NBFF Finds Niche; Calle Moves Up

Here’s a take worth the telling before it gets overwhelmed by all the beautiful people bound to keep hotels and restaurants hopping as a byproduct of the 17th annual Newport Beach Film Festival, which starts this week: Executive Director Gregg Schwenk says well-heeled cinema buffs account for many of the 50,000 or so visitors the event regularly attracts, but he also notes that certain screenings draw a different crowd, with representatives from distributors and other industry pros accounting for as much as 30% of the gate. NBFF has earned a niche as a place for second screenings, says Schwenk, affording a chance to catch movies missed at Sundance, South By Southwest or other domestic festivals. The trend is fed by ongoing changes in the industry, with representatives of Amazon, Netflix and other newcomers regularly joining traditional studio types here, beating a path down the 405 from Silicon Beach on L.A.’s Westside, a center of digital media … Kudos to Brian Calle on his ability to thrive in the wake of Digital First Media’s acquisition of the OC Register, where he had overseen the Op-Ed section for the past several years. Calle’s recent appointment to head up the opinion pages for all of DFM’s Southern California News Group—which includes the Register and another 10 dailies—could be taken as a sign of heft for OC within DFM’s operations, which have been anchored in the San Fernando Valley of L.A., home of its Los Angeles Daily News. The Register at this point has the largest circulation of any of its fellow DFM dailies. Calle walked the line in initial comments, offering no particular insight on how much the Register’s libertarian heritage will remain in the mix for OC and the other markets he’ll oversee … The good deed that Ranney Draper did with the annual Keeping Kids on Track luncheon to benefit United Way back in the day of his Diversified Shopping Centers is back, with Donahue Schriber Inc. taking the lead in conjunction with the Orange County Community Foundation, and putting the focus on the needs of the 130,000 or so veterans of military service in OC. The event relaunches as the first annual OC Real Estate Luncheon, with Adm. Mike Mullen, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, lined up to give the keynote at the April 21 luncheon at the Westin South Coast Plaza. Visit oc-cf.org/OCRELuncheon for tickets and information … Anyone else hear that Broadcom co-founder Henry Nicholas is using the Emerald Bay home he got when he foreclosed on developer Jim Baldwin as a beach house? Seems that’s the other shoe, which dropped after the two got in a legal wrestling match over a $21.5 million loan Nicholas made to Baldwin, who apparently put up the house and a luxury yacht as collateral … Nicholas might want to trade up to the one-time Western White House, an erstwhile outpost of former President Richard Nixon that’s now the property of Allergan founder Gavin Herbert, who’s reduced his price by a bit less than 10% and now seeks $69 million for the San Clemente estate, which is but one nugget of his interests (see related story, page 1) … Craig Reem, a veteran media hand who now serves as director of public affairs communications for the City of Irvine, sent this along in praise of Chapman U.’s Essie Adibi: “From 1992, when I arrived in Orange County as a journalist, through today, I have only missed two of 24 Economic Forecasts. The forecasts are that good, and Essie was that funny. I will miss him deeply,” Reem wrote, summing up the feelings of many (see obituary, page 4).