It must be the summer sun: moves galore this week at Plunge, Not To Scale, Space Programme, One Small Step, Rokkit, The Joneses, The Mob, Euro RSCG Worldwide, Fallon Minneapolis, Modernista!, Baraka Post Production, Absolute Post, San Francisco Editorial, Rival Editorial, Concrete, Cut + Run New York and Crush. Phew.
NotToScale has signed director Stefan Nadelman for the UK. His short Terminal Bar - a story told in photos about one of New York's lesser known watering holes - won the Sundance short film jury prize in 2003 as well as the RESfest Audience Award. He is working on his latest film for RESfest, an abridged history of war featuring food and called, naturally, Food Fight.
Plunge Films has signed veteran director John O'Driscoll for commercials. O'Driscoll joins from Paul Weiland Film, where he has been for 23 years, before which he had a successful career as an award-winning art director. He is shooting his first commercial with Plunge for Which? with Watson Phillips Norman next week.
Production company Space Programme has signed directors Frank Samuel and Michael Shapiro, who join from the now closed Headquarters and Go Film respectively. Samuel has shot for Mars, Fox Sports, the Oakland A's and M&M's while Shapiro's credits include commercials work for Nike, New Balance and Guess Jeans and latterly Morgan Stanley and Speedo.
One Small Step has signed director Eugene Riecansky. Riecansky founded Rockstar Web-design seven years ago and has designed online promotional material for The Prodigy, Paul Oakenfold, Madonna, Vivienne Westwood, Green Day and Sugababes. He started directing last year and has shot four videos, most recently for Clear Static's tune Make Up Sex. The company has also moved to new premises: 30 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DA. And lastly director Monkmus (signed to Hornet in the US) has recently completed this Mogwai video, Travel Is Dangerous:
http://media2.7digital.com/motion/Mogwai_Travel_Is_Dangerous_High.mov
Rokkit has signed new directing team Three Legged Legs, better known as Greg Gunn, Casey Hunt and Reza Rasoli, for the UK and Europe. The three, who graduated from Otis College of Art and Design in the US last month, have shot live-action/animation shorts Los Angeles Let's Be Friends, Ricochet and Humans. They are signed to Green Dot in the US.
Director Rich Newey has signed with bi-coastal The Joneses for exclusive representation in commercials. Newey is best known as a director of music videos for artists including Christina Aguilera, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and Nappy Roots, but he has recently shot commercials for Midway Games and the DeVry University.
The Mob film company has taken on Jason Fischer Jones. Jones joins from Razorfish New York where he directed work for German broadcaster ZDF, Showtime, VH1, Directv and the Oxygen network.
Euro RSCG Worldwide has appointed Jonathan Sanchez as chief communications officer. Sanchez is currently the joint managing director of Euro RSCG Biss Lancaster based in London. His new role means he will be relocated to New York where he will report to David Jones.
Fallon Minneapolis has hired two new group creative directors, Swedish brothers Calle and Pelle Sjonell. The Sjonell brothers come to Fallon from two of Sweden's top agencies. Pelle was creative director, co-founder and CEO of KING. Calle leaves his post as creative director at Starring (formerly known as Moonwalk), an interactive marketing agency in Stockholm, which he co-founded in 1996. Despite working at separate agencies, they have collaborated on several projects over the last couple of years.
Two senior hirings at Modernista! Dave Weist joins the company as creative director from Arnold Worldwide, where he led the VW Drivers Wanted campaign. Chris Jensen has rejoined Modernista! as group account director for the recently won Cadillac account. Jensen had left the agency a year ago become president of Nail Communications.
Baraka Post Production has taken on Matt Hall, formerly blue's head of offline. Hall boasts award-winning credits across the whole range of editing disciplines including commercials, broadcast television and corporate communications for clients such as Red Bee, Channel Five, TBWA, Commercials Unlimited and Publicis.
Richard Nelson has joined Absolute Post as 3D FX supervisor. Nelson joins from MPC, where he worked on Dougal Wilson's Vodafone and Pleix's Audi spots as well as Jonathan Glazer's Massive Attack promos, amongst others.
San Francisco Editorial company Umlaut has added designer/motion Graphics artist Ivan Miller to its roster. Miller will also handle all finishing, compositing and visual effects work, and has already contributed to campaigns for Comcast, Scion, 24 Hour Fitness and Saturn.
Rival Editorial has hired editor Karen Knowles. She joins editors Adrienne Gits and Steve MacCorkle along with executive producer Bill Fortney. The team has collaborated with agencies such as Element 79, TBWA/Chiat Day and Goodby/SF on projects with noted directors including Bryan Buckley, Joe Pytka, Spike Jonze, Sam Bayer and Wayne Isham.
Concrete Pictures has appointed Brian Black as vice president of interactive media. Prior to joining Concrete Pictures, Black was founder and creative director of Black Light Design, a design and production company specialising in communication solutions for film, television and interactive media. Most recently, Black worked with DIRECTV, as the company's consulting creative director for its advance products group.
Cut + Run New York has added editor Adam Jenkins to its staff. Before Cut + Run Jenkins had a four-year stint at Final Cut London where he worked with award-winning directors Mehdi Norowzian, Traktor, Mathias Hoene and Daniel Barber.
Toronto-based design/motion graphics company Crush has added Yoho Yue to its design roster. Yue was previously a senior designer at Canadian kids' channel YTV, and prior to that ran his own ad agency in Guangzhou, China.
