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2 days ago | 
tonemadison.com | Scott Gordon |Christina Lieffring |Grant Phipps |Steven Spoerl
Our annual report is a bit later than usual this year because, as you may know, we’ve been undergoing a major transition. Scott Gordon, Tone Madison co-founder and Publisher, stepped down at the end of April. While it didn’t take long for his byline to pop up again (and there will certainly be more of that in the future), the day-to-day operations of Tone Madison are now in the hands of Film Editor Grant Phipps, Music Editor Steven Spoerl, and myself.
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2 weeks ago | 
tonemadison.com | Grant Phipps
Among Madison cinephiles, the Chazen Museum of Art auditorium is not typically thought of as a space reserved for screening short documentary work. But that is slowly changing.
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1 month ago | 
tonemadison.com | Grant Phipps
This is our newsletter-first column, Microtones. It runs on the site on Fridays, but you can get it in your inbox on Thursdays by signing up for our email newsletter.
Despite being the film editor of this publication, I have the deepest fascination with sound and music, driven by a compulsion to ascertain all that I can through recorded audio.
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2 months ago | 
tonemadison.com | Grant Phipps |Sara Batkie
The comedown after the Wisconsin Film Festival can hit hard. Some of us may need to take a few days off from the movie binge to collect their thoughts and jot down some rousing notes or experiential rankings. Then again, others may want to continue chasing that marathon-viewing high the annual event in April fosters and head right back to the theaters. One thing is universal, though: a desire for discussion.
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2 months ago | 
tonemadison.com | Grant Phipps
Oversized fluorescent lights of a vanity mirror strobe over potted cacti and a preserved arachnid. Vertical streaks of opaque, multi-colored glass shimmer like a spectral curtain before dissipating into an obscured glimpse at lower bodies in leather boots shuffling across a dive-bar floor.
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2 months ago | 
tonemadison.com | Scott Gordon |Christina Lieffring |Grant Phipps |Steven Spoerl
Tone Madison will be making some major changes this year. But we’re not going away, nor is our commitment to fiercely independent coverage of culture and politics in Madison. Co-founder Scott Gordon will step down from his role as Publisher and Editor-in-Chief on May 1. After taking some time off, Gordon will continue to contribute to the publication as a writer and reporter.
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2 months ago | 
tonemadison.com | Maxwell Courtright |David Boffa |Grant Phipps |Lewis Peterson
Documentaries aren’t necessarily Tone Madison‘s eminent go-to for film coverage. Scan our most recent archives, and you’re bound to come across numerous pieces on classic genre films of several shades as well as historically important art-house fare, and even some modern experimental shorts or influentially transgressive pieces. Over the past year, we’ve tried to emphasize brand-new narratives that have popped up in commercial theaters.
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Mar 25, 2025 | 
tonemadison.com | Grant Phipps |LakeFront Row
Often, the most striking aspect of an experimental short film exists beyond the creative depth of the work itself. For viewers, it can be a reflexive thrill to regard the disparity between a written synopsis and the radical techniques an artist uses to visually and aurally convey their emotional state(s) or subvert our collective, conditioned concept of narrative.
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Mar 9, 2025 | 
tonemadison.com | Grant Phipps |Lewis Peterson |Jason Fuhrman |Edwanike Harbour
It’s that time of year again, when we try to find phrases that aren’t cliché to express the giddiness in expectantly turning the pages of the annual Wisconsin Film Festival (WFF) guide.
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Feb 19, 2025 | 
tonemadison.com | Grant Phipps |LakeFront Row
Listen to writer-director Nathan Deming speak about his work for just a minute, and you’ll grasp how he humbly wants his characters to find commonalities even in the trickiest of situations. He has positioned them in a formidable cinematic micro-universe, an undertaking partly inspired by Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Dekalog miniseries (1989).
