Industry veteran Mark Sitley–whose last staff post was as executive creative director/production at Euro RSCG Worldwide, New York–has partnered with production execs Luke Thornton and Liz Silver to launch Beyond Belief, a new content company which will be headquartered in New York with an office in Los Angeles. Thornton and Silver are the principals in six-year-old, bicoastal/international spot and music video production house Believe Media; their new venture with Sitley is a standalone shop and not a satellite of Believe.
“We’re dedicating ourselves to the creative and nimble production of intellectual property for marketers, produced in any media, in any platform and any venue,” said Sitley who is managing director of Beyond Belief. “Our projects will be as much about film and TV as they might be about gaming, music, publishing, interactive or wireless content. We’re defining our universe as anything that’s not geared to traditional advertising.”
Sitley, Thornton and Silver have a track record in sponsored entertainment–and in collaborating with one another in that space. Prior to Euro RSCG Worldwide, Sitley was director of North American production for Fallon Worldwide, where he oversaw production on the agency’s groundbreaking BMW Films series. The first round of those films was produced by bicoastal Anonymous Content. But Believe Media’s interactive division, i-Believe, played a key role in laying the groundwork for the BMW Films project, helping to develop the idea for the Web-delivered shorts in collaboration with Fallon creatives and doing the initial work on the BMW Films’ down-loadable player. Thornton and Silver were part of that collaboration with Fallon, as were director David van Eyssen, who later left the company, and Nic Johnson (SHOOT, 8/4/00). Sitley had a hand in hiring Believe as a new media consultant for Fallon in the development of BMW Films.
Now Johnson heads up Beyond Belief’s branding and interactive work as its creative director. He has been working with online content for more than a decade, creating such fare for Disney, Intel and Discover Card, among others. For Believe Media, Johnson has designed and created Web sites and online content for record labels as well as for such brands as Starbucks, Nordstroms and Nikon. Plans call for Beyond Belief to tap into an extensive talent pool, with Sitley citing the many writers, designers, directors and advertising creatives he, Thornton and Silver have collaborated with over the years.
“With Mark on board we’re well suited to focus on the next model of advertising,” stated Thornton, whose Believe Media has produced programs for such brands as Cadillac, Nike, Coca-Cola and GMC. “He’s worked with the best agencies in the business and totally understands where marketers and agencies are headed in terms of creating new channels of content.”
Prior to Fallon, Sitley spent a decade working for a wide range of brands as a director of TV commercials (including via now defunct Sitley Parker Films), and as a freelance production consultant. At one point he headed production for talent agency CAA, Beverly Hills, in its early work for Coca-Cola International. Previously he served as director of broadcast production for Chiat/Day, New York (now TBWA/Chiat/Day). He began his career at DDB New York and later held positions at since closed agencies Edge Creative and Ally & Gargano.
“Atropia” and “Twinless” Win Marquee Prizes At Sundance Film Festival
The war satire “Atropia,” about actors in a military role-playing facility, won the grand jury prize in the Sundance Film Festival’s U.S. dramatic competition, while the Dylan O’Brien movie “Twinless” got the coveted audience award.
Juries and programmers for the 41st edition of the independent film festival announced the major prizewinners Friday in Park City, Utah.
Other grand jury winners included the documentaries “Seeds,” about farmers in rural Georgia and “Cutting Through the Rocks,” about the first elected councilwoman in an Iranian village. The Indian drama “Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears),” about a city dweller mourning his father in the western Indian countryside, won the top prize in the world cinema competition.
“It’s for my dad,” said writer and director Rohan Parashuram Kanawade. His late father, he said, was the one who encouraged him to pursue filmmaking.
Audiences also get to vote on their own awards, where James Sweeney’s “Twinless,” about the bromance between two men who meet in a twin bereavement support group, triumphed in the U.S. dramatic category. O’Brien also won a special jury award for his acting.
The U.S. documentary audience award went to “André is an Idiot,” a life-affirming film about dying of colon cancer. Other audience picks were “Prime Minister,” about former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and “DJ Ahmet,” a coming-of-age film about a 15-year-old boy in North Macedonia.
Mstyslav Chernov, the Oscar-winning Associated Press journalist, won the world cinema documentary directing award for his latest dispatch from Ukraine, “2000 Meters to Andriivka,” a joint production between the AP and PBS Frontline.
“Here’s to all... Read More