Publicis Modem East in New York has brought Damian Claassens aboard to serve as senior VP/creative director, a newly created role at the agency. He comes over from AKQA, New York, where he was group creative director.
Claassens now reports to Patrick Clarke, executive VP/executive creative director of Publicis Modem East, and leads creative on the global LG account, among others. Claassens is the second high-profile creative lead hiring as of late for Publicis Modem USA, the digital specialist arm of Publicis Worldwide in the U.S. Last month David Shearer was named executive creative director of Publicis Modem West in San Francisco.
Claassens joined AKQA in New York in 2005, opening the office and developing its digital offering. He led global creative work for AKQA clients such as Nike, Coca-Cola, Motorola, Google, Smirnoff, DoubleClick, Kraft and Johnson & Johnson. With over 12-years in digital creative, Claassens’ work has been recognized by nearly every top award show including: Cannes, One Show, D&AD, New York Festivals, and IAB. Claassens is a native of Australia and his experience includes creative positions at Framfab, Copenhagen; Blueberry, London; Ogilvy Interactive, Sydney; and Leo Burnett, Sydney.
Publicis Modem East has expanded its staff to 230 and recently moved into a 55,000 square foot new headquarters space in NYC.
Oscar Nominees Delve Into The Art Of Editing At ACE Session
You couldn’t miss Sean Baker at this past Sunday’s Oscar ceremony where he won for Best Picture, Directing, Original Screenplay and Editing on the strength of Anora. However, earlier that weekend he was in transit from the Cesar Awards in Paris and thus couldn’t attend the American Cinema Editors (ACE) 25th annual panel of Academy Award-nominated film editors held at the Regal LA Live Auditorium on Saturday (3/1) in Los Angeles. While the eventual Oscar winner in the editing category was missed by those who turned out for the ACE “Invisible Art, Visible Artists” session, three of Baker’s fellow nominees were on hand--Dávid Jancsó, HSE for The Brutalist; Nick Emerson for Conclave; and Myron Kerstein, ACE for Wicked. Additionally, Juliette Welfling, who couldn’t appear in person due to the Cesar Awards, was present via an earlier recorded video interview to discuss her work on Emilia Pérez. The interview was conducted by ACE president and editor Sabrina Plisco, ACE who also moderated the live panel discussion. Kerstein said that he was the beneficiary of brilliant and generous collaborators, citing, among others, director Jon M. Chu, cinematographer Alice Brooks, and visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman. The editor added it always helps to have stellar acting performances, noting that hearing Cynthia Erivo, for example, sing live was a revelation. Kerstein recalled meeting Chu some eight years ago on a “blind Skype date” and it was an instant “bromance”--which began on Crazy Rich Asians, and then continued on such projects as the streaming series Home Before Dark and the feature In The Heights. Kerstein observed that Chu is expert in providing collaborators with... Read More