After 26 years at Chicago-based agency Leo Burnett Co., senior VP/director of TV services David Beller has announced he is retiring; Burnett has not yet named his successor….Director Nick Lewin has moved from bicoastal X-1 Films over to sister company, Crossroads Films….Director Marty Weiss, formerly of Santa Monica-based TrailHead, has joined Venice, Calif.-headquartered Cucoloris for exclusive spot representation….Bicoastal/international Chelsea Pictures has signed director Anton Beebe. This is his first representation in the U.S…..Director Randy Spear, formerly of Los Angeles-based Palomar Pictures, has joined Dublin Productions, Hollywood….Bicoastal production house Anonymous has added executive producer Andy Traines, who comes over from bicoastal Omaha Pictures….Four years after moving its headquarters to the West Coast, Backyard Productions is scaling back its Chicago operation to a sales and marketing office run by partner/head of sales Roy Skillicorn; concurrently, Chicago-based Backyard executive producer Sheila Stepanek and director Shaun Conrad are relocating to Southern California, where they will work out of the shop’s Venice branch….Bicoastal Zooma Zooma director Sam Raimi, who just wrapped a film titled The Gift, is again available for commercial work. The Gift is an autobiography written by Billy Bob Thornton about his mother’s psychic powers. The cast includes Hilary Swank, Keanu Reeves, Cate Blanchett, Giovanni Ribisi and Greg Kinnear….Minneapolis-based production house Salvation has opened, featuring director Walter Pitt….
Ron Cicero and Bo Clancey Launch Production House 34North
Executive producers Ron Cicero and Bo Clancey have teamed to launch 34North. The shop opens with a roster which includes accomplished directors Jan Wentz, Ben Nakamura Whitehouse and Mario Feil, as well as such up-and-coming filmmakers as Glenn Stewart and Chris Fowles.
Nakamura Whitehouse, Feil and Fowles come over from CoMPANY Films, the production company for which Cicero served as an EP for the past nearly five years.
Director Wentz had most recently been with production house Skunk while Stewart now gains his first U.S. representation.
EP Clancey was freelance producing prior to the formation of 34North. He and Cicero have known each other for some 25 years, recently reconnecting on a job directed by Fowles. Cicero said that he and Clancey “want to keep a highly focused roster where talent management can be one on one--where we all share in the directors’ success together.”
Clancey also brings an agency pedigree to the new venture. “I started at Campbell Ewald in accounts, no less,” said Clancey. “I saw firsthand how much work agencies put in before we even see a script. You have to respect that investment. These agency experiences really shaped my approach to production--it’s about empathy, listening between the lines, and ultimately making the process seamless.”
34North represents a meeting point--both literally and creatively. Named after the latitude of Malibu, Calif., where the idea for the company was born, it also embraces the power of storytelling. “34North118West was the first GPS-enabled narrative,” Cicero explained. “That blend of art and technology, to captivate an audience, mirrors what we do here--create compelling work, with talented people, harnessing state-of-the-art... Read More