Grant Hill has been promoted to global production director of DDB Worldwide Communications Group. He formerly served as executive production director of DDB Chicago. In his new role, Hill will report directly to DDB Worldwide chairman/chief creative officer Bob Scarpelli and serve as a resource to DDB’s entire network to help ensure that the agency’s production capabilities in all media are world class….Editor Oscar Rivas has landed on Earth2Mars, New York. He comes over from Crispin Porter + Bogusky where he was a senior editor….Lynn Weatherly has been named director of broadcast at MARC USA, Pittsburgh. Weatherly has freelanced with MARC USA and other agencies across the country for the past four years. Prior to that, she was group creative director/principal of Houston-based Taylor Speier Group. Her agency experience includes broadcast production at GSD&M, Austin….Alex Kemp has joined HUM Music, Santa Monica, as associate creative director. An established freelance composer for TV, Kemp also has major ties to the indie rock scene as a composer, producer, engineer and performer (with his band Assassins, signed to Arista in 2003)….
Ron Cicero and Bo Clancey Launch Production House 34North
Executive producers Ron Cicero and Bo Clancey have teamed to launch 34North. The shop opens with a roster which includes accomplished directors Jan Wentz, Ben Nakamura Whitehouse, David Edwards and Mario Feil, as well as such up-and-coming filmmakers as Glenn Stewart and Chris Fowles. Nakamura Whitehouse, Edwards, Feil and Fowles come over from CoMPANY Films, the production company for which Cicero served as an EP for the past nearly five years. Director Wentz had most recently been with production house Skunk while Stewart now gains his first U.S. representation. EP Clancey was freelance producing prior to the formation of 34North. He and Cicero have known each other for some 25 years, recently reconnecting on a job directed by Fowles. Cicero said that he and Clancey “want to keep a highly focused roster where talent management can be one on one--where we all share in the directors’ success together.” Clancey also brings an agency pedigree to the new venture. “I started at Campbell Ewald in accounts, no less,” said Clancey. “I saw firsthand how much work agencies put in before we even see a script. You have to respect that investment. These agency experiences really shaped my approach to production--it’s about empathy, listening between the lines, and ultimately making the process seamless.” 34North represents a meeting point--both literally and creatively. Named after the latitude of Malibu, Calif., where the idea for the company was born, it also embraces the power of storytelling. “34North118West was the first GPS-enabled narrative,” Cicero explained. “That blend of art and technology, to captivate an audience, mirrors what we do here--create compelling work, with talented people, harnessing state-of-the-art... Read More