Maurice Marciano, CEO of Guess?, Nathalie Marciano, designer and creative director for international shoe retailer Charles David, and Laura Gregory, managing director of seven-year-old London-based production company Great Guns, have partnered to form Basecamp Entertainment Group, a bicoastal film development and production house.
The new venture also maintains a spot division headed by executive producer Bryan Farhy, a former principal in the Fink/ Farhy Agency, a New York-based independent representation firm he co-founded with commercial veteran Richard Fink. (That repping company, now called The Richard Fink Agency, continues under the aegis of Fink.)
Basecamp’s spot shop has assembled a lineup of directors from both sides of the Atlantic, including statesiders Leonardo Ricagni, who was previously repped by bicoastal Villains; David Nutter, who’s perhaps best known for helming numerous episodes of The X-Files; and the team of Gabriel Sabloff and John Fiorella, a.k.a. Untamed Cinema.
That co-directing duo gains its first U.S. representation after establishing itself in Europe via Great Guns, which also continues to handle Ricagni and Nutter in the U.K. Earlier in his career, Nutter had been repped for U.S. spots by GreenWater Pictures, Los Angeles (SHOOT, 11/15/96, p. 7).
Select U.K.-based helmers from Great Guns’ roster are also available to American agencies via Basecamp: Andy Wilson, who’s been directing spots in the U.K. for the past four years while remaining active in television (BBC’s trilogy Gorman Ghast and the series Cracker) and features (he’s currently in development on a movie about King Arthur for Basecamp); and the directing team of Liam Kan and Grant Hodgson, a.k.a. Who, with credits that include Peugeot and Camel for Euro RSCG, London, as well as music videos for The Beautiful South.
Ricagni has wrapped the first job under the Basecamp spot banner: a Terra Communications assignment for Ogilvy & Mather, New York. A subsidiary of Telefonica, Terra provides Internet access services in the U.S., Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Peru and Guatemala.
At press time, Who was in Miami helming a Great Guns-produced Citroen automobile job for Euro RSCG, London. And Untamed Cinema is coming off of its dot-com ad debut: a pair of spots for inspop.com, a brokerage firm that offers online quotes from different insurance companies. The commercials were lensed in the U.S. for London agency Mayer Bird Associates.
Basecamp’s spot support team also includes head of production Robert Nackman, best known for his tenures at bicoastal/international Propaganda Films and Tony Kaye Films. Farhy has also tabbed independent firm Creative Management Partners, bicoastal and Chicago, to handle Basecamp’s commercial representation throughout the U.S.
TRACK RECORD
Maurice and Nathalie Marciano are partnered in the overall Basecamp Entertainment as individuals; the production house is not a subsidiary of Guess?. However, it’s Gregory’s collaborative ties to the Marciano family on Guess? advertising over the years—including the lauded "Cheat" spot—that in a sense gave birth to the notion of their teaming to launch a film company spanning spots, longform and new media. "Cheat" starred Harry Dean Stanton and Juliette Lewis; it was directed by Andy Morahan, who was with Great Guns at the time. The spot won numerous awards, including two honors (best direction/dialogue or monologue; best editing for John Smith of The Whitehouse, London) at the ’96 Association of Independent Commercial Producers Show.
The comfort level and working relationship between Gregory and the Marcianos prompted her to finally establish a U.S. foothold. "It’s all about finding the right partners to break into the American market with," explained Gregory on why she held off from making an earlier stateside foray for Great Guns. "But as the idea for Basecamp developed, with the involvement of Bryan [Farhy] in commercials, it became clear that this was the right move." Gregory met Farhy two years ago at the Cannes International Advertising Festival; he had then headed up the New York office of now defunct Harmony Pictures. The two struck up a rapport and remained in contact.
Maurice and Nathalie Marciano will focus primarily on feature development for Basecamp. The company has teamed with veteran movie producer Leonard Goldberg (Double Jeopardy and the upcoming Charlie’s Angels) on developing a movie based on the aforementioned "Cheat" spot, which depicted a man being unable to resist temptation upon meeting a beautiful woman at a bar. It turns out the woman is one of several Guess? jeans-clad operatives from a detective agency that’s in the business of getting the goods on unfaithful spouses.
At press time, Basecamp was in production on its first feature, Beatniks, which stars Norman Reedus, Eric Roberts and Elodie Bouchez. Written and directed by Kevin Williams, the comedy is set in present-day Los Angeles and chronicles the exploits of two beat poets searching for the meaning of life.
Basecamp is also in postproduction on a Who-directed experimental documentary, Mr. Jekyll and Dr. Hyde. Shot on location in New Orleans and New York, the film examines the issue of gun violence.
"It’s important that we help develop our directors’ careers across different media," related Farhy, who noted that Basecamp plans to launch a new media division to handle content creation for the Internet and other emerging outlets. Basecamp also figures to diversify into music video production, but doesn’t intend to build a separate division to handle that market. Gregory and Farhy said that they would target select music video commissioners for certain Basecamp directors.
Farhy also will be active in crossover. His assistant, Michelle Chydzik, is involved in longform development for Basecamp. She previously worked with John Goldwyn, president of Paramount Pictures.
