TBWALondon has hired multi-award-winning producer Melody Sylvester as chief production officer. Sylvester will work in partnership with chief creative officer Andy Jex and form part of the senior leadership team.
By embedding production into the start of the creative process, Sylvester and Jex will elevate the process and the output. Tasked with creating integrated creative production teams that can work across any area of the creative process, she will utilize her established relationships to build creative partnerships in London and across the global network.
With more than 25 years in the creative industry, Sylvester has worked at a wide range of creative agencies and production companies including Mother, Nexus and Ridley Scott Associates. Over that time she has produced for award-winning directors Smith & Foulkes and Shynola.
She joins the TBWA team from House 337 (formerly Engine) where as head of film, she managed Sky, Warburtons, Money Supermarket, Churchill and Green Flag. Engine had a long-established relationship with charities Born Free, Women’s Aid and Alzheimer’s Society.
Sylvester while at Engine led the production team behind landmark work for The Kiyan Prince Foundation, which raised huge amounts of donations and awareness for the youth work of Dr Mark Prince OBE. The anti-knife crime campaign garnered a Cannes Lions Titanium Grand Prix for Engine in June 2022.
Sylvester strives for inclusivity within ad land and champions emerging talent in front of and behind the camera. She has recently chaired the inaugural jury for The Young Arrows Awards for Emerging Talent that took place at the BFI this month. She is committed to supporting young people in the workplace and providing them with real opportunities within the industry.
Sylvester said, “I have long held the belief that production requires a seat at the leadership table. It makes for better creative output and a more rewarding experience for all of those involved from the client to the on-set runner. Larissa [Vance, TBWA London CEO], Andy and I share a love of making great work and I am super excited to be working with them and the entire leadership team at Bankside. Their ethos of ‘disruption’ resonates with me completely. Can’t wait to get started.
Jex noted, “The partnership between creative and production is fundamental to making great work. Clients spend so much money on production but don’t ever get to talk to a producer. Melody will allow us to create properly integrated production teams that are as comfortable doing agency production as they are line production. Her track record on campaigns such as the Kiyan Prince shows that if you take a different approach to production you can create something totally new and exceptional.”
CEO Vance added, “If there was anyone who personifies our reclaimed version of Disruption, it is Melody–an absolute force in the industry who constantly strives to do things differently and do things better.”
Juliette Welfling Takes On A Musical, A Crime Thriller, Comedy and Drama In “Emelia Pérez”
Editor Juliette Welfling has a track record of close-knit, heartfelt collaboration with writer-director Jacques Audiard, a four-time BAFTA Award nominee for Best Film not in the English Language--starting with The Beat That My Heart Skipped in 2006, then A Prophet in 2010, Rust and Bone in 2013, and Dheepan in 2017. He won for The Beat That My Heart Skipped and A Prophet.
Welfling cut three of those features: A Prophet, Rust and Bone, and Dheepan. And that shared filmography has since grown to most recently include Emelia Pérez, the Oscar buzz-worthy film from Netflix. Welfling herself is not stranger to Academy Award banter. In fact, she earned a Best Achievement in Film Editing Oscar nomination in 2008 for director Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
Emelia Pérez is a hybrid musical/drama/thriller which introduces us to a talented but undervalued lawyer named Rita (portrayed by Zoe Saldana) who receives a lucrative offer out of the blue from a feared drug cartel boss who’s looking to retire from his sordid business and disappear forever by becoming the woman he’s always dreamt of being (Karla Sofía Gascón in a dual role as Manitas Del Monte/Emilia Pérez). Rita helps pull this off, orchestrating the faked death of Del Monte who leaves behind a widow (Jessi, played by Selena Gomez) and kids. While living comfortably and contently in her/their new identity, Pérez misses the children. Pérez once again enlists Rita--this time to return to family life, reuniting with the kids by pretending to be their aunt, the sister of Del Monte. Now as an aunt, Pérez winds up adopting a more altruistic bent professionally,... Read More