Interactive solutions firm Red Sky has acquired Olive Jar, an animation/effects/live action studio with offices in Boston and in Burbank, Calif., and White Noise Productions, a multimedia company based in Los Angeles. Financial terms of the deals were not disclosed.
The acquisitions broaden San Francisco-headquartered Red Sky’s service offerings and client base. Olive Jar is active in the spot, television and theme park arenas, while White Noise’s clients include museums, film studios and broadband firms. Both companies will operate under the Red Sky name.
The roughly 40 Olive Jar employees and 18 White Noise staffers bring Red Sky’s total to more than 500 employees. Red Sky maintains branch offices in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta, Houston, Chicago, and Irvine, Calif.
"We have been primarily active in the interactive space," said Red Sky chairman and CEO Bill Bingham. "As we get closer to convergence, Olive Jar’s skill sets—animation, stop motion, graphics, modeling and experimental film—put them in an extremely valuable position for an interactive developer like Red Sky. As we start to develop those same types of skills, this [acquisition] launches us to the future in a much quicker fashion than we could build organically."
Bingham added that White Noise possesses "similar attributes and individual talent that is in line with Olive Jar," such as stop motion animation and film production.
Olive Jar partner/creative director Fred Macdonald explained that he devoted a year to researching "what this business was going to become [in the broadband era], and looking for an interactive partner with major technical support and the potential to grow internationally." He continued, "This made the most sense. Red Sky is all about experimentation, creatively, and that’s what Olive Jar is based on—not being afraid to go to the next level. Culturally, [the union is] dead-on."
"We will still do what we’ve always done. We’re just able to do more," added Olive Jar executive producer Matthew Charde. "Red Sky can now offer content and broadcast production as an integrated strategy [for its clients], and vice versa."
Macdonald, who recently relocated from Boson to Los Angeles, has been named senior VP/executive creative director of Red Sky, while Charde will serve as Red Sky’s VP/general manager in Boston. According to Bingham, Olive Jar’s Boston headquarters and Red Sky’s Boston branch will likely be merged under one roof in a new, as-yet-unknown location. As well, Olive Jar’s Burbank office will be consolidated with White Noise at an undetermined Los Angeles-area locale, with White Noise founder/chairman Peter Lehner serving as Red Sky’s VP/general manager there. According to Macdonald, over the next six months both the Boston and Los Angeles operations will undergo an expansion.
Bingham said Red Sky is "in the process of assimilating the new organizations," and therefore specific roles and titles of other key personnel are still being determined, including: Olive Jar creative directors Flip Johnson, Rich Ferguson-Hull and Bryan Papciak; and White Noise creative director Urs Baur and director of production Silvia Utiger. Olive Jar owner/president Larry Pensack, who serves as an advisor-at-large for the studio, will continue in a similar capacity at Red Sky.
BACK STORIES
Founded in 1984, Olive Jar established its Los Angeles area presence last year (SHOOT, 10/29/ 99, p. 7). Recent commercial projects include a pair of client-direct :60s for the Cartoon Network, directed by Papciak; and an ad for the Las Vegas Visitors Bureau via R&R Advertising, Las Vegas. Johnson was director of animation, while Zack Snyder of bicoastal HSI Productions helmed the Vegas spot’s live action sequences.
Olive Jar also recently wrapped production on Bang, a pilot for Fox and Regency TV, which was written by The Simpsons executive producer George Meyer. Meyer helmed the live action footage, while Ferguson-Hull served as animation director.
Prior to its acquisition, Olive Jar teamed with Red Sky’s San Francisco office on an in-house promotional film for the interactive firm. The finished product, which will be used for both internal and external presentations, is a four-minute film that combines puppetry, clay animation and cel animation. It was created by Red Sky senior VP/executive creative director Joel Hladecek and directed by Macdonald.
In August, Olive Jar entered into a deal to represent director Bruce Alcock and his six-month-old Vancouver, B.C.-based animation/live action studio, Global Mechanic, in the U.S. spot market (SHOOT, 8/11, p. 7). Per the arrangement, Alcock is available for select Olive Jar assignments. According to Charde, that relationship will continue within the Red Sky fold. Alcock’s recent U.S. assignments include a Global Mechanic-produced ad for Tampax via Leo Burnett Co., Chicago.
Independent rep firm art.fx, which handles commercial sales for Olive Jar, will continue in that capacity via Red Sky, and will also promote Red Sky’s interactive services to agency clients. The art.fx contingent consists of New York-based Claire.Alden on the East Coast; Chicago-based Monaghan+ Halpine in the Midwest; and San Francisco-based @Vandamme on the West Coast.
White Noise began as a commercial film production studio in ’89 and has evolved into a full-service multimedia firm servicing clients such as Sony Pictures, Columbia TriStar, the Getty Center, and broadband/multimedia firm the Fantastic Corporation, Zug, Switzerland.
White Noise has collaborated with Red Sky on projects for Texaco and Nikon. Bingham characterized the ongoing Texaco projects (the energy company is an investor in Red Sky) as geared toward "Web-enabling the organization" and ranging from "enterprise to entertainment—development projects that deliver world-class Web-based applications, and a sensibility that delivers entertainment value to the user experience."
Red Sky was founded in ’94 by chief strategic officer Tim Smith, and gained a reputation for its Web-based branding work for clients such as Nike, Absolut vodka and Altoids mints. Last year the firm created the Miller beer pager, which alerts people via the Web as to when it’s "Miller Time." Red Sky is currently working on the second generation of the beer pager.
In March, Red Sky merged with Nuforia, a larger interactive shop with a depth of technical and engineering capabilities and offices in New York and Houston. Prior to the merger, Bingham was CEO of Nuforia.
In addition to Texaco, Red Sky’s investors include the Omnicom Group’s Communicade division, which manages significant minority investments in new media communications agencies such as New York-headquartered Razorfish and San Francisco-based Organic. Red Sky also maintains strategic partnerships and alliances with firms such as IBM, West Palm Beach, Fla.; Microsoft, Redmond, Wash.; Sun Microsystems, Palo Alto, Calif.; and Oracle, Redwood Shores, Calif., among others. According to Bingham, long-term plans call for the company to go public; however, at this juncture he sees an advantage in remaining private. "We really feel we can be more aggressive in growing our organization. "It’s sort of a freeing situation."
Red Sky draws comparisons to companies like San Francisco-based e-business innovator Scient; and the aforementioned Razorfish, which last year bought both broadcast design/ commercial production house Fuel, Santa Monica (SHOOT, 7/30/99, p.1); and entertainment brand specialist Lee Hunt Associates, New York (SHOOT, 12/10/99, p. 7). But Bingham predicted that in the future, Red Sky’s primary competitors will be entertainment studios such as visual effects house Industrial Light+Magic, San Rafael, Calif.; and digital animation studio Pixar, Richmond, Calif.
"As convergence occurs, we’re pushing ourselves [at Red Sky] toward a broadcast-quality experience on the Internet. That is pushing us closer toward people who are different from some of our more traditional competitors," he stated.
