TBWAChiatDay Los Angeles has appointed Matt Bonin as executive director of integration, a new role at the agency. Bonin, formerly executive producer at production house Tool of North America, will report directly to Carisa Bianchi, president, TBWAChiatDay LA, and be responsible for mainstreaming integrated production capabilities and processes within the agency as well as overseeing digital production and the digital studio.
TBWAChiatDay LA has expanded its digital creative and production experience and capabilities extensively over the past two years with online and digital efforts for clients including: Nissan and the introduction of iAds for the Nissan Leaf and Juke; The Grammys and its recently lauded “LifeIsMusicIsLife”; Pepsi Max; Visa; and the successful Activision’s Call of Duty game launch with the “There is a Solider in All of Us” campaign.
Bonin’s experience spans the gamut of production, most recently at live-action/digital shop Tool of North America. Prior to joining Tool last year, Bonin served as managing director/director of integrated production at Trailer Park, overseeing a 200-plus person production staff, guiding strategy and leading the shop’s integrated production services. Prior to that, Bonin spent five years at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, working his way up from senior producer to VP/integrated head of video. Bonin also spent time at Y&R New York, and DDB Dallas.
Bonin has contributed to notable work for such clients as MINI Cooper (“Counterfeit” campaign), Burger King (Xbox Games project), Volkswagen (Racing Under Green documentary), Nike, Microsoft and Domino’s Pizza. Work he has produced or overseen has garnered nearly every major industry award from One Show honors to ANDYs to Cannes Lions.
Of his new roost, Bonin said, “TBWAChiatDay is changing the way brands go to market. They are focused not just on creating ads but orchestrating a brand’s behavior across all forms of media. If you look at the work that has come out of the office in the past 12 months, from Pepsi Refresh Project to Gatorade Replay, from the introduction of the Nissan Leaf and the work for Visa Olympics and the Grammys, the agency is defining what it means to innovate.”
Maggie Smith, Star of Stage, Film and “Downton Abbey,” Dies At 89
Maggie Smith, the masterful, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar for "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" in 1969 and gained new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in "Downton Abbey" and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, died Friday. She was 89. Smith's sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, said in a statement that Smith died early Friday in a London hospital. "She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother," they said in a statement issued through publicist Clair Dobbs. Smith was frequently rated the preeminent British female performer of a generation that included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench, with a clutch of Academy Award nominations and a shelf full of acting trophies. She remained in demand even in her later years, despite her lament that "when you get into the granny era, you're lucky to get anything." Smith drily summarized her later roles as "a gallery of grotesques," including Professor McGonagall. Asked why she took the role, she quipped: "Harry Potter is my pension." Richard Eyre, who directed Smith in a television production of "Suddenly Last Summer," said she was "intellectually the smartest actress I've ever worked with. You have to get up very, very early in the morning to outwit Maggie Smith." "Jean Brodie," in which she played a dangerously charismatic Edinburgh schoolteacher, brought her the Academy Award for best actress, and the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) as well in 1969. Smith added a supporting actress Oscar for "California Suite" in 1978, Golden Globes for "California Suite" and "Room with a View," and BAFTAs for lead actress in "A Private Function" in 1984, "A Room with a View" in... Read More