sicilian town of Polizzi Generosa, the same town from which Martin Scorsese’s family came. Scarpa founded the alternative rock / performance art / circus act “Naked Sun” directly out of high school. An integral part of the early nineties freak show that was “The Limelight” Naked Sun was soon signed to BMG records, where corporate types turned the band into a bloated overproduced “rock” act, which soon disintegrated. Moving to Los Angeles in the mid nineties Scarpa played with several of the bands that created the original “Silver Lake” scene including “Don Knotts Overdrive", and Interscope recording artists “Lifter”. Scarpa and his then girlfriend Moni Ritchie founded the multimedia rock group “The Drummed”(which also featured Rob Campanella of The Quarter After and The Brian Jonestown Massacre and Christian Hejnal of Scarling.) Scarpa played drums, and synthesizers as well as creating a visual projection show for the bands performances. In between touring and recording Scarpa directed several music videos, shot photos that would become various album covers and married Moni Ritchie. Scarpa, teamed with childhood friend Sean Costello and conceived of, wrote and shot, in a weekend “Being Regis Philbin” his first attempt at the short film genre. Within two days of completing the film Scarpa and Costello were featured in the Hollywood Reporter, which lead to much national coverage of the film. Scarpa’s five years in the making, documentary on Los Angeles band “Betty Blowtorch” titled “Betty Blowtorch And Her Amazing True Life Adventures” set attendance records at the American Film Institute's music documentary festival and won the coveted “Audience Award” at the “Silver Lake Film Festival”. Los Angeles’ leading alternative film fest. The film caught the attention of Philippe Diaz at Cinema Libre Studio who eventually released the film Scarpa was also a founding member of the Los Angeles based, post punk band “The Art of Safecracking” with Lance Webber of “Man Will Surrender” Melanie Makaiwi of “The Penny Dreadfuls” and Carlos Gutierrez of “Turndown”. Scarpa played drums and synthesizers and also created the bands live visual projections. Scarpa’s first dramatic feature film “Grace” is the story of a young woman’s battle with terminal illness and the choices of those around her. The film premiered at the Cinequest film festival and has since screened in the DC Independent film festival, and The Silver Lake film festival among others. Scarpa is an in-demand editor with several feature films to his credit. When not standing behind a camera Scarpa is a multi-instrumentalist and visual artist. He lives on the east side of Los Angeles with his wife and daughter.
