User:Jonthewizard/sandbox

The Masses is a collaboration of directors and artists united by a passion for music and driven by unique and diverse cinematic visions.

History
The Masses was formed in Manhattan in 2002 by Matt Amato and Jon Ramos. Ramos met Amato when he was working in New York City for an early online-concert concern. They had a mutual friend in Billy Zane, and Ramos, who lived in a three-story midtown loft, threw a dinner party to celebrate Zane’s Broadway debut in Chicago. Amato was tailing Zane with a camera as his video diarist and happened to land an offer that week to direct a video for L.A.’s Earlimart — but only if he could work on it in New York and deliver it immediately. Amato accepted, then turned to his new acquaintance and asked Ramos if he could borrow a bedroom, his roomful of computers and a hand with the animation. When they had finished the project the label hated the video but the two committed to continue working together. Future Masses members happened to be in New York that week: Mark Eitzel, Ann Magnuson, composer Susan Ellinger, and broadway dancer Marc Calamia.

Amato returned to Los Angeles and continued to operate The Masses out of his house on South Orange Drive for the next four years.

Another key member of the Masses, Bryan Younce, was originally brought into Amato’s sphere through a meeting at the Los Angeles Film Festival in the late 1990s. Younce had been an admirer of Amato’s work, and soon, the two were hanging at South Orange, watching movies, listening to music and dissecting everything they took in.