After Whitney death, Clive Davis gala presses on

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — A year after Whitney Houston‘s death, music executive Clive Davis remembered her in words — and video.

Houston died last year just hours before the annual Clive Davis Gala was to start. On Saturday, Davis said his world continues “to be so shattered by her passing” and that Houston‘s death still feels “unreal.”

Then Davis played what he called a rare performance of Houston belting “All The Man That I Need” on Saturday the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

Houston‘s brother and sister-in-law, Gary and Pat Houston, attended the gala, where Davis thanked them “for being here tonight.” He also called Houston the “greatest, greatest singer of our lifetime.”

Dutch electronic artist Afrojack kicked off the performances with a DJ set, but it was Gladys Knight who got the crowd up out of their seats with a closing number.

Her voice — still crisp and loud — felt at ease on “Neither One of Us” and “Midnight Train to Georgia.”

“You’ve been waiting here for a while and we all have to go, and I’m catching a train,” the 68-year-old singer said before going into her popular hit that had Verdine White of Earth, Wind & Fire dancing around his chair.

And Knight wasn’t the only performer to leave an impression during Davis’ nearly four-hour event.

Scottish singer Emeli Sande was well-received when hitting the right notes on “Heaven.” Miguel, who is nominated for five awards at Sunday’s Grammys, was energetic when he performed his R&B hit “Adorn.” He danced in the middle of the tables in the audience, and at one point sang to Taylor Hawkins’ wife Alison — as the Foo Fighters drummer watched on.

Usher, too, brought R&B flavor to the stage when he performed in honor of music executive Antonio “L.A.” Reid, who received the president’s merit award. Usher sang some of “Burn” and “Climax,” which featured the acoustic guitar.

The event was full of A-listers there to enjoy the live music: Johnny Depp, Quincy Jones, Sting, Joni Mitchell, Diddy, Miley Cyrus, Frank Ocean, Dave Grohl, Magic Johnson and San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick were in the crowd.

“I’ve read the papers and I know you’ve been spending time with,” Davis said when announcing that Katy Perry and John Mayer were in the audience.

Usher also drew laughs when he told an old story about Reid signing the then teen to his record label.

“If I never can thank you for anything, it would be for not letting me go with the name Cha Cha,” Usher said of his previous stage name.

The pre-Grammy event also featured performances by Patti Smith, best new artist nominees the Lumineers and Jennifer Hudson, who paid tribute to Knight and performed with the singing veteran.

Ne-Yo, Carly Rae Jepsen, Brandy, David Guetta, Babyface, Wiz Khalifa, Jordin Sparks, Tyra Banks and dozens of others attended Davis’ gala.

___

Follow Mesfin Fekadu on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MusicMesfin

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For Families Struggling with Mental Illness, Carolyn Wolf Is a Guide in the Darkness

When a life starts to unravel, where do you turn for help?

Melissa Klump began to slip in the eighth grade. She couldn’t focus in class, and in a moment of despair she swallowed 60 ibuprofen tablets. She was smart, pretty and ill: depression, attention deficit disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, either bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder.

In her 20s, after a more serious suicide attempt, her parents sent her to a residential psychiatric treatment center, and from there to another. It was the treatment of last resort. When she was discharged from the second center last August after slapping another resident, her mother, Elisa Klump, was beside herself.

“I was banging my head against the wall,” the mother said. “What do I do next?” She frantically called support groups, therapy programs, suicide prevention lines, anybody, running down a list of names in a directory of mental health resources. “Finally,” she said, “somebody told me, ‘The person you need to talk to is Carolyn Wolf.’ ”

That call, she said, changed her life and her daughter’s. “Carolyn has given me hope,” she said. “I didn’t know there were people like her out there.”

Carolyn Reinach Wolf is not a psychiatrist or a mental health professional, but a lawyer who has carved out what she says is a unique niche, working with families like the Klumps.

One in 17 American adults suffers from a severe mental illness, and the systems into which they are plunged — hospitals, insurance companies, courts, social services — can be fragmented and overwhelming for families to manage. The recent shootings in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., have brought attention to the need for intervention to prevent such extreme acts of violence, which are rare. But for the great majority of families watching their loved ones suffer, and often suffering themselves, the struggle can be boundless, with little guidance along the way.

“If you Google ‘mental health lawyer,’ ” said Ms. Wolf, a partner with Abrams & Fensterman, “I’m kinda the only game in town.”

On a recent afternoon, she described in her Midtown office the range of her practice.

“We have been known to pull people out of crack dens,” she said. “I have chased people around hotels all over the city with the N.Y.P.D. and my team to get them to a hospital. I had a case years ago where the person was on his way back from Europe, and the family was very concerned that he was symptomatic. I had security people meet him at J.F.K.”

Many lawyers work with mentally ill people or their families, but Ron Honberg, the national director of policy and legal affairs for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said he did not know of another lawyer who did what Ms. Wolf does: providing families with a team of psychiatrists, social workers, case managers, life coaches, security guards and others, and then coordinating their services. It can be a lifeline — for people who can afford it, Mr. Honberg said. “Otherwise, families have to do this on their own,” he said. “It’s a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week job, and for some families it never ends.”

Many of Ms. Wolf’s clients declined to be interviewed for this article, but the few who spoke offered an unusual window on the arcane twists and turns of the mental health care system, even for families with money. Their stories illustrate how fraught and sometimes blind such a journey can be.

One rainy morning last month, Lance Sheena, 29, sat with his mother in the spacious family room of her Long Island home. Mr. Sheena was puffy-eyed and sporadically inattentive; the previous night, at the group home where he has been living since late last summer, another resident had been screaming incoherently and was taken away by the police. His mother, Susan Sheena, eased delicately into the family story.

“I don’t talk to a lot of people because they don’t get it,” Ms. Sheena said. “They mean well, but they don’t get it unless they’ve been through a similar experience. And anytime something comes up, like the shooting in Newtown, right away it goes to the mentally ill. And you think, maybe we shouldn’t be so public about this, because people are going to be afraid of us and Lance. It’s a big concern.”

Her son cut her off. “Are you comparing me to the guy that shot those people?”

“No, I’m saying that anytime there’s a shooting, like in Aurora, that’s when these things come out in the news.”

“Did you really just compare me to that guy?”

“No, I didn’t compare you.”

“Then what did you say?”

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A delicate new balancing act in senior healthcare

When Claire Gordon arrived at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, nurses knew she needed extra attention.

She was 96, had heart disease and a history of falls. Now she had pneumonia and the flu. A team of Cedars specialists converged on her case to ensure that a bad situation did not turn worse and that she didn't end up with a lengthy, costly hospital stay.

Frail seniors like Gordon account for a disproportionate share of healthcare expenditures because they are frequently hospitalized and often land in intensive care units or are readmitted soon after being released. Now the federal health reform law is driving sweeping changes in how hospitals treat a rapidly growing number of elderly patients.

The U.S. population is aging quickly: People older than 65 are expected to make up nearly 20% of it by 2030. Linda P. Fried, dean of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, said now is the time to train professionals and test efforts to improve care and lower healthcare costs for elderly patients.

"It's incredibly important that we prepare for being in a society where there are a lot of older people," she said. "We have to do this type of experiment right now."

At Cedars-Sinai, where more than half the patients in the medical and surgical wards are 65 or older, one such effort is dubbed the "frailty project." Within 24 hours, nurses assess elderly patients for their risk of complications such as falls, bed sores and delirium. Then a nurse, social worker, pharmacist and physician assess the most vulnerable patients and make an action plan to help them.

The Cedars project stands out nationally because medical professionals are working together to identify high-risk patients at the front end of their hospitalizations to prevent problems at the back end, said Herb Schultz, regional director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

"For seniors, it is better care, it is high-quality care and it is peace of mind," he said.

The effort and others like it also have the potential to reduce healthcare costs by cutting preventable medical errors and readmissions, Schultz said. The federal law penalizes hospitals for both.

Gordon, an articulate woman with brightly painted fingernails and a sense of humor, arrived at Cedars-Sinai by ambulance on a Monday.

Soon, nurse Jacquelyn Maxton was at her bedside asking a series of questions to check for problems with sleep, diet and confusion. The answers led to Gordon's designation as a frail patient. The next day, the project team huddled down the hall and addressed her risks one by one. Medical staff would treat the flu and pneumonia while at the same time addressing underlying health issues that could extend Gordon's stay and slow her recovery, both in the hospital and after going home.

To reduce the chance of falls, nurses placed a yellow band on her wrist that read "fall risk" and ensured that she didn't get up on her own. To prevent bed sores, they got her up and moving as often as possible. To cut down on confusion, they reminded Gordon frequently where she was and made sure she got uninterrupted sleep. Medical staff also stopped a few unnecessary medications that Gordon had been prescribed before her admission, including a heavy narcotic and a sleeping pill.

"It is really a holistic approach to the patient, not just to the disease that they are in here for," said Glenn D. Braunstein, the hospital's vice president for clinical innovation.

Previously, nurse Ivy Dimalanta said, she and her colleagues provided similar care but on a much more random basis. Under the project, the care has become standardized.

The healthcare system has not been well designed to address the needs of seniors who may have had a lifetime of health problems, said Mary Naylor, gerontology professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. As a result, patients sometimes fall through the cracks and return to hospitals again and again.

"That is not good for them and that is not good for society to be using resources in that way," Naylor said.

Using data from related projects, Cedars began a pilot program in 2011 and expanded it last summer. The research is continuing but early results suggest that the interventions are leading to fewer seniors being admitted to the intensive care unit and to shorter hospital stays, said Jeff Borenstein, researcher and lead clinician on the frailty project. "It definitely seems to be going in the right direction," he said.

The hospital is now working with Naylor and the University of Pennsylvania to design a program to help the patients once they go home.

"People who are frail are very vulnerable when they leave the hospital," said Harriet Udin Aronow, a researcher at Cedars. "We want to promote them being safe at home and continuing to recover."

In Gordon's case, she lives alone with the help of her children and a caregiver. The hospital didn't want her experiencing complications that would lengthen the stay, but they also didn't want to discharge her before she was ready. Under the health reform law, hospitals face penalties if patients come back too soon after being released.

Patients and their families often are unaware of the additional attention. Sitting in a chair in front of a vase of pink flowers, Gordon said she knew she would have to do her part to get out of the hospital quickly. "You have to move," she said. "I know you get bed sores if you stay in bed."

Gordon said she was comfortable at the hospital but she wanted to go back to her house as quickly as she could. "There's no place like home," she said.

Two days later, that's where she was.

anna.gorman@latimes.com

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DC Comics Turns the Occupy Movement Into a Superhero Title

Eighteen months after the phrase first entered the collective public consciousness, the plight of the 99 percent is coming to mainstream superhero comics — via a new series from the second biggest publisher in the American comic industry, which just happens to be a subsidiary of a multi-national corporation that makes around $12 billion a year. Irony, anybody?

In May, DC Comics will launch two new series taking place in their mainstream superhero universe that offer different insights into the class struggle in a world filled with superheroes, alien races and inexplicable events. The Green Team, written by Tiny Titans and Superman Family Adventures creators Art Baltazar and Franco, with art by Ig Guara, revives an obscure 1975 concept about teenage rich kids who try to make the world a better place with their outrageous wealth. In an interview promoting the series, Franco promised that it would address questions like “Can money make you happy?” and “If you had unlimited wealth, could you use that to make the lives of people better?”

Obviously, this is one of the more fanciful series DC will be publishing.

But while DC is promoting The Green Team series as the adventures of the “1%,” its companion title, The Movement, is teased as a chance for us to “Meet the 99%… They were the super-powered disenfranchised — now they’re the voice of the people!”

“It’s a book about power,” explained The Movement writer Gail Simone. “Who owns it, who uses it, who suffers from its abuse. As we increasingly move to an age where information is currency, you get these situations where a single viral video can cost a previously unassailable corporation billions, or can upset the power balance of entire governments. And because the sources of that information are so dispersed and nameless, it’s nearly impossible to shut it all down.”

“The thing I find fascinating and a little bit worrisome is, what happens when a hacktivist group whose politics you find completely repulsive has this same kind of power and influence,” she elaborated in an interview at Big Shiny Robot. “What if a racist or homophobic group rises up and organizes in the same manner?”

While the concept is ambitious, the idea that a comic capable of living up to the book’s populist inspiration could come from DC Entertainment still strikes some as unlikely. Matt Pizzolo, the editor of the Occupy Comics anthology, told Wired that “though DC Comics did help launch Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s seminal anarchist epic V For Vendetta over two decades ago, it’s unlikely they would do so today. Between dismantling Vertigo and frankensteining Watchmen, the past year has demonstrated DC isn’t a safe place for bold creators who want to tell the kinds of stories that would inspire things like Occupy, rather than just cash in on them.”

Still, Simone says that the use of the iconography and language of a real-world populist movement is deliberate, promising that the book will reflect today’s decentralized political world and offer ”a slice of rarity that we’re unlikely to see in most superhero books.”

This wouldn’t the first time that DC has attempted to offer pre-packaged populist rebellion, of course; in addition to the aforementioned publication of the anti-establishment V For Vendetta, the company’s Vertigo imprint also published Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles, a series centering around an international organization struggling against forces of authority and repression that included anti-corporate themes.

Only time will tell whether The Movement will live up to the subversive examples of these earlier books, or just end up a well-intentioned piece of topical super heroics that trades on, and commodifies, a real political movement.

The Movement #1 will be available in both print and digital formats on May 1, while The Green Team #1 will be released on May 22.

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Michael Costigan Lands two-Year, First-Look Deal at Sony Pictures

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Sony Pictures Entertainment said Tuesday that it has entered into a two-year, exclusive first-look agreement with producer Michael Costigan and his company COTA Films.

The deal reunites Costigan with Sony Pictures, where he previously worked for nine years and served as a production executive. Costigan then served as president of Ridley and Tony Scott‘s Scott Free Productions from 2005 until 2012.

Doug Belgrad, president of Columbia Pictures, and Hannah Minghella, president of production for the studio, made the announcement jointly.

“We couldn’t be more excited to be back in business with Michael,” they said in a statement. “He has a great eye for material, strong director and talent relationships and has been making interesting, original movies during his years with Scott Free. Of course he remains a great friend and we’re thrilled to be professionally reunited.”

Costigan most recently produced “Stoker,” Park Chan Wook’s English-language debut starring Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman and Matthew Goode, and “The East,” starring Brit Marling, Ellen Page and Alexander Skarsgard, and directed by Spirit Award nominee Zal Batmanglij. Both films premiered last week at Sundance to positive reviews and will be released later this spring.

Costigan also produced “Out of the Furnace,” directed by Scott Cooper (“Crazy Heart”) and starring Christian Bale, Casey Affleck and Woody Harrelson.

As executive vice president of production at Sony, he acquired and developed films including “Charlie’s Angels,” “Gattaca,” “The People Versus Larry Flynt,” “Girl Interrupted” and “Bottle Rocket.”

Under the Scott Free banner, Costigan executive produced “Prometheus,” “The Counselor,” “Robin Hood,” “Body of Lies,” and “American Gangster.” He also produced Mark and Jay Duplass’ “Cyrus” and “Welcome to the Rileys.”

Before joining Scott Free, Costigan executive produced Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain.”

Joining Costigan is Ben Leclair, who most recently produced the “Upstream Color,” directed by Shane Carruth, which premiered at Sundance. He previously worked as VP, production for Mike White at Ripcord, where he was a producer of “Year of the Dog” and oversaw Jared Hess’ “Gentlemen Broncos.”

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U.S. Use of Mexican Battery Recyclers Is Faulted

United States companies are sending spent lead batteries to recycling plants in Mexico that do not meet American environmental standards, according to an environmental agency created under the North American Free Trade Agreement, putting Mexican communities at risk.

In a blistering report submitted this week, the agency, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, notes that the United States does not fully follow procedures common among developed nations that treat international battery shipments as hazardous waste. It faults environmental agencies on both sides of the border for lapses in regulation and enforcement. Cross-border trade in lead batteries increased by up to 525 percent from 2004 to 2011, the report said.

The report, which has been circulating in draft form, has been forwarded to the governments of the United States, Canada and Mexico, which have 60 days to object to its publication. An estimated 20 percent of lead acid batteries from the United States now go to Mexico for recycling, according to trade statistics.

“There needs to be better coordination between government agencies and better cross-border tracking,” said Evan Lloyd, who was the agency’s executive director until late last year and oversaw the yearlong study.

The report highlighted a number of shortcomings: Customs data on the number of batteries crossing the border did not mesh with counts by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Though the E.P.A. requires notice of batteries leaving the United States, there was no effort to make sure that they had arrived at qualified recyclers in Mexico. The data that battery companies sent to the E.P.A. about exports consisted of “piles of paper,” Mr. Lloyd said, and it was never amassed into an electronic database that would be “useful to regulators.”

Almost all lead acid batteries used in the United States are recycled to extract the lead for reuse because lead is a dangerous pollutant and because it is a valuable commodity. Lead batteries are used in vehicles, cellphone towers and wind turbines.

Since 2008, new United States limits on lead pollution have made domestic recycling complicated and costly. That has helped propel the recycling trade to Mexico, both legally and illegally, environmental groups say, because that country has less stringent limits for lead pollution, and far less vigorous enforcement.

“There’s a pretty consistent pattern suggesting that exports are the direct result of U.S. emissions standards,” said Perry Gottesfeld, executive director of Occupational Knowledge International, which has led the campaign against lead poisoning internationally. Mr. Gottesfeld noted that a Mexican plant owned by a major American recycler, Johnson Controls Inc., puts out more than 30 times as much lead emissions as its newest plant in the United States.

“What Mexico needs to do is to get its recycling up to U.S. standards, and the U.S. needs to do a much better job of tracking batteries overseas,” he said. In an e-mail, Johnson Controls, based in Milwaukee, said it was “modernizing and reinvesting” in the Mexican facility, acquired in 2005, “to reduce its environmental footprint.”

The report was initiated in response to a report by Occupational Knowledge International and Fronteras Comunes, a Mexican environmental group, as well as to an investigative article in The New York Times, Mr. Lloyd said. Soil collected by The Times in a school playground near a recycling plant outside Mexico City was found to have lead levels five times those allowed in the United States.

Lead poisoning causes high blood pressure, kidney damage and abdominal pain in adults, and serious developmental delays and behavioral problems in young children. When batteries are broken for recycling, the lead is released as dust and, during melting, as lead-laced emissions.

In the United States, recyclers operate in highly mechanized, tightly sealed plants, with smokestack scrubbers and extensive monitors to detect lead release. Plants in Mexico vary greatly in safety standards, and in some, the recycling process is little more than men with hammers smashing batteries and melting down their contents in furnaces.

In recent months, there have been new efforts to curb the flow of batteries south of the border, though many battery makers have fought that. In response to a draft of the report released late last year, Battery Council International, an industry group, said it opposed “the creation of additional burdensome certification programs.”

Last year, the United States General Services Administration, which is responsible for federal vehicles, asked ASTM International, an independent standards agency, to explore a voluntary standard for battery recycling.

But that effort came to naught after the proposal was voted down at an open meeting attended by representatives from industry, government and environmental groups in December. Of the 103 people at the meeting, 49 worked for Johnson Controls.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 9, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated part of the name of an American recycler cited by Perry Gottesfeld, executive director of Occupational Knowledge International, as the owner of a Mexican plant that puts out more than 30 times as much lead emissions as the company’s newest plant in the United States. The American recycling company is Johnson Controls Inc., not Johnson Controls International.

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Big Bear locked down amid manhunt

The bustling winter resort of Big Bear took on the appearance of a ghost town Thursday as surveillance aircraft buzzed overhead and police in tactical gear and carrying rifles patrolled mountain roads in convoys of SUVs, while others stood guard along major intersections.

Even before authorities had confirmed that the torched pickup truck discovered on a quiet forest road belonged to suspected gunman Christopher Dorner, 33, officials had ordered an emergency lockdown of local businesses, homes and the town's popular ski resorts. Parents were told to pick up their children from school, as rolling yellow buses might pose a target to an unpredictable fugitive on the run.

By nightfall, many residents had barricaded their doors as they prepared for a long, anxious evening.

PHOTOS: A tense manhunt amid tragic deaths

"We're all just stressed," said Andrea Burtons as she stocked up on provisions at a convenience store. "I have to go pick up my brother and get him home where we're safe."

Police ordered the lockdown about 9:30 a.m. as authorities throughout Southern California launched an immense manhunt for the former lawman, who is accused of killing three people as part of a long-standing grudge against the LAPD. Dorner is believed to have penned a long, angry manifesto on Facebook saying that he was unfairly fired from the force and was now seeking vengeance.

Forest lands surrounding Big Bear Lake are cross-hatched with fire roads and trails leading in all directions, and the snow-capped mountains can provide both cover and extreme challenges to a fugitive on foot. It was unclear whether Dorner was prepared for such rugged terrain.

Footprints were found leading from Dorner's burned pickup truck into the snow off Forest Road 2N10 and Club View Drive in Big Bear Lake.

San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon said that although authorities had deployed 125 officers for tracking and door-to-door searches, officers had to be mindful that the suspect may have set a trap.

"Certainly. There's always that concern and we're extremely careful and we're worried about this individual," McMahon said. "We're taking every precaution we can."

PHOTOS: A fugitive's life on Facebook

Big Bear has roughly 400 homes, but authorities guessed that only 40% are occupied year-round.

The search will probably play out with the backdrop of a winter storm that is expected to hit the area after midnight.

Up to 6 inches of snow could blanket local mountains, the National Weather Service said.

FULL COVERAGE: Sweeping manhunt for rampaging ex-cop

Gusts up to 50 mph could hit the region, said National Weather Service meteorologist Mark Moede, creating a wind-chill factor of 15 to 20 degrees.

Extra patrols were brought in to check vehicles coming and going from Big Bear, McMahon said, but no vehicles had been reported stolen.

"He could be anywhere at this point," McMahon said. When asked if the burned truck was a possible diversion, McMahon replied: "Anything's possible."

Dorner had no known connection to the area, authorities said.

Craig and Christine Winnegar, of Murrieta, found themselves caught up in the lockdown by accident. Craig brought his wife to Big Bear as a surprise to celebrate their 28th wedding anniversary. Their prearranged dinner was canceled when restaurant owners closed their doors out of fear.

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Sandboxr's Animation Interface Offers Completely Customizable 3-D Printed Figurines

Walt Disney invented feature animation by painting on plastic cels, Pixar reinvented the artform with computer graphics, and now Sandboxr is bringing animation to life with 3-D printers.

Animation fans, using Sandboxr’s web-based software via laptop or tablet, can digitally pose character models, change their scale, give them accessories, create scenes, and then 3-D print their custom-built result for less than the cost of a movie ticket.

3-D printed figurines already exist — MyRobotNation and FigurePrints offer similar services, allowing gamers to print models from World of Warcraft and Minecraft. But the interfaces for those sites have limited character flexibility, usually just a set of predefined poses and options. “Services like that are the tip of the iceberg,” says founder Berk Frei. “We’re trying to be the rest of the iceberg.”

What makes Sandboxr unique is how users experience some of the creative flexibility a professional animator does. All of the Sandboxr models are “rigged” — each model has a skeleton that a customer can pose like a doll, then print a souvenir of the experience. And, unlike the animators at movie studios, Sandboxr customers don’t have to learn complicated modeling software. The company has built an engine that lets people experiment with character poses using sliders to create sophisticated, animated poses, simply.

Frei is also passionate about taking the grunt work out of the process. “When I’m getting something ready for 3-D printing it’s not an easy process,” he says. “The printers choke on models with holes, multiple meshes, all these things that look visually impressive. Shelling models to reduce waste materials and adding drain holes takes a lot of time, but we’ve automated all of that. You’re going to save a lot of time using Sandboxr to post-process models.”

These automated features will do a lot to keep costs competitive with services like Shapeways. According to Frei, a 3.5-inch figure will cost approximately $20 to $25 and a 2.5-inch model will cost around $12, but final pricing is still to be determined.

To ensure that there are plenty of options for customers, the platform will be open to 3-D artists. Independent animators and toy designers will be able to post their characters and let fans interact with them in new and exciting ways. Frei says they’re also getting an “overwhelming” response from established videogame companies. “Game companies are excited for us to exist. They’ve made a game and the content already exists. We use the same model files and textures as they do to build the game so it’s an easy transition. Ultimately, we provide a store front that doesn’t cost anything to create and an infinite amount of inventory.”

The response has been so potent, Frei is looking into purchasing 40 ZCorp 3-D printers to keep up with initial demand. “We’ve decided we’re going to get capital equipment and build out our infrastructure, which is a bigger risk, but also gives us the ability to provide lower cost prints.”

For now, the site is in private beta, a Kickstarter campaign is imminent, but for those in the Salt Lake City area, the first Sandboxer project is on view at The Leonardo, a contemporary science museum.

Beyond the lively product, Sandboxr marks an important change in the industry. Most first-generation companies focused on 3-D printing were founded by engineers and focused on developing new, better hardware.

Frei and Sandboxr represent a new wave where designers are driving the technology in new directions increasingly through software. “Working with 3-D printing companies wasn’t that cool of an experience,” he says. “You’re just dropping your file off.”

Frei was introduced to 3-D printing while working as a CG animator in an arts-focused coworking space. He immediately understood the implications of the technology and had a vast library of digital content that could be printed. He also saw a huge problem. “You need to be a sophisticated designer to do anything cool with a 3-D printer,” says Frei. “My idea was to bridge the gap between an everyday person and 3-D printers.”

After evaluating systems from all the major manufacturers Frei found them lacking. He immediately got to work pitching investors on his software concept and recruited a team of engineers and 3-D artists to build the service. ”First and foremost I was thinking what a designer toy artist could do with Sandboxr,” says Frei. “Artists can collaborate with their fans.”

Frei also sees a big future for the product beyond games.

“We’re 3-D artists and game designers, but we built the system with customization in mind so that it can be interacted with in interesting ways,” he says. “I’ll be surprised what they’ll use it for — maybe cool jewelry, wedding cake toppers, who knows. I just want people to feel like they can be Tony Stark from Iron Man. They can design something in their computer and build it.”

All images: Courtesy of Sandboxr

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NBC’s ‘The Office’ to get send-off on May 16

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Emmy-winning comedy “The Office” will pack up its pencils and staplers after eight years with a one-hour finale on May 16, U.S. broadcaster NBC said on Thursday.

Producers have promised that the episode will tie up several loose storylines on the workplace mockumentary, which debuted on U.S. television in 2005 as an adaptation of the British series of the same name created by comedian Ricky Gervais.

NBC announced last year that the show, set at the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company in Scranton, Pennsylvania, would end in 2013.

Audiences began to turn away from “The Office” after Steve Carell, who played bumbling manager Michael Scott, left in 2011. Viewership fell to about 4 million last year per episode from a high of about 8 million in 2008.

The U.S. show has won four Emmy Awards.

The show’s American producers said last year that the success of “The Office” actors outside of the program played a role in the decision to wind it down.

Mindy Kaling, who played office magpie Kelly Kapoor, left last year to develop “The Mindy Project,” her own comedy for Fox, which is owned by News Corp.

John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer, who play office couple Jim and Pam, have launched film careers on the back of their performances on the show.

Office sycophant Dwight Schrute, portrayed by Rainn Wilson, also sought to create a spin-off show but it was not picked up for broadcast.

It will be the second big NBC comedy to end its run. “30 Rock” bowed out last week after seven seasons.

NBC is part of Comcast Corp.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Paul Simao)

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The New Old Age: The Executor's Assistant

I’m serving as executor for my father’s estate, a role few of us are prepared for until we’re playing it, so I was grateful when the mail brought “The American Bar Association Guide to Wills and Estates” — the fourth edition of a handbook the A.B.A. began publishing in 1995.

This is a legal universe, I’m learning, in which every step — even with a small, simple estate that owes no taxes and includes no real estate or trusts — turns out to be at least 30 percent more complicated than expected.

If my dad had been wealthy or owned a business, or if we faced a challenge to his will, I would have turned the whole matter over to an estate lawyer by now. But even then, it would be helpful to know what the lawyer was talking about. The A.B.A. guide would help.

Written with surprising clarity (hey, they’re lawyers), it maps out all kinds of questions and decisions to consider and explains the many ways to leave property to one’s heirs. Updated from the third edition in 2009, the guide not only talks taxes and trusts, but also offers counsel for same-sex couples and unconventional families.

If you want to permit your second husband to live in the family home until he dies, but then guarantee that the house reverts to the children of your first marriage, the guide tells you how a “life estate” works. It explains what is taxable and what isn’t, and discusses how to choose executors and trustees. It lists lots of resources and concludes with an estate-planning checklist.

In general, the A.B.A. intends its guide for the person trying to put his or her affairs in order, more than for family members trying to figure out how to proceed after someone has died. But many of us will play both these parts at some point (and if you are already an executor, or have been, please tell us how that has gone, and mention your state). We’ll need this information.

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Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”

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