Director Nanette Burstein, who won the 2008 Sundance Documentary Directing Award for her film American Teen, has joined bicoastal/international Hungry Man for global spot representation. Slated to open in theaters in July, American Teen tracks the lives of four Indiana high school students over the course of a school year….Santa Monica, Calif.-based TWC has signed director Matt Murphy for stateside representation. Murphy is a New Zealand director also repped by Sydney, Australia-based GoodOil Films. He’s the second GoodOil director to be handled by TWC in the U.S. (following Hamish Rothwell, who signed with TWC two years ago)….Don McKinney, a former partner in Cole & Weber United, Seattle, has joined Grey New York as executive creative director/director of digital development, a new position at the agency. He will work closely with Grey New York exec VP/chief creative officer Tor Myhren to build a creative environment that blends traditional and digital branding…..Director Todd Korgan has come aboard @Large Films, the Portland, Ore.-based shop headed by owner/executive producer Juliana Lukasik….Pennington Ingley has joined Dallas-based animation studio Janimation as its head of gaming. He was most recently at Texas Instruments where he helped craft strategies for entry into the game industry. Janimation produces computer animation, motion design and visual effects for film, broadcast spots and game cinematics….Rick Boyko–director and professor of VCU Brandcenter, and former CCO of Ogilvy & Mather North America–has been named dean of the Roger Hatchuel Academy which teaches a select group of students during a weeklong course at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Fest….
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