Creative director Paul Newman has launched Remedy Studios, a New York-based creative solutions studio. The new venture will offer a range of live-action direction and production services to advertising agencies through its production division, and strategic conceptual thinking and design solutions to the broadcast and cable communities through its design division.
Remedy will be an independently operated company of New York-based IllusionFusion! (IF!), which is also parent to audio house Sound Lounge, New York; IF! Interactive Group, New York and San Francisco; and Click 3X, which has effects/post studios in Santa Monica, San Francisco, New York and Atlanta.
In addition to Newman—who will serve as senior VP/executive creative director/commercials director—the key management team consists of executive producer/director of new business Stephen Kinney, head of production Simone Barker and design/director Christine Lin.
Remedy will represent helmers Anders Hallgren, David Mc elwaine, Justin Booth-Clibborn and London-based Daryl Goodrich.
The staff and directors were selected based on experiences Newman has had collaborating with them in the past. For example, Kinney, Barker, Lin, Hallgren and Mc elwaine worked together on the re-launch of Canadian television network CTV two years ago via bicoastal/international entertainment marketing communications firm Pittard Sullivan. (Newman was creative director at Pittard at the time.)
"Remedy can best be described as a hybrid. We see ourselves as an ideas company. Our directors are not just live-action specialists, but true creative directors who can participate fully in every aspect of their projects, from concept development through production and postproduction," explained Newman.
The genesis for Remedy came out of Newman’s diverse experience. "When I was talking to production companies for commercial representation, I was continuously labeled as a specific skill set," he said. "But I was more interested in working on projects from conception through completion, taking on multiple roles such as directing and supervising on set through to editing in post."
Newman stressed that the company was not trying to compete with advertising agencies. "It is a production company model—our directors can be used in a traditional sense, in that an agency can come to one of our directors with the storyboards designed and the creative done. But we are offering a lot more by getting in on the concept sooner and collaborating with the agency and staying with the process right through to post," he stated.
From 1995 to ’99, Newman was creative director with Pittard Sullivan, spending the first year in the company’s Los Angeles (now Culver City) shop before relocating to the East Coast to launch the New York office. There he worked on accounts for clients including CNN, Time Warner, CTV, HBO and CNN. After leaving Pittard Sullivan, Newman took a nine-month break to make a documentary with his wife, Cynthia Newman, about her childhood in North Carolina. During this time he also worked as a freelance director and/or creative director for the New York offices of such bicoastal/international shops as the Attik and Razorfish, as well as New York-based Fontana Productions.
A native of the U.K., Newman relocated to the states in ’82 to work as a freelancer for The Weather Channel, Atlanta, where he used Quantel’s first Paintbox. This experience resulted in his making the transition from print to broadcast.
While at Pittard Sullivan, New York, Newman hired Lin straight out of college. She worked her way through the ranks to senior designer. During her four years with the company, she worked on accounts such as CTV, Time Warner Cable, PBS and Lifetime TV.
kinney
Kinney comes to Remedy from the Attik, where from February ’99 to June ’00 he was VP of creative services, following a stint as senior producer there. And from ’97 to ’99, Kinney was at Pittard Sullivan, New York, working as a producer for clients such as ESPN, AOL, CBS and Philips.
A native of Australia, Barker started her career in a Melbourne-based advertising agency, working her way from production assistant to producer before joining Sydney-based production company Self Made Shade in ’92. She then shifted to postproduction house Animal Logic, Sydney, where she produced the feature effects for films such as Dark City, The Crow and The Matrix. Barker later became a freelance producer in Sydney before accepting a position at Extro Design, Sydney, in ’95 as a senior producer. She then went on to work on two short films and a television series before relocating to New York in ’99. Since then, she has been in the broadcast design field as a freelance producer of live-action, post effects and graphics.
Earlier in his career, Booth-Clibborn was repped by bicoastal/international Propaganda Films in London, moving to Los Angeles in ’96. For the next 12 months he continued to helm spots through Propaganda. Most recently he has worked as a freelance assistant director, producer and postproduction supervisor on commercials for Intel, General Motors, and Lexus, and on music videos for U2, R.E.M., Garbage and Alanis Morissette.
Hallgren started out as a fine artist/photographer, moving into commercials work when he joined Pittard Sullivan, Los Angeles, in ’94. For four years he worked for such clients as The Weather Channel; CTV; Telefonica, Spain; and the Country Music Association. In ’99 he joined Lee Hunt Associates (which has since been acquired by Razorfish), where he conceptualized, designed and directed the on-air package for the performing arts series PBS Showcase. Hallgren is directing the first job through the production side of Remedy—a theatrical trailer which will be shown as a :30 for a PBS documentary called The History of Jazz. Directed by Ken Burns, Jazz begins airing in January ’01.
Goodrich will travel to the U.S. on demand from his base in the U.K., where he is represented for commercials in Europe by Z Films, London. During his career, he has served as a graphic designer, broadcast designer, live-action commercial director and TV director. His experience includes working as a director on Channel Four’s American Football and Trash Talk and as a creative/director for the London-headquartered Chrysalis TV. In ’98 he set up a division of the Chrysalis Group, called Chrysalis Creative, to produce films, promotional network campaigns, program styling and sponsorship sequences. Recent work includes spots for U.K.-based store Homepride and BBC Online.
As a director, Mc elwaine gains his first formal production company representation via Remedy. Five years ago, he launched his own shop, Cinch, New York, specializing in independent design for commercials. In the meantime he has been developing his reel as a live-action director on work for clients such as Elektra Records and MTV.
Remedy Studios is currently negotiating with representation firms.
