Big Lawn Films, the year-old shop owned by director Chuck Bennett, has brought Andrew Denyer on board as COO/executive producer. Denyer joins the one-director shop after spending the past three years as a freelance producer.
Among those freelance endeavors were collaborations with Bennett (i.e., Maytag for Leo Burnett USA, Chicago, LucasArts for FCB, San Francisco) when the director was at Crossroads, bicoastal and Chicago. That positive working relationship with Bennett–and the opportunity to help build a small entrepreneurial shop–led to Denyer’s decision to return to the executive producer ranks.
Prior to freelance producing for Bennett and other Crossroads directors–as well as such helmers as Chris Smith of bicoastal Smuggler and Tim Hamilton of bicoastal Go Film–Denyer was an executive producer at now defunct Propaganda Films. He earlier served as head of production at bicoastal Headquarters, where he also handled some exec producer responsibilities.
Denyer succeeds Gabrielle Yuro as Big Lawn’s executive producer. He intends to add to Big Lawn’s directorial roster but noted that the first priority is Bennett’s helming career. Among Bennett’s latest endeavors are Subway for McCarthy, Mambro & Bertino, Boston, and a couple of assignments for GSD&M, Austin, Texas: an AARP spot and a promo for The Learning Channel show What Not To Wear.
While Big Lawn will maintain its core spotmaking operation, Denyer said that he and Bennett plan to explore opportunities outside the traditional :30 format, including interactive, Web-based technologies and wireless.
Bennett first gained industry prominence as an agency creative. He and Clay Williams started out as an art director/writer duo, first at now defunct Stein Robaire Helm for three years. Then they firmly established themselves as a creative team at TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles, moving up from art director and writer, respectively, to managing partners/creative directors. During their tenure there, Bennett and Williams began to co-direct select projects for TBWA/Chiat/Day, such as Energizer batteries’ “Elvis” and Taco Bells’ “Crank Call.”
Bennett and Williams then jumped over to the production house side of the fence, joining Crossroads as a directing team, known as Chuck & Clay, in 2000. The duo helmed assorted jobs (Dr Pepper, Lycos, Red Lobster) and then in ’02 each went solo, with Bennett staying at Crossroads and Williams joining bicoastal/international MJZ.
Big Lawn is repped by Boss Talent’s Annie Bossingham and Brad Gruber on the West Coast, Cathi Connor and Mike Richter of The Connor Group in the Midwest, and Chris Messiter and Ann McKallagat of Talc Films on the East Coast.
