The Napoleon Group has promoted three long-time staff members to new leadership positions as it prepares to launch several new lines of business later in the fourth quarter of 2016. The promotions were announced by Marty Napoleon, founder/chief creative officer of Napoleon, which earlier this year expanded its operations to the West Coast with the opening of a live action production arm in Los Angeles.
Annabel Salmon has been promoted to VP, executive director of operations. In her new post Salmon is responsible for leading the bustling production hub that comprises Napoleon’s New York studio. Encompassing 14,500 square feet on two floors in the Chelsea neighborhood, the facility houses 34 full-time artists, designers, editors, producers and directors, along with creative and support staff.
In addition, Perry Morton, formerly head of production, has been named executive producer. He now oversees three key areas of growth: business leadership for volume sales opportunities; content development/production; and partner relationship management.
Rounding out the senior promotions is Angela Gianforcaro, who succeeds Morton in the head of production role. Formerly sr. producer, Gianforcaro is a popular fixture at the studio, is deeply engrained in its culture and has played an major role in its growth and success. She now oversees the project management team and their work in areas including pre-visualization, test production, audio post, VFX, motion capture, editorial and finishing.
“This is a company that engenders a high degree of loyalty on the part of its staff, and it’s a feeling that’s routinely mutual,” said Napoleon. “We have many people who’ve spent the better parts of their professional lives here, and the career histories of Annabel, Perry and Angela are perfect examples. Collectively they have close to sixty years’ experience at Napoleon. The knowledge, insight, experience and intuition they bring to our company, our clients and our talent is invaluable. In their new roles they’ll help lay the foundation as we reorganize in anticipation of the new divisions we’ll be unveiling later this year. ”
A London native, Salmon studied graphic design at Central/St. Martins before traveling to New York in the early ‘80s. After working for a small animation studio she landed at a New York test commercial studio, where she quickly mastered the latest digital retouching equipment from Quantel. In 1985 she joined Napoleon Group founder Marty Napoleon’s newly launched Napoleon Videographics, where her knack for solving business problems, married to a DP, with an understanding of working with creative people, led her to take on day-to-day operations of the company. She led the studio’s relocation in the late 1990s to the East Side of Manhattan from its Theatre District location, and performed successfully again when they moved to their current Chelsea home in 2013.
Morton is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design who got his start in the industry as a digital artist. He joined Napoleon early in his career and quickly progressed to editorial, compositing and finishing work for some of the studio’s most demanding ad agency clients. He was tapped by Marty Napoleon to launch the studio’s first 3D department in 2010, and has continued to lead the company into new areas of production and post, such as its growth into live action and motion capture.
A graduate of the communications program at Boston University, Gianforcaro started at Napoleon in 2000, initially working in client service, and rose steadily through the ranks to her current post at head of production. Along the way she’s served as an assistant producer and post producer before being named a sr. producer in 2010. She’s led teams on many of the studio’s biggest and most complex projects.
TikTok’s Fate Arrives At Supreme Court; Arguments Center On Free Speech and National Security
In one of the most important cases of the social media age, free speech and national security collide at the Supreme Court on Friday in arguments over the fate of TikTok, a wildly popular digital platform that roughly half the people in the United States use for entertainment and information.
TikTok says it plans to shut down the social media site in the U.S. by Jan. 19 unless the Supreme Court strikes down or otherwise delays the effective date of a law aimed at forcing TikTok's sale by its Chinese parent company.
Working on a tight deadline, the justices also have before them a plea from President-elect Donald Trump, who has dropped his earlier support for a ban, to give him and his new administration time to reach a "political resolution" and avoid deciding the case. It's unclear if the court will take the Republican president-elect's views — a highly unusual attempt to influence a case — into account.
TikTok and China-based ByteDance, as well as content creators and users, argue the law is a dramatic violation of the Constitution's free speech guarantee.
"Rarely if ever has the court confronted a free-speech case that matters to so many people," lawyers for the users and content creators wrote. Content creators are anxiously awaiting a decision that could upend their livelihoods and are eyeing other platforms.
The case represents another example of the court being asked to rule about a medium with which the justices have acknowledged they have little familiarity or expertise, though they often weigh in on meaty issues involving restrictions on speech.
The Biden administration, defending the law that President Joe Biden signed in April after it was approved by wide bipartisan majorities in Congress, contends that... Read More