Throw another shrimp on the barbie-bicoastal/international @radical.media has opened a production office in Sydney which is headed by executive producer Loewn Steel. The company also maintains production operations in New York, Santa Monica and London.
According to @radical.media proprietor/executive producer Jon Kamen, the Sydney office was first established in interim space several months ago; construction of permanent quarters in a nearby building is currently underway. The initial launch came shortly after the closure of Black, a Sydney-based commercial house. Black’s three former partners were directors Jeff Darling and Alan White (both of whom have been repped in the U.S. and Europe by @radical. media for seven years) and executive producer Andrew McPhail.
Kamen related that, over a period of time, the Black partners had gone in separate directions; White had moved to the U.S. a year and a half ago, Darling remained in Sydney and McPhail left a year ago to work on feature films in Australia. "So Jeff had various options, including joining a local Australian company or starting his own company," said Kamen. "We decided that creating a [@radical.media] office down there would not only accommodate him, but we’d have him to represent in Australia." With that, @radical.media took over the former Black space as temporary quarters.
Steel joined Black as executive producer in April ’98 after spending 13 years as head of television at Young & Rubicam, Adelaide, Australia. "I’d always admired Jeff’s work and told him I wanted to work with him," said Steel. "And then after we reviewed our representation around the world and where we were positioning ourselves, we decided it was going to be a really smart thing to join @radical.media worldwide."
"Frank [Scherma, proprietor/ executive producer at @radical] and Jon [Kamen] have been representing Jeff very successfully in the states and have a great relationship with him," continued Steel. "It made sense to us to be one of the first to go totally global and have that full global representation. The ethos of the company and our whole creative philosophy were the same; we complemented each other. It just made good business and marketing sense."
Kamen commented that shooting in Australia offers certain cost efficiencies, for instance with regard to talent payments, in addition to the continent’s "excellent infrastructure of talent, technicians and craft." Steel added that the American dollar goes a long way in the Australian market, which is also fairly competitive with the South African market, which has been "a big player" over the years in stretching production dollars.
"We also have some brilliant locations here," said Steel, who noted the influx of American film productions, including the recently released The Matrix and the upcoming Mission: Impossible sequel. "We’ve got the whole of Europe here in some parts of our country and, in particular, in [neighboring country] New Zealand. So when it’s the offseason and winter in the states or in Europe, it’s spring, summer or autumn out here."
"The key thing for us," said Scherma, "is that with advertising being a global entity now, you’re shooting things all over the world. It’s become an ideal situation for us and our clients in that we can facilitate them globally. Because we’re in the market, we know the market and can facilitate things very quickly."
@radical.media has produced several jobs out of Australia since it set up shop. They include a Darling-directed three-spot package for Milky Way out of DMB&B, St. Louis; a Darling-directed Spanish spot for Spain Telephonica out of Young & Rubicam, Madrid; and a Barton Landsman-directed spot for Target out of Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners, New York.
Kamen related @radical.media is looking at signing several additional Australian directors.
"For us, [the Sydney office] is a natural extension," concluded Kamen, who added they are contemplating expanding into Paris with a full-fledged production office (the shop retains full-time staff executive producer Guy Perchard, who is based in Paris). "It very neatly ties together our great spread across the globe. This makes us the only global production company, which is the most exciting claim. In fact, you can quote me as saying we’re the only schmucks to go global."
