Optimus, a full-service postproduction facility, has added Dan Brown as manager of interactive media. He joins the shop’s growing graphic design and new media department, which was established last year as a complement to its TV broadcast postproduction services.
Brown brings extensive experience in Website and CD-ROM development, design and programming to the Chicago-based company. He started his career with a two-year stint at multimedia and software company Interactive Media Worldwide, Chicago (the company also maintains offices in New York, San Francisco and Boston). That firm specializes in interactive/multimedia development primarily for trade shows, presentations and push button kiosks. Brown, who worked as manager of products and services, said they did a wide variety of work using software such as Mac Media Director and Visual Basic.
Following this, Brown spent three years at Chicago-based advertising agency LEC Limited as the director of interactive media. The focus of his work, he related, was CD-ROM and Website development for high-tech and financial institutions such as US Robotics, Spyglass, PNC Mortgage and Old Kent Bank.
Brown said he was prompted to join Optimus after one of his former LEC colleagues, designer Lisa Fingerhut, joined Optimus last year to head up its newly-established print division. "Lisa and I had worked very closely at LEC," said Brown. "When she came to Optimus, they started doing some print work and, all the while, they were getting requests for interactive work to integrate with print programs. But Optimus didn’t have that capability."
After six weeks of freelancing for the facility, Brown was recently brought on board as a full-time staffer. Optimus has a 12-member engineering staff headed by director of engineering Mark Sarantakos, which is now working to install a Web server to host the company’s Website. Brown will be focused on application, development and management, and will work closely with other staff designers B.J. Moore and Fingerhut.
One of Optimus’ first interactive projects involves its video library of McDonald’s product shots. In the past, Brown related, McDonald’s would send out a CD-ROM of the five- to eight- second product shots once a year; agencies could then call Optimus to order the professional quality version of the piece. Because the CD-ROMs would be quickly outdated, Optimus plans to transfer its library of clips to the Website to be previewed.
On the video front, Duff reports that Optimus has made a $4 million investment in high-definition equipment and, by the end of June, the shop should be able to finish a hi-def spot from start to finish.
