Palomar Pictures has entered into a deal to represent Web animation shop Fullerene Productions for spots and music videos. Additionally, Fullerene will be available via Palomar to produce interactive content such as Web-based components for ad campaigns. Both companies are based in Los Angeles.
The four-year-old Fullerene designs Web sites, directs and produces flash music videos and creates other interactive marketing tools. Its credits include producing the Web sites for American Beauty, Interscope Records, Rock the Vote, and rap artists Dr. Dre and Eminem, as well as flash videos for recording artists Beck, Duran Duran and Ben Harper, among others.
Palomar chairman/CEO Joni Sighvatsson said that one of his company’s directors, Dan Rush, had told him about flash animation—a technology with which Sighvatsson was unfamiliar—and showed him some examples. Sighvatsson was impressed by what he saw. "I said, ‘This is a part of the future—how do we get there?’ " he recalled. "We definitely see a synergy between this and the advertising world. I think there’s a real crossover here in the future, as the technologies both on the flash animation side and on the Web side evolve. It makes sense to have this as a part of what we do."
Sighvatsson said that Palomar began investigating the top companies specializing in Web design/flash animation. After several meetings with Fullerene, Sighvatsson became convinced that the company would make a good match for Palomar. He added that it made more sense for Palomar to form an alliance than to start a division from scratch. "[Fullerene president] Jeff Ellermeyer is quite experienced and it’s a good company, so it seemed the right thing to do," concluded Sighvatsson.
Ellermeyer commented, "[Palomar] was intelligent enough to realize that a lot of people talk about convergence between the Internet and broadcast, but they saw that we were actually doing it. They wanted to get more into that space and we wanted to get more into theirs."
Since broadcast is not Fullerene’s area of specialty, explained Ellermeyer, his firm decided that it needed to be represented by a company with a lot of broadcast experience, like Palomar. Fullerene started out building Web sites for the entertainment industry two years ago, and quickly became one of the leading vendors in that area, increasing its staff to 15.
"We built a lot of Web sites for record labels and bands, and starting doing flash pieces," said Ellermeyer. "As an experiment, we tried to see if we could output them to TV." A couple of flash music videos resulted: "Nicotine & Gravy" for Beck and "Someone Else, Not Me" for Duran Duran. (The music clips are viewable at www.fullerene. com.) Both ran on MTV—according to Ellermeyer, the Beck piece was the first flash video ever to air there.
Ellermeyer explained, "Because the music video industry is messed up, in that it seems only four or five videos get played, the labels need to spend money somewhere. I think they see flash videos as a pretty good opportunity to try something new and different."
Likewise, Ellermeyer sees advertisers and the commercial industry as increasingly looking towards new media and the Internet as part of their marketing strategy: "Back when I started in the business, the Internet was always an afterthought. Now I see that the Internet portion is sometimes the lead in an advertising campaign. As we move forward into the mixture of [the Internet and advertising], we’re poised to be able to take advantage of that situation."
Fullerene is currently redesigning the Palomar logo and working on the Palomar Web site. Sighvatsson said he believes that Fullerene may also figure into Palomar’s deal with Los Angeles-based IFILM, an online site showcasing filmmakers’ work (SHOOT, 7/28, p.4). Per that deal, IFILM will host Palomar Showcase, a co-branded Web page that will feature short films, spots, music videos, editorial commentary and original interactive programming supplied by Palomar’s talent pool.
The Fullerene deal is the latest in Palomar’s expansion strategy. Aside from the aforementioned IFILM deal, the company has recently launched such divisions as Slo Graffiti, which represents artists from various disciplines for commercial work, Persaud@Palomar, which specializes in youth-oriented urban marketing (SHOOT, 6/23, p.1), and a Latin division. Additionally, Palomar has struck up a reciprocal marketing agreement with London-based shop Godman (SHOOT, 3/3, p.1) and has reactivated its music video division. Sighvatsson said that the announcement of another division is imminent.
Fullerene will be repped nationwide by Lanette Phillips, who also heads Palomar’s music video division.
