RECENT HIRINGS THROUGHOUT THE INDUSTRY
Beast Editorial in Chicago has appointed Melissa Thornley executive
producer. She brings experience in both the creative and business sides
of the industry. Previously, Thornley ran her own sales and
representation company, and offered independent corporate coaching.
Prior to that, she spent 12 years with The Whitehouse Post, where she
served as managing director of all four of the company's offices.
Alan Ett Create Group (AECG) in Los Angeles has appointed Charley
Brooks vice president of marketing, in charge of coordinating,
streamlining and enhancing all of the marketing efforts for AECG
companies. AECG offers music composition, scoring, audio post, catalog
administration and television production. Its companies include the
Opus 1 Music Library and Media City Sound.
Brooks is a seasoned film production executive and brand strategist.
She formerly served as the West Coast rep for career development &
industry relations for McNally Smith College of Music. She was also an
executive at boutique subtitling studio Visual Sound. And as an
in-house production manager at Live Entertainment, Brooks was part of a
four-person physical production department responsible for shepherding
no less 25 feature films and direct-to-video projects.
Digital Vision, based in London, has named Michael Freudenthal CEO. He
assumes the role in December, and Klas Åström, who’s been instrumental
in driving the company forward over the last 12 months, will remain
on-board as CFO.
Freudenthal comes from the technology sector and will lead the company
from its headquarters in Stockholm. He recently held the position of VP
and COO at IQUBE. He was also CEO of mobile technology group Mobyson,
group managing director of Letsbuyit.com, COO and VP of AcadeMedia and
managing director and co-owner of Lighthouse Software.
Hollywood’s Prime Focus has named Mark Intravartolo creative director
for North America. He will drive the company's efforts to expand its
services, team, and client base in television visual effects.
Intravartolo is a veteran visual effects artist and editor. He joins
Prime Focus from Modern VideoFilm, where he contributed effects to Grey Gardens, John Adams, Taking Chance, Max Payne, and Tropic Thunder.
He also worked on nine seasons of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. His
work has garnered an Emmy Award and three Emmy nominations.
LA-based VFX/digital production house Zoic Studios has named Erik Press
executive producer. He was formerly an EP for CBS Digital, producing
VFX for mini-series and episodic television, including the re-mastered
effects for Star Trek: The Original Series.
His career includes time at Beau Studio, where, as an EP, he was
responsible for producing animation for the famous lizards of Sobe and
Lifewater. Press is active in producing Zoic's Salon Series and is a
member of the Visual Effects Society.
AvatarLabs in Encino, CA, has named Michelle Naden director of
strategic initiatives. She will be responsible for enhancing
AvatarLabs’ marketing and business development activities.
Naden was previously an account director for interactive marketing at
LA’s Crew Creative, where she helped conceive, pitch and execute
digital marketing campaigns that involved Websites, games, banners,
widgets, social networking applications, mobile applications and
editorial outreach. From 2005-07, she was a sales executive at
Pointroll, where she brought in and oversaw online rich media campaigns
in film, DVD, music, television, and automotive categories. Her career
also includes time with Kaleidoscope Creative Group and Paramount
Pictures.
San Francisco’s Little Red Robot, which provides direction, live-action
production, and post/VFX services, has added producer Joseph Segrove to
its team. He comes to the studio from Attik, where he served as head of
production, managing TV, cinema and Web spots for clients such as
Scion, Lexus, The NFL, Boost Mobile, Adobe Systems, AOL and Sony
Computer Entertainment America. In his new role, he will manage all
live-action production and run LRR's in-house post and VFX team.
Visual effects company Ntropic, with offices in LA and San Francisco,
has added creative director/VFX supervisor Simon Mowbray to its team.
Formerly the co-founder of Radium, Mowbray freelanced at Ntropic on
projects for Sprint, Coinstar and Oracle before making the studio his
official home.
Mowbray began his career in Australia, working at several CG and design
studios in the early days of CG and compositing. He moved to Montreal
in 1991 to work as a product specialist for Softimage, and then helped
start Discreet Logic with four other founders in 1992. He then moved to
Western Images in San Francisco, where he worked as an Inferno artist.
In 1996 he and Jonathan Keeton started VFX company Radium, where he
served as VP, creative director, designer, Inferno & CG artist. In
2007, they sold Radium to Reel FX, and he became freelance after the
company closed its San Francisco office.
Trailer Park’s advanced content group in Hollywood has melded its
Blu-ray and DVD business sectors by naming Suzanne Kamenir-Pedersen VP
of interactive content. She was recently an executive producer and
director for the Universal Studios Home Entertainment account within
the creative services department of Deluxe Digital Studios. Her career
also includes serving as director, creative services, Blu-ray, for
Universal Studios Home Entertainment, and head of motion graphics for
The Ant Farm. Earlier in her career, she held several posts within
Pittard Sullivan.
VFX supervisor/Flame artist/creative director/digital artist Randy
Gackstetter has joined Volt Studios in Minneapolis, MN. Gackstetter has
degrees in fine arts and computer graphics, and first worked at WCCO
TV. He then co-founded Pixel Farm, where he expanded into commercial,
music videos and creative explorations with agencies and directors. He
is known for his work on Target’s iconic red and white campaigns, and
has also contributed to projects for National Geographic, Porsche and
Discovery. His new room at Volt is a combination art studio, lounge and
an insert stage.
Editor Mike Coletta has joined the bi-coastal Nomad Editing. He was
most recently at 89 Editorial. Coletta is known for his work on
story-driven projects with a comedic flair, and has a passion for
shaping the narrative.
His entry into editing came at Lookinglass, which is now the Whitehouse, where he worked on one of the first Avid nonlinear editing
systems. He later moved his family to New York and joined Bug, where he
worked for three years before heading to 89 Editorial. At 89 Editorial
he contributed to numerous high profile spots and campaigns, including
the True Blood commercial promo series and Purity Organics’ Tirade.
Other national spots included work for Volkswagen, MasterCard,
Listerine, Verizon Wireless and Motorola.