Director Joins Portland Production House.
By SARAH WOODWARD
Director Mark Decena has been signed by Limbo Films, the two-year-old Portland, Ore.-based commercial production house owned by director/cameraman Gary Nolton. Additionally, Los Angeles-based freelancer Peggy Dunn is acting as consultant/executive producer at Limbo. For the past year, Dunn has been a staffer at Full Blue, the production services shop under the New York-headquartered IllusionFusion! (IF!) banner. She continues to freelance executive produce for visual effects house Click 3X, bicoastal and Atlanta, which also falls under the IF! banner.
The associations reflect Limbo’s evolution from a one-director shop to boutique production house. Nolton said he plans to sign a third director in the near future, but will not exceed a roster of three. "I think we’re very well positioned at this point to take on anything that comes our way," he said. "We have the tools to provide national-caliber work."
Dunn said that her role has been to help build the company and secure sales personnel. "As a single director [working out of your own company], you have a different structure," she said. "And now that [Gary’s] starting to look at [Limbo] as a company, you have to look at the structure, where the company is going and agency contacts in a different way."
Limbo is Decena’s first commercial roost. The company currently represents the director in the Northwest, but he said that "may be quickly expanding. We’re exploring other territories."
Decena described his work as a conscious combination of both branding and creative content with a dose of dry wit, which comes from having "an advertising background, an understanding of branding and how that translates into storytelling."
The director, who is based in San Francisco, also maintains his own company there called Asylum, which he formed in ’95 with creative partner Tim Breitbach. Decena characterized Asylum as a hybrid ad agency/ creative content development firm. Through that company, he built up a commercial reel consisting of ads for clients such as the Bay Area’s John Muir Medical Center; Family Service America, a Minneapolis-based social services organization; the Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz, Calif.; and NetChannel, an early competitor to Microsoft’s Web TV. (NetChannel has since been acquired by America Online.)
Decena has also helmed client-direct corporate films for Banana Republic, Dockers for Boys, and Levi’s. He directed two short films that screened at Sundance: A Fly-By Shooting (’93) and One of Those Days (’96). Additionally, Decena and Breitbach co-wrote a feature-length script that was accepted by the Sundance Institute’s Screenwriter’s Lab in the summer of ’98. That effort, Dopamine, explores whether love is triggered by physiological or by emotional conditions. The film is currently in development.
Decena and Nolton became acquainted several years ago, when Decena was an art director at San Francisco agency Anderson & Lembke, and Nolton was a still photographer looking to make a transition to film. They teamed up on a print assignment for high-tech firm 3 Com and have maintained a relationship ever since. "We’d been talking over the years," Decena said, "and when Gary decided to start a company, I was very interested. He’s a great talent as a director and a DP and it’s a good fit [personality-wise]."
Likewise, Nolton said he enjoyed a "great working relationship" with Decena from the start, and that now was a good time to add a director to his shop because it is safely "off the ground" as it is backed by Dunn, as well as Web site and sales representation. Limbo’s West Coast sales are handled in-house by Becca Cundari. Chicago-based Valerie Gobos handles the East Coast.
Prior to his two-year stint at Anderson & Lembke, Decena was an art director at the San Francisco office of Saatchi & Saatchi. Over the course of his five-year tenure there, he worked on accounts such as U S West, Hewlett-Packard and Kikkoman. He studied graphic design at San Jose State University, San Jose, Calif., and after college worked for several small New York agencies such as Scali, McCabe, Sloves (now part of Lowe & Partners/SMS, New York) before returning to the West Coast.
Decena said he plans to maintain Asylum as an "umbrella for creating content" for various media outlets including advertising, film and the Internet.
Jury Presidents Named For The One Show 2025
The One Club for Creativity has announced the global creatives from around the world who will serve as jury presidents for The One Show 2025.
These creatives will lead judging for each discipline, and have a vote on the work.
Confirmed One Show 2025 Jury presidents, by discipline, are as follows:
--Brand-Side/In-House: David Lee, CCO, Squarespace, New York
--Branded Entertainment: Malcolm Poynton, Global CCO, Cheil Worldwide, London
--Creative Use of Data, Creative Use of Technology: Nancy Crimi-Lamanna, CCO, FCB Canada, Toronto
--Cultural Driver: Bianca Guimaraes, partner, ECD, Mischief, New York
--Design: Liza Enebeis, creative director, partner, Studio Dumbar/DEPT®, Rotterdam
--Direct Marketing: Vicki Maguire, CCO, Havas London
--Film & Video: Javier Campopiano, global CCO, McCann Worldgroup & McCann Global, Madrid
--Gaming: Taj Reid, global chief experience officer, US CCO, Edelman, New York
--Integrated, Experiential & Immersive: Chris Beresford-Hill, worldwide CCO, BBDO New York
--Fusion Pencil: Walter T. Geer III, CCO, Innovation North America, VML, New York
--Green Pencil: Barbara Humphries, ECD, The Monkeys, Sydney
--Health & Wellness, Pharma: Wendy Lund, chief client officer, WPP, New York
--IP & Product Design: Ronald Ng, global CCO, MRM, New York
--Moving Image Craft & Production: Irene Kugelmann, chief creative officer, DDB Group of Companies Germany, Berlin
--Music & Sound Craft: Joel Simon, CCO, JSM Music, New York
--Out of Home, Print & Promotional: Kainaz Karmakar, CCO, Ogilvy India, Mumbai
--Public Relations: Patricia Ávila, regional director for Latin America, Ágora, São Paulo
--Radio... Read More