ka-chew!, the commercial production company owned by Gabor Csupo and Arlene Klasky, owners of multi Emmy Award winning creative giant Klasky Csupo, Inc., is currently celebrating its 10 successful years with the significant expansion of its directorial roster.
The announcement was made by John Andrews, Senior Vice President of Klasky Csupo and EP/Creative Director of ka-chew!, who joined the division as Executive Producer on February 1st, 1998. ka-chew!’s animation work can currently be seen in the careerbuilder.com “Firefly’ spot, which debuted in the Super Bowl, and in several currently airing spots for Mucinex and for Campbell’s Soups.
Says Andrews “I’ve had a great run so far under Gabor and Arlene who have really let me have a free hand to develop and market this roster, which reflects the love all of us feel for the diversity of styles and techniques in the fields of animation, design and live action.”
ka-chew!’s expanded roster features a number of new directors and directing teams available for future work. ka-chew! specialties include CGI, 2D, stop motion, motion design and live action combo. The company has also announced its updated Rep Roster. The reps are: West Coast — Lisa Schreiber, Midwest — Doug Stephen, East Coast — Schaffer Rogers, and South — Ann Asprodites.
ABOUT NEW ka-chew! DIRECTORS:
The ka-chew! directorial is comprised of a combination of long-time
ka-chew! directors, and newer talent. Recent ka-chew! director and directorial team signings include:
** Six Point Harness – This character animation collective was started several years ago by two Cal Arts character graduates and now has an extensive resume in animation for TV series, most recently including” Where My Dogs At,” for MTV and “El Tigre” for Nickelodeon). Six Point’s biggest splash to date came with the notorious “Read a Book” PSA for BET which has enjoyed well over 2
million hits on YouTube. The company also animated the recent Annie award winning “Escape Average”; Powershares spot working under Acme Filmworks director Dave Wasson. Currently, they are in the midst of producing new animation through ka-chew! for a campaign promoting Sweet Peppers Deli for client Maris West & Baker, Jackson, Mississippi.
** Parallax Studio – The head of this company, Miles Flanagan, has been animating and directing TV titles for Klasky Csupo since 1997. He now heads his own studio which is signed for spot work with ka-chew! Flanagan’s direction on the long running, drawing-over-live action “Your Potential/Our Passion” campaign for Microsoft and cut-out animation for Visa were both widely recognized.
** David Russo — Russo is a Seattle based independent filmmaker,
whose award-winning film “I Am (Not) Van Gogh,” toured with Don Hertzfeldt and Mike Judge’s “The Animation Show.” Russo has also created original animation for the Thom Yorke video “Harrowdown Hill.” Recently, Russo animated a commercial campaign for “Captain D’s Seafood Restaurants” through his affiliation with ka-chew!
** Paul Cummings and Tony Fiandaca – This directing team are YouTube darlings, whose pixelated live-action fight film “Tony vs Paul” has received wide exposure and made them the topic of several TV profiles on web-based filmmaking. They also shot a hilarious series of shorts to promote last year’s Balls of Fury movie release and a tie-in with Butterfingers.
** Elliot M. Bour – Working under renowned international director Suthon Petchsuman (repped in the USA by TWC Films) Elliot directed animation for the 2008 Super Bowl careerbuilder.com spot “Firefly” (Wieden+Kennedy) Bour’s previous project, co-directed with Saul Blinkoff, was a five spot anti-smoking campaign entitled, “The Sunny Side Of Truth,” through Curious Pictures, part of the truth® campaign created by Arnold Worldwide and Crispin Porter + Bogusky. Bour also directed the direct-to-DVD feature, “Kronk’s New Groove” and the MTV animated series, “Spy Groove.”
** Liz Blazer — Blazer directed the award winning animated documentary “Backseat Bingo,” which was based on interviews with retirees about their sex lives. For ka-chew!, she has directed a web campaign to promote TV’s
“Bridezillas” and a series of animated shorts for Cartoon Network. Andrews hopes to sell Blazer’s warm and humane style of animated documentary to the advertising community.
** Carolle-Shelley Abrams — Abrams has created the animated character “Natalie the French Coquette.” Her shorts, including “Oola Oop L’eau de Ooh,” “Oola Oop Diner” and “Alien Dinner Theater,” have been widely seen on the animation festival circuit and are available on iTunes. Andrews says, “Carolle-Shelly’s unique style of illustration and quirky animation in Flash fit the current design zeitgeist perfectly, and I’m sure we will find an ad agency campaign to connect her with soon.”
In addition to the new directors cited above, ka-chew! recently signed vfx supervisor Lochlon Johnston,formerly of Zoic Studios, CG Supervisor Matt Rosenfeld, a veteran of the company’s Mucinex campaign and also from Zoic, and Senior Producer/Head of Production Michaela Zerbib, most recently of Nickelodeon’s Burbank studio.
The ka-chew! directorial roster is completed by these veterans who have been repped by ka-chew! for some time.
** Davy Force (“Tim & Eric Awesome Show,” Digimon)
** Bil White (MTV’s Punk’d, Easton Bats, Callaway Clubs,)
** Screen Novelties (Career Builders, Cartoon Network’s Chowder)
** Sam Cornell (Keebler)
** Sean Nadeau (KidzBop, Neopets)
** Nadia Roden (Beano)
** Tom Schroeder (Kashi)
** Paul Westergard (“Nip/Tuck”)
** Bonita Versh (“Bratz”)
** Kirby Dick (live action/documentary “This Film is Not Yet Rated”)
ka-chew! History:
ka-chew!’s work has included commercial spots from such major advertisers as Campbells, Kraft, and Mattel, title sequences for TV shows including “The Wayne Brady Show,” “The Simple Life,” “MTV’s Punk’d,” “Nip/Tuck,” “The Osbournes,” and “Kathy Griffin: Life on the D List,” and on-air design work for ABC, A&E, Discovery, ESPN, FOX, E!, MTV and Nicktoons.
John Andrews first received wide attention as the producer of the “Beavis & Butt-Head” TV series and feature film. He also supervised such other MTV series as “Aeon Flux” and “Daria.” Andrews joined Klasky Csupo in 1998 as part
of a revamping and expansion of the company’s “Special Projects” division. Originally branded as “class-key chew-po” (which served as a “pronunciation key” for clients unfamiliar with how to say the Hungarian “Csupo”), the name of that division later evolved to ka-chew!
Bringing his expertise in animation to Klasky Csupo from MTV, Andrews built ka-chew!’s directorial and production roster, regularly drawing upon in-house talent, smaller animation and production studios from in and around Los Angeles, the independent animation community and other unique creative talents from across the US.
ka-chew! is located at 1238 N. Highland Ave, Hollywood, CA, 90038. The phone is 323/468-3020. For more information, please see www.kachew.com
