Charles Day and Chris Tardio–the husband-and-wife team who formed editorial house The Lookinglass Company, Chicago, in 1995 and then created a groundbreaking international editorial company via a merger in ’01 with The Whitehouse, London, branching out with offices on both coasts–have returned to the industry, launching The Lookinglass Consultancy.
Day and Tardio stepped down from their CEO and COO roles, respectively, at The Whitehouse in ’05, and went on to pursue several personal and professional goals. Day, for example, finished his first novel and the duo became heavily involved in the development of PAWS/Chicago, a not-for-profit animal rescue organization.
But the industry beckoned to them, first as they casually helped friends with business plans, providing counsel in such areas as prospective expansion and how to best adapt to a changing marketplace with the emergence of new platforms and opportunities.
“Doing that on an informal basis made us realize how much we had learned over the years and the depth and breadth of knowledge we could bring to bear,” related Day.
This led, said Tardio, to their decision to make the consultancy a formal enterprise with an announced rollout back in February. During a relatively brief stretch since then, Lookinglass has already served clients ranging from production houses to visual effects studios, to graphic design and digital media companies. Central to Lookinglass’ company policy is a commitment to preserve confidentiality for their clients and thus Day and Tardio declined to publicly identify those firms to which they’ve thus far provided consultancy services.
In broad strokes, said Day, the nature of their consulting work to date has entailed long-range planning for company owners who are often focused on day-to-day business demands, offering counsel to established businesses regarding the formation of new divisions and/or ventures, and building upon and complementing existing company operations to best capitalize on an evolving industry landscape.
On the latter score, opportunities to diversify beyond conventional work-for-hire propositions to holding equity stakes in new content and product have been explored.
“We cannot predict what the shakeout will be and exactly how business models will develop as the marketplace changes, but we can help companies be flexible enough to adjust their operations and ways of doing business so that they can properly adjust to new opportunities as they present themselves,” affirmed Day.
Lookinglass has also been frequently called upon to help companies expand to additional locations, very much akin to the growth in geographic reach Day and Tardio helped orchestrate for The Whitehouse.
Day’s and Tardio’s business plan from the outset for The Whitehouse also called for building value in the company so that they could realize the fruits of their labor through the selling of their share in the global editorial house.
“Too often people think only in terms of getting into business and staying in business,” said Tardio. “We had an exit strategy from day one. And it was a strategy whereby after we left, we were confident that the company would still continue to flourish, which The Whitehouse clearly has.”
Day takes it as a compliment that thus far in its infancy the consultancy has had no film editing company client, meaning that people in the industry see the value and relevance of Day’s and Tardio’s experience across different sectors.
Indeed both have track records that extend beyond The Whitehouse. Tardio was a producer of The Oprah Winfrey Show and then the VP of publicity and promotion for Winfrey’s Harpo Productions. Tardio then became manager of broadcast production at DDB Chicago.
Day began his career in film production with the venerable James Garrett studio in London, before joining Ogilvy & Mather, New York.
From there he moved to Ogilvy & Mather, Chicago, where, after a brief stint writing copy for noted creative director Curvin O’Reilly, Day joined the agency’s broadcast production department. He the came aboard DDB Chicago to run the line production side of the McDonald’s business.
It was at DDB Chicago that Day met Tardio. A year later they left the ad agency and founded editorial house The Lookinglass Company.
Day and Tardio are now both based in New York.
Review: Director Alex Parkinson’s “Last Breath” Starring Woody Harrelson and Simu Liu
A routine deep sea diving mission in the North Sea goes terribly wrong when a young diver is stranded some 300 feet below the surface in the new film "Last Breath." His umbilical cable has severed. The support vessel above is aimlessly drifting away from the site through violent, stormy waters. And the diver has only ten minutes of oxygen in his backup tank.
As if that wasn't enough, it's also a true story.
If merely reading this is giving you heart palpitations already, you can only imagine the white-knuckle experience of watching this all play out on the big screen. It's 40ish minutes of pure suspense and anxiety as the story shuffles between the man at the bottom of the ocean, Chris Lemons (Finn Cole), his fellow saturation divers (Woody Harrelson as Duncan and Simu Liu as Dave) in the diving bell below the waters who are unable to help and the crew in the support vessel above (including Cliff Cutris and Mark Bonnar) scrambling to get their systems back online and operational as the clock rapidly runs out. Ten minutes has never felt so short โ and then it just gets worse as the clock starts counting up, showing Chris's time without oxygen.
At one point, Liu's character Dave, a no-nonsense, all-business diver says matter-of-factly at that it's a body recovery, not a rescue. Deep sea saturation diving is a dangerous business, described at the start of the film as the most dangerous job on earth. Chris tells his fiancรฉ, in a short introduction, that it's no more dangerous than going to space. She replies that it's funny that he thinks that is comforting.
The real incident happened in September 2012 โ Dave, Duncan and Chris were just one team of divers sent to the ocean floor off the coast of Aberdeen, Scotland, to repair oil... Read More