Framestore has promoted Karl Woolley to global head of immersive and hired executive producer Mandy Agderian.
Based in London, Woolley joined Framestore in 2005 and has been pivotal in the direction and growth of the Immersive team since its inception in 2013. His work includes the Kiyan Prince Foundation’s groundbreaking #LongLiveThePrince campaign which won the prestigious Cannes Lions Titanium Grand Prix last year, multi-award-winning VR experiences for Games of Thrones with HBO, Samsung’s “A Moon For All Mankind” and Lockheed Martin’s “Field Trip to Mars” to name a few.
Woolley will be responsible for bringing the London and U.S. immersive teams together under his leadership, ensuring the most efficient approach to projects and growing the business globally.
Lottie Cooper, global director of business operations, said, “Karl’s promotion recognizes the importance of this area of work for Framestore, as our industry and clients seek to find more ways to address their audiences and consumers through immersive platforms and experiences”.
Woolley said, “The award-winning projects that immersive have delivered are a testament to the hard-work, commitment, and innovation of our talented team. With an exciting year ahead, I look forward to leading us as we continue to push boundaries and further cement Framestore’s reputation in this space”.
Bringing with her over 15 year’s experience across immersive, interactive and real time projects, EP Agderian joins from The Mill NY. Notable clients she has worked with include Meta, Facebook Gaming, Chanel, Showtime, HBO and NBCU.
Agderian, who will be based in Framestore’s New York studio, said, “I’m looking forward to creating highly immersive experiences that explore technology in new ways, whilst contributing to the continued growth and success of Framestore’s immersive division”.
Framestore’s immersive team works with creative IP owners and brands to elevate the impact of their imagined worlds. Projects span virtual, physical and mixed realities, location-based entertainment and theme park rides and attractions.
The team recently received two VES Award nominations for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Special Venue Project for their work spanning theme park rides “Jumanji: The Adventure” for Merlin Entertainments and “Avengers: Quantum Encounter” for Disney, plus a THEA Award for Outstanding Achievement: Attraction for “Jurassic World Adventure” for Universal Studios.
From Restoring To Hopefully Preserving Multi-Camera Categories At The Emmys
When Gary Baum, ASC won his fourth career Emmy Award earlier this month, it was especially gratifying in that the honor came in a category--Outstanding Cinematography for a Multi-Camera Half-Hour Series--that had been restored thanks in part to a grass-roots initiative among cinematographers to drum up entries. Last year the category fell by the wayside when not enough multi-camera entries materialized.
In his acceptance speech, Baum appealed to the Television Academy to keep multi-camera categories alive. He later noted to SHOOT that editors also got their multi-camera recognition back in the Emmy competition this year. Baum hopes that after resurrecting multi-camera categories in 2024, such recognition will be preserved for 2025 and beyond.
A major factor in the decline of multi-camera submissions in 2023 was the move of certain children’s and family programming from the primetime Emmy competition to the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ (NATAS) Emmy ceremony. For DPs this meant that multi-camera programs last year were reduced to vying for just one primetime nomination slot in the more general Outstanding Cinematography for a Series (Half-Hour) category. It turned out that this single slot was filled in ‘23 by a Baum-lensed episode of How I Met Your Father (Hulu).
Fast forward to this year’s competition and Baum won for another installment of How I Met Your Father--”Okay Fine, It’s A Hurricane,” which turned out to be the series finale. Two of Baum’s Emmy wins over the years have been for How I Met Your Father, and there’s a certain symmetry to them. His initial win for How I Met Your Father was for the pilot in 2022. So he won Emmys for the very first and last... Read More