Bicoastal new media and commercial production house Cylo has signed director Mark Valentine for exclusive representation.
Valentine ended his eight-year association with bicoastal Lee Hunt & Associates (LHA) late last year, when LHA was acquired by New York-headquartered global digital design firm Razorfish (SHOOT, 12/ 10/99, p. 7). During his tenure at LHA, Valentine directed, edited, and created campaigns and re-designs for clients including ABC News, NBC, AT&T, MTV, TBS, and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
Cylo, which last month changed its name from Atherton, has repositioned itself as a new media company focusing on convergent technologies. The house will continue its involvement in traditional spotmaking.
Valentine’s varied background reflects Cylo’s diverse approach to advertising. He studied painting and drawing at the State University of New York, Plattsburgh, hoping to become an illustrator, but his first job out of college was editing and producing spots for CNBC. While working at the New York offices of the cable network, he met Lee Hunt, who signed him as the first director on LHA’s roster. (LHA specialized in brand management and broadcast design for television networks.)
Valentine recently won a New York Festival World Medal for E! Entertainment Television’s "Bigger Picture," which was shown at the cable network’s annual presentation to advertisers. Footage from "Bigger Picture" was later used for on-air promotional spots. His other recent work—also produced via LHA—includes Clearasil’s "Unity," and "Explore," a promotional spot for the Discovery Channel.
"At Lee Hunt, I worked on everything from creative, to cutting, to effects, to overseeing the way design elements would be integrated into spots," said Valentine. "Understanding the synergy between production and postproduction is a valuable skill to have these days.
"Cylo’s an exciting place to be because they have their sights set on the future," he continued. "We’re witnessing the death of traditional television, and the birth of something completely new. At Cylo, we’re going to help invent it."
The Cylo roster also includes directors Edouard Nammour, David Denneen, Rachel Harms and Vadim Perelman. The shop is represented on the East Coast by Marc VanDermeer of New York-headquartered Commercial Artists Management, on the West Coast by Carol Biedermann of C. Biedermann, Los Angeles, and in the Midwest by Chicago-based Tracy Bernard.
