Noel Cottrell–a noted agency creative stateside and in South Africa–has joined Grey New York as an executive creative director. He is the first major hire the agency’s exec VP/chief creative officer Tor Myhren has made since joining Grey in the fall and then helping it to win the E*Trade account in December. Cottrell will work on E*Trade….Tangerine Films, a New York-based production house under the aegis of founder/executive producer Sal Del Giudice, has added three directors to its roster: Earle Sebastian, Tim Gaylord and Todd Bellanca. They join a directorial lineup which also includes Goodguys, John Lindley and Tim Van Patten…..Absolute Post, the post/visual effects house headquartered in London with a satellite in New York, has launched a motion graphics department. Ric Comline has been hired to head the new venture, which is based in London but will work on projects for both Absolute’s U.K. and U.S. offices. Comline comes over from MPC, London, where he spent the past seven years creating motion graphics for assorted commercials, music videos and feature film sequences…..Digital Kitchen has added John Couch to its Los Angeles team, naming him VP of entertainment and creative media strategy. He most recently served as an independent consultant and prior to that was VP and entertainment creative director for CBS Interactive….Director Alex Gibney, whose documentary Taxi to the Dark Side won the Oscar this year, has shifted his spot representation from Saville Productions, Beverly Hillls, to bicoastal Chelsea Pictures….Director Nelson McCormick of Aero Film, Santa Monica, made his feature filmmaking debut with Prom Night which in its first week broke in at number one in U.S. boxoffice returns at $22.7 million…..
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