The ballots have been tabulated and the strike by the actors’ unions against the advertising industry has formally ended. Members of SAG and AFTRA overwhelmingly approved the new three-year contract covering commercials by a nearly 40,000 vote margin. In total, 42,000-plus votes were cast, representing only a 34 percent return of the nearly 125,000 ballots mailed to SAG and AFTRA members. The rank-and-file thumbs up was considered a virtual fait accompli since late October when actors returned to work after SAG’s and AFTRA’s boards of directors authorized the agreement between the unions and the Joint Policy Committee of the 4A’s and ANA…..Word is that director Lara Shapiro is headed for Santa Monica-based Fuel….Editors Peter Odiorne and Matt Chesse have joined Crew Cuts’ New York and Santa Monica shops, respectively….Hispanic commercial production house Carbo Films has launched Traffic, a satellite designed to garner general market, English-language work for what initially is a lineup of three directors: Isabel Coixet; the mono-monikered Basil; and Ron Hamad. Coixet and Basil shift over from the Carbo roster, while Hamad was formerly with Los Angeles-based Vamp Films. Javier Carbo and Dora Medrano serve as executive producers for both Carbo Films and Traffic, which are located on the same Santa Monica premises…..David Morin, formerly VP of special projects and the content group at Softimage, a division of Avid Technology, has been named president of Manex Visual Effects, an Alameda, Calif.-based digital studio which had a hand in visual effects Oscar-winning work on What Dreams May Come and The Matrix….Brad Kimmelman has joined American Express Financial Advisors, New York, as a financial advisor, focusing his practice on advertising, production and entertainment professionals. Kimmelman was most recently an executive producer at Ghost Light Editorial, New York….
