Nancy Hwang, formerly a producer at TBWAChiatDay, Los Angeles, has joined MassMarket, a New York-based visual effects boutique that is a sister shop to production house Psyop. She comes aboard MassMarket as a producer while Jeffrey Dates, who had most recently been freelancing, assumes a staff role as CG supervisor….Bicoastal Transistor Studios has signed director/designer/illustrator Chris Eyerman to serve as web art director for interactive. He formerly served as interactive art director at Crispin Porter+Bogusky….Directors Brian Belefant and Steven Hood have come aboard Large Films, Portland, Ore…..The One and Only Herb McGwyer Plays Wallis Island, directed by James Griffiths and produced by bicoastal/international Moxie Pictures, has been nominated for best short film honors in the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards competition….Alex Bickel has joined Outside Editorial, New York, as editor/colorist. Already at his new roost, he has wrapped a round of projects for Jaguar, collaborating with Outside editor Neil Gust…Motion graphics and visual effects artist Phil Spitler has come on board Phoenix Editorial & Designs, San Francisco. The 15-year industry veteran, who had most recently been freelancing in Northern California, has worked with major ad agencies and blue-chip clients in both the United States and in his native England, where he was a founding partner of leading motion graphics studio Keyframe….Tim Gillingham has joined Minneapolis-headquartered ad agency Olson as executive creative director. Gillingham’s past roosts have included Arnold Worldwide, Boston, and Minneapolis shops Fallon and Carmichael Lynch….
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 and Mario Feil, as well as such up-and-coming filmmakers as Glenn Stewart and Chris Fowles.
Nakamura Whitehouse, 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