Artifact Studios, an Emmy-nominated documentary house, has appointed Brian Kessler, former executive at Ignited, a leading advertising outfit that has long served the games industry, as creative director. Kessler joins Artifact as part of a focus to bring the studio’s signature documentary-hybrid and reality-based promotional media to the games industry.
“Games are about entering a complete world and people are always fascinated by the notion that there is an element of truth or reality to that world,” David Grabias, founder, Artifact Studios, said. “While we’ve had a lot of success using documentary techniques to market the reality-based elements of movies, we feel Brian’s talent and experience with games brings a whole new level of creativity, visual aesthetics and energy to our work.”
Kessler comes to Artifact from Los Angeles ad agency Ignited, where he served for more than five years as Creative Director, supervising all motion picture and sound projects. His clients while at Ignited included Activision, Bandai Namco, EA, Gametap, Nike, NBC Universal, Sega, Sony and the US Army. Kessler also orchestrated same-day video coverage of E3 for Sony PlayStation Underground.
As part of the company’s growth, Artifact has recently relocated to larger offices in Hollywood, Calif., anchoring its full-service production and post production shop in the entertainment capital of the world.
Artifact Studios was founded in 2001 to channel the expertise of documentary filmmakers into creating marketing-driven news stories, documentary-hybrid television specials, viral web video and other reality-based promotional media for the entertainment industry, including EPKs and behind-the-scenes featurettes. Artifact is credited with being one of the early pioneers of “documarketing” movies to a mainstream audience, significantly boosting box office results for hits such as Sony’s UNDERWORLD franchise, THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE, and STOMP THE YARD.
In recent years, Artifact has expanded its production services to the videogame industry, creating media for clients such as Activision, Ubisoft, America’s Army, and Microsoft.
Artifact continues to produce documentaries for broadcast on networks such as A&E, AMC, Discovery, FX, PBS, and National Geographic, and just received their second Emmy nomination for the PBS special SENTENCED HOME.
For more information about Artifact Studios, visit www.artifactLA.com.
