Director Bob Giraldi and partner Phil Suarez of bicoastal Giraldi Suarez Productions (GSP) have reunited with their longtime director of sales Carol Case to launch GSP4, a New York-headquartered shop that opens with directors Joe Rey and Joakim Eliasson.
Case will run GSP4, working closely with Los Angeles-based GSP executive producer Debbie Merlin, who will also serve in the same capacity for GSP4. Case will head sales for GSP4, and has secured independent rep Jill Reehl of Get Reehl Representation, Chicago, to cover the Midwest. Case also regains the director of sales mantle at GSP, with Chicago-based Mary Ida Bonadio continuing to handle the company in the Midwest.
Case recently resigned from Los Angeles-headquartered Original Film and its now defunct sister house, Holiday, where she served as managing director/head of marketing. Case spent 10 years at GSP before leaving in ’98 (SHOOT, 5/29/98) to help form bicoastal Case Nydrle (now West Hollywood-headquartered Peter Nydrle Productions). She split from Nydrle eight months later (SHOOT, 2/5/99) but continued at Original, whose principals had provided some financial backing for Case Nydrle.
Besides getting the chance to again work with Giraldi, Case said she was attracted to the potential synergies among the companies that the director and partner Suarez have assembled, encompassing traditional and new media as well as creative for those disciplines. The four Giraldi shops are spot production mainstay GSP; GSP4; StarChefs.com, a New York-based Web development shop under the day-to-day aegis of executive producer/head of creative development Patti Greaney; and Artustry Partnership, the New York creative boutique that offers its services to advertisers as well as ad agencies. The two-and-a-half-year-old Artustry is headed by David Sklaver, former president of now defunct Wells Rich Greene. During her first tour of duty with Giraldi, Case helped in the development of both StarChefs. com and Artustry.
Case said that access to the StarChefs.com resources-which include editorial content and design departments as well as streaming video technologies that go into the ongoing StarChefs.com culinary Web site-should prove attractive to ad agencies, clients and directors looking to get meaningfully involved in the Internet. Giraldi observed that the five-year-old Internet shop will help to attract young, up-and-coming directors-the backbone of GSP4-who realize that beyond mainstream commercialmaking, it’s imperative for filmmakers to become grounded in new media in order to become viable directors/designers in the evolving ad and content marketplace.
Feature opportunities may also become part of the mix as Giraldi has teamed with Suarez and casting/production executive Louis DiGiaimo to produce Dinner Rush, starring Danny Aiello, Edoardo Ballerini, Vivian Wu, Mike McGlone, Kirk Acevedo, Sandra Bernhard and John Corbett. Directed by Giraldi, Dinner Rush was at press time set to embark on the film festival circuit and the process of lining up distribution. Combining dramatic and comedic elements set in the fashionable restaurant business, the film is described by Giraldi as "a relationship picture," examining in particular reconciliation between a father and son.
Giraldi has been balancing longform with commercialmaking; among his latest directing endeavors is a five-spot campaign starring Faith Hill for telecommunications company Alltel out of The Martin Agency, Richmond, Va. Giraldi also recently helmed and was involved in development of a branding project spearheaded by Artustry for The Walt Disney Company-Americast Cable Systems.
