Arcade, a new editorial collective opens this January. A partnership and brainchild of Managing Director Damian Stevens and Editors Kim Bica, Geoff Hounsell and Paul Martinez, the Los Angeles-based facility will offer full post-production services. Alongside Arcade, the partners have also launched Airship, an integrated creative arm specializing in online, graphics, design and visual effects.
With a background spanning various divisions of the advertising industry, Damian Stevens leads this team of established artists. For the last four years Damian has held the position of Director of Integrated Production at Saatchi & Saatchi/Los Angeles. Previously Damian served as Executive Producer with Moxie Pictures. Damian comes to the group with many industry awards including an Emmy and various Cannes Lions.
Emmy and Cannes Award winner Kim Bica, first cut her teeth on Nike out of Wieden + Kennedy. She has gone on to be a frequent collaborator with Errol Morris, Joe Pytka and Tarsem. A notable campaign of her career was “Members Project”, Martin Scorsese’s American Express spots. She has recently continued her long-format work with a Sundance short entitled “KarmaSutra” directed by Jessica Yu of Nonfiction.
Amongst his many editorial highlights, Geoff Hounsell‘s recent recognition was for the Cannes Lion-awarded NBA campaign, in which basketball’s cultural icons recite monologues, via a split screen effect. Geoff has won the AICE Award for Best Editing for Montana Meth and an MVPA for Best Editing of The White Stripes’ Hardest Button to Button. He has done countless cuts for famous brands such as ESPN, Hummer, Axe and Ikea.
Paul Martinez has worked on various Cannes Gold Lion awarded projects such as Toyota “Girlfriends”, Altoids’ campaign “Altodia”. Paul also edited the Academy Award-nominated short film “Everything in This Country Must.” His latest edit, A Baker Smith film, “Dust”, opened at this year’s New York Film Festival. His career began in features with Braveheart, The Horse Whisperer and Snow Falling on Cedars.
Arcade‘s roster of talent also includes notable Editors Patrick Griffin, formerly of Lost Planet and Christjan Jordan, formerly of Cosmo Street. Christjan’s award-winning projects include Miller Lite, Burger King and VW Configurator which won the Cannes Grand Prix Cyber Lion. Patrick has worked with some of the top agencies and directors in the advertising industry, including Dave LaChapelle, Bryan Buckley, Happy and Spike Lee. Airship launches with Lead Visual Effects Artists Chris Homel and Assistant Visual Effects Artist Keala Asato. Prior to joining Airship, Chris worked as both an Avid editor and Smoke/Flame artist at Red Car and Elephant Post. In his 14 years of experience, Chris has worked with some of the industry’s best on projects such as David Mamet’s Ford Edge and Aaron Ruel’s Nintendo Wii.
Building a creatively diverse, yet like-minded pool of artists, Damian approached the former Lost Planet editors with the concept of producing a new business model. Aside from bringing a well-known standing and creative following, Kim, Geoff and Paul also have a desire to reinvent the creative process of an editorial house. Damian affirms, “Arcade‘s objective is to leave the ‘edit-only’ attitude behind for an uninterrupted creative workflow, where our editors and the other creative minds of our company follow the entire post process”. By positioning Airship on the premises, the collective hopes that projects have a group approach and generate an effortless workflow for clients.
Arcade has started off with a BBDO project directed by the Perlorian Brothers, a Baker Smith-directed spot for Trident and an upcoming GE short film out of Goodby Silverstein & Partners. Though headquartered in LA, the team does not relegate themselves to any one coast, opting instead for jobs throughout the country. Future plans include expansion to other cities across the U.S. including New York.
