Longstanding 89 Editorial is going bicoastal. The New York shop–which is part of the Crossroads family of companies, bicoastal and Chicago–has acquired the assets of Santa Monica-based edit house Terminal. The move not only gives 89 a Southern California facility but also an infusion of talent.
The majority of the Terminal team–including company partners/editors Jonathan Del Gatto and Mark Goodman, as well as West Coast executive producer Michael Gresch–are now part of 89’s Santa Monica operation.The fourth Terminal partner, editor Lee Cowen, is not joining the 89 venture; his plans were not known at press time.
Rounding out the new 89 team in Santa Monica will be Nicholas Erasmus, who had also been editing at Terminal. Additionally editor Duncan Shepherd of bicoastal/international Final Cut is scheduled to join the ensemble of 89 editors next month in Santa Monica.
“I’ve known Jonathan a long time, and I like the guys a lot,” said Dan Lindau, a partner in Crossroads and president of 89. “We talked about a West Coast component. L.A. didn’t need another editing company, but with the level of talent available [through the Terminal editors], it made sense.” He added that another factor was that 89 had already been handling an increasing number of West Coast jobs.
The now bicoastal 89 roster is rounded out by the New York-based team of editors that includes Michael Coletta, Julie Drazen, Jordan Green and Ken Rosenberg. All the company’s editors, as well as the services of 89’s New York-based design, effects and finishing division Headlight, are available on either coast. The new Santa Monica space is equipped with Avid Media Composers and Apple’s Final Cut Pro systems, and plans call for it to be networked to Terminal’s New York house.
Gresch related this was a good time for the creation of the larger entity. “I think you need to be small or big,” he said. “Middle-sized companies are volatile.”
Del Gatto–who was wrapping a Coors Light campaign for FCB Chicago at press time–added that 89 has “really great people in New York. I wanted to be repped in New York by people [who are committed] to good work.”
“I feel we are fortunate in two ways,” said 89 executive producer Bob Cagliero, who’s based in New York. “We are getting three terrific editors added to our bicoastal roster. [And like the team at 89] their karma and philosophy is all about the work and production support is paramount. [Second] it give enormous flexibility to our editors and our clients to be able to cut [on either coast] by having two houses that seamlessly work together.
“In having Duncan Shepherd join our roster, it was an added plus,” Cagliero added. “The timing seemed to be right for him and for us.”
Since ’00, Shepherd has been cutting commercials and music videos at bicoastal Final Cut, with stints at both its London and New York offices. Earlier he was a freelance editor in the U.K.
Shepherd’s body of work includes a Huggies campaign for Ogilvy & Mather, New York, directed by Tony Kaye of bicoastal Supply and Demand; and Dove’s “Skin” via London-based Ogilvy, directed by Vaughan Arnell of London production company Pagan. (Arnell is repped by Hollywood-based DNA in the U.S.) “Skin” features beautifully lensed black-and-white images of women with scars or imperfections.
It’s simple and looks really beautiful,” Shepherd said of the Dove spot. “It’s not a normal beauty spot. The women all have a beauty, but have scars. It makes it more interesting. None were professionals, they were real people.”
The editing of this spot, he related, was “a bit more like a process of choosing the nicest shots–the essence of what you are trying to get across in great shots….The pacing comes out of that.”
He added that in general, “if you did your job well, [the editing] is invisible.”
The 89 roster is represented by Kelly Flint on the East Coast, Janice Harryman of Chicago-based O’Brien Co. in the Midwest, and Tanya Cohen and Merrari Abdiani on the West Coast.
