Shelly Townsend has come aboard bicoastal production house Skunk as executive producer where she reunites with exec producer/managing director Matt Factor. She is based at the company’s Hollywood office, with Factor in New York. Townsend was formerly at such shops as Fools and Horses, and Headquarters. She and Factor first met in 1999 at the venerable Propaganda Films–she was an exec producer while Factor headed up East Coast sales. There they helped build the careers of notable directors, and went on to collaborate later at bicoastal Anonymous Content….Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, has hired Zach Canfield, formerly global director of creative recruiting at Wieden + Kennedy, as its director of talent. In this newly created role, Canfield will be finding new and emerging talent for the whole agency, not just for the creative department….FriendsWithYou, a team that is a recent addition to the director/designer roster of Los Angeles-based Paranoid U.S., has opened a new design studio in Miami and launched a portfolio website (www.fwystudios.com) to showcase its work. FriendsWithYou founders/chief creatives are Samuel Borkson and Arturo Sandoval III….Veteran mixer Steve Bucino has joined Hyperbolic Audio, the N.Y. audio post house launched last year by co-owners Julian Rebolledo and Sean Elias-Reyes. Bucino was most recently with Tonic, New York. His studio background also includes session work at Seattle’s Ironwood Studios, and two years at Water Music, where he engineered and produced numerous independent music projects, while honing his skills working alongside legendary engineers, such as John Agnello, Michael Barbiero and Bob Marlette….
Director Cassandra Brooksbank Joins Monument Content For Spots and Branded Content
Monument Content has signed director Cassandra “Cassie” Brooksbank for U.S. representation spanning commercials and branded content. She brings to her directing and storytelling the experience and skills of a writer, conceptual artist, editor and visual effects artist.
Her body of work as a director includes Pepsi’s “Selfie” featuring Lionel Messi amid a flurry of fans, Barclays madcap women’s Soccer League spot where she collaborated closely with the agency to develop the creative, ultimately winning the Grand Jury Prize at the Sports Industry Awards, and a grass-roots campaign for Fellow Coffee. The latter just didn’t brew buzz; it helped raise $1.2 million on Kickstarter.
Prior to joining Monument Content, Brooksbank had been repped in the U.S. for commercials by production house Hey Wonderful.
On the long-form front, she is repped by CAA for film and television. And on the horizon is her debut feature, My Masterpiece, produced by Sylvester Stallone’s Balboa Productions and backed by Amazon.
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