Despite the past year’s troubled economic climate, a number of postproduction companies have found that the time is right to expand their operations. Among them are editorial house Cosmo Street, graphics/design shop Brand New School, and telecine facility Company 3—all based in Santa Monica, all with recently opened offices in New York. Additionally, Chicago-based Optimus is now preparing for the official opening of a permanent west coast branch—CO-OP, Santa Monica—and post facility Edgeworx, New York, has grown overseas with the launch of a U.K. facility.
Other shops have augmented their personnel, their offerings and/ or their existing office space. Editorial shop Post Factory, New York, welcomed editor Jinx Godfrey, formerly with The Whitehouse, and is set to move to larger downtown offices. Last fall New York-based edit house Jump launched sister shop, Manic, for 3-D compositing, graphics and special effects. And Nice Shoes, New York, has started up Guava, a visual effects and design division.
For the most part, the execs surveyed related that business opportunities prompted the expansions. Colorist Stefan Sonnenfeld, president/managing director of Company 3, a Liberty Livewire firm, reported that a number of clients have long asked when he was going to open shop in New York. "They told me it’d be nice to get the type of artistry and service they’re used to getting in L.A., and get it in New York," says Sonnenfeld, who envisioned expansion to a new market about three years ago as "part of the master plan."
As Sonnenfeld explains, he felt that New York was ripe for what Company 3 could offer. "There has been the mentality that there have only been a couple of places to go [for post] in New York," he comments. "We don’t ever want people to think that we’re the only game in town. We recognize that clients have choices. But in our New York office, we have an extremely diverse group [of colorists]. They all have their own niches and strengths. I think the versatility of Company 3 has opened up everyone’s eyes."
Two years ago, Sonnenfeld set about trying to assemble a group of people that could help realize his goal to expand. That plan was set in motion when he met and hired colorist Billy Gabor, then at SMA Realtime, New York. The idea was that Gabor would first operate out of Company 3, Santa Monica, where he’d be exposed to the shop’s clients and way of working; and after his initial period of introduction, he would move to New York to head up Company 3’s Manhattan operation.
"We had a space [in New York] and were all ready," Sonnenfeld recalls. "And then 9/11 happened." While the tragedy and the down economy prompted Company 3 to push back its plans, the firm pushed forward again in November, when Gabor relocated to New York. Company 3 moved into a building two floors from sister shop R!OT Manhattan. In addition to Gabor, the New York telecine operation comprises Tim Masick, who came over from Moving Images, New York; Eli Friedman, previously with SMA Realtime; and Victor Mulholland and John Bonta, who recently came over from R!OT.
Sonnenfeld found business beginning to pick up early this year. Among recent Company 3, New York, spot credits are Oxygen’s "Pageant," out of Mullen, Wenham, Mass., directed by Bryan Buckley of bicoastal/international hungry man; "Blinds" for Merrill Lynch via J. Walter Thompson, New York; "Greek" and "Carrot Top" for AT&T via Young & Rubicam, New York; "Mr. Impatience" and "Jogger" for the Volkswagen Jetta, out of Arnold Worldwide, Boston; and "Juilliard" and "Paris" for Morgan Stanley via Leo Burnett.
A desire to better service clients also prompted Cosmo Street to set up shop in New York, which it did two months ago. "We work with many directors, who also work a lot in New York," says Katz, the mono-monikered editor who, with executive producer Yvette Cobarrubias, is partnered in Cosmo Street. "It was frustrating not to be able to work with them," he continues. "For the past three years, the trend has been for editors to travel to work on jobs. And up to now, it has been a monopoly of three houses in New York. I believe new companies like ours will benefit the agencies."
"The idea is to make all our clients aware that, with the same budget, we can cut in either location," adds Cobarrubias.
Cosmo Street hired editor Jón Stefánsson, formerly of Ghost Light, New York, and P.I.G., New York, as resident cutter in its New York office, although Katz and company editor David Trachtenberg have spent much time at the east coast outpost since it opened. (Chan Hatcher and Dylan Tichenor are also on the Cosmo Street editorial roster, and currently in the Santa Monica office.) The firm also added executive producer Maura Woodward, formerly of Berwyn Editorial, New York, to fortify its new base.
Among the directors with whom Cosmo Street regularly works is Dante Ariola of bicoastal Morton Jankel Zander (MJZ), for which it recently cut a trio of Bank of America spots—"Butcher," "Stranger" and "ATMs Everywhere"—out of Bozell, New York. Other recent spots edited out of Cosmo Street, New York, include "Basketball" for Volvo via Euro RSCG MVBMS, New York, directed by Nick Lewin of Crossroads Films, bicoastal and Chicago; and "T Runner" for Nike Brand Jordan via Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore., directed by Brian Beletic, who was then with now-closed Satellite, and has since joined bicoastal Smuggler.
Spreading Out
Optimus’ acquisition of fellow Chi-town creative edit house Edit Sweet last November paved the way for the west coast presence that company execs had long wanted. Buying Edit Sweet served a dual purpose, explains Optimus president Tom Duff. It fortified Optimus’ editorial base in Chicago, and it gave the firm a resident Los Angeles editor: Jim Staskauskas, an Edit Sweet partner who had relocated to California in April 2001.
"We didn’t want to open out there without a foundation, and that’s what Jim [Staskauskas] provided," Duff points out, adding. "He’s one of the top editors in the country." Now a managing partner at CO-OP, Staskauskas has remained steadily busy with Chicago clients. He recently edited spots for the U.S. Postal Service, directed by Mikael Salomon of bicoastal Coppos Films; and a package for Delta Airlines—comprising the spots "Culture to Culture" "Rival to Rival," "Fan to Fan," and "Spirit to Spirit"—directed by Nicholas Barker of bicoastal/international Chelsea Pictures. Both campaigns were done via Leo Burnett USA, Chicago. In December and January, Optimus editor Craig Lewandowski worked in the CO-OP space to cut a Gatorade spot directed by Marcus Nispel of MJZ, out of Element 79 Partners, Chicago; and a Boeing ad helmed by Leslie Dektor of Dektor Film, Hollywood, out of FCB Chicago.
CO-OP, which is also run by resident executive producer Monette Dubin, just added editor Ellen Crocker, who came over from Cosmo Street’s Santa Monica office. According to Duff, the ideal setup would be three full-time resident editors, with a fourth edit suite earmarked for Optimus cutters who travel from Chicago to work on jobs.
For Edgeworx, setting up a London outpost in March was a way to take advantage of the U.K.’s currently busy market, and also to have a crack at the very creative work coming from agencies on the other side of the pond. "We’ve always thought the U.K. is an attractive market," observes Edgeworx partner Dave Tecson. "There’s very interesting, creative work being done there. And it seems to run on a different economic cycle than the U.S.: When it’s slow here, it’s busy there."
Sensitive to being viewed as outsiders, Edgeworx hired two well-regarded Londoners to staff its new branch: Bruce Hancock and Bill Keehner are veterans of Soho 601, London. Hancock is managing director of the new Edgeworx venture, and Keehner is designer of graphics and motion graphics. The firm also relocated Chris Kairalla, editor/ motion graphic artist, from the New York office to round out the shop’s U.K. staff. "We have the best of both worlds," relates Tecson. "People who know what it’s like to work in the London market, and someone who knows how we work."
In Tecson’s view, Edgeworx U.K. offers a cost-effective alternative to the traditional post offerings in London in that it uses desktop systems for graphics and compositing. "In London they have a lot of Flame suites and the like," notes Tecson. "It’s one person driving a very expensive machine. Whereas we’re able to put several people on the job at the same time without it being a ridiculously huge expense."
So far, Edgeworx, U.K.—which offers offline editing, online finishing and compositing—has done finishing for the Chips Ahoy! CremeWiches spot "Bus," out of FCB New York; the job was animated by Ken Lidster of Loose Moose, London. Kairalla has also edited footage for the U.K. Sports Industry Awards show.
New Divisions
Manic opened as an outgrowth of Jump last fall after Michael Saia and Barry Stilwell, owners/editors at Jump, recognized the increasing demand for 3-D compositing and special effects. They opted to split off those services as a separate unit. In fact the pair had been germinating the idea for close to two years before the launch. "Their [Saia and Stilwell’s] decision to open Manic was more about adding to the quality of the work, rather than a business de-cision, per se," explains Dee Tagert, executive producer at Jump and Manic. "Jump had begun doing 3-D compositing, graphics and effects, but almost as an afterthought. Then as we got more and more into it and people increasingly wanted us to do it, Michael and Barry wanted to devote more time, equipment and space to that end product."
Mike Stolz, who worked in a design and effects capacity at Jump, now heads up Manic as supervising design and effects artist. Prior to joining Jump, Stolz was at Bloomberg Financial’s 24-hour news channel as lead broadcast designer. Tagert assesses Stolz as exceptional, noting that he is adept at modeling, compositing, creating graphics and visual effects. "He’s got a great sense of style," she notes.
"We’ve been very lucky to have maintained the high quality of work," continues Tagert, "and we’ve maintained—somewhat—consistent work, although it’s not as busy as I’d like it to be." Among Manic’s spot credits are "China" for Morgan Stanley via Leo Burnett USA, directed by James Gartner of bicoastal Gartner; "Ideas Quickly," helmed by Michael Karbelnikoff of bicoastal HKM Productions for GE, out of BBDO New York; and "Better," directed by Victor Garcia of MJZ for the Mercedes-Benz SUV via Merkley Newman Harty|Partners, New York.
Brand New School (BNS) founder/creative director Jonathan Notaro describes his company’s expansion into New York as organic, in that most of BNS’ jobs already come from New York. That, coupled with the fact that BNS was losing out on big jobs because it lacked a New York outpost, made the decision to open in Manhattan last September a no-brainer.
"We’d be the first pick on a job," recalls Notaro, "and then the client found out we didn’t have a New York office. It was actually a Verizon job out of Lowe [New York] that propelled us to start one; we thought the budget [on the project] was good enough to set up some sort of a studio. We wanted a place where creatives could work [in-person] with the designers."
BNS New York was launched with artisans from its Santa Monica office; currently its New York office has nine staffers (including four designers, two animators and two producers), compared with the 23 employees at its west coast counterpart. Notaro related that he will soon relocate to New York, but will still be returning to Los Angeles on a monthly basis. Among recent jobs out of BNS New York are the spots "Kobe Bryant" for Sprite via Ogilvy & Mather, New York; and two ads out of BBDO: "Watching" for the New York Stock Exchange, and "Big Sinkers" for Visa.
While it was not initially set up as another revenue source, Notaro says the New York branch has, in fact, become just that. BNS’ physical presence in Manhattan has created a new stream of interesting, unconventional projects that aren’t necessarily from agencies; for example, Notaro cites clients such as MTV and other networks. "In several instances, we’ve gone up against New York design companies," he says. "There’s a more level playing field if you have an office in New York. Also, New York is a much more design-driven city [than Los Angeles]; there’s more visual information at hand."
Founded by president/editor Alex Halpern in 1996, Post Factory will be moving in June to new digs measuring 13,500 square feet—triple the size of its current space. The expansion was necessitated by the firm’s volume of work, which includes commercials as well as music videos and feature films.
"At any given time, we have anywhere from four to five spots, and three films cutting in our facility," reports Halpern, noting that his firm’s hybrid focus is owed to his own filmmaking background. (His directorial feature debut, Nine Good Teeth, a documentary, is currently on the film festival circuit.) "I came out of the feature world and sort of backed into commercials because I developed relationships with editors. I started out in an apartment in SoHo with one Avid, which I rented out on the side. I started working with one editor and then we needed another Avid, and [the business] grew from there."
Halpern says that Post Factory’s focus on both commercials and films has worked well in the down econ-omy because editors can "float back and forth." The new office will house seven to eight spot editing suites, with 12 rooms designated for longform projects. "In some respects, the bad economy created opportunities for expansion," Halpern points out. "In terms of real estate, now is the ideal time to move. Two years ago, you couldn’t get any space in New York. Now, we have our choice of the best spaces."
Post Factory also offers New York representation of editors Andrea MacArthur, Jim Weedon and Mark Edinoff of Peepshow, London—which reps the Post Factory editors in the U.K. Peepshow was launched by MacArthur in the wake of her departure from U.K.-based The Whitehouse (with which Post Factory formerly had an affiliation) after that firm merged with The Lookinglass Company last year. Following the merger, editor Jinx Godfrey, who had been with The Whitehouse, left that firm, relocated to New York and joined Post Factory.
Besides Godfrey, Post Factory’s editors are Darek Bell, Andy Keir, and Tim Sqyres. Recent spot credits include "Ray Allen," directed by Spike Lee of 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, Brooklyn, N.Y., for Nike Air Jordan, out of Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore.; and "Office" and "Lawn Mower" for Nintendo Game Cube via Leo Burnett. The Nintendo ads were helmed by Erick Ifergen of Serial Dreamer, West Hollywood; Godfrey cut all three spots.
Halpern plans to add two to three editors by October, and also intends to establish a joint venture within the next six months with a west coast-based post house that would give Post Factory editors a Los Angeles presence. "We have to invest in the future," states Halpern. "A company has to stay fluid and dynamic in order to attract new clients."
