Ottawa-based world indie animation studio Mercury Filmworks (Hilda, Child Cosmic, Rapunzel’s Tangled Journey) has appointed 20-year finance and operations veteran Julie Pandeya to the newly-created twin position of Chief Finance Officer & Chief Working Officer The announcement was made in the present day by Founder & CEO Clint Eland, to whom she experiences.
Pandeya will oversee Mercury Filmworks’ finance, enterprise and authorized, studio operations, expertise administration and manufacturing operations, working in live performance with the leaders of every of those divisions. The unique IP manufacturing enterprise, headed by Chief Content material Officer Heath Kenny, will proceed to report back to Eland. “It’s an especially thrilling time of evolution and progress at Mercury Filmworks, and I look ahead to working with Clint to execute on his visions for the studio and to work with the division heads to proceed the momentum of offering world class animation manufacturing providers to our companions, in addition to creating our personal distinctive unique IP,” mentioned Pandeya.
Pandeya joins Mercury Filmworks from Canada’s SHOEBOX Ltd. the place she served as CFO & COO main change to drive profitability. Previous to SHOEBOX, she held government and senior positions at IBM for 13 years, most just lately as their International GBS Transformation Chief. On this position, she supplied thought management and experience in IBM Companies Quote to Money transformation journey. Pandeya additionally served for seven years at Cognos as Director of Monetary Planning & Evaluation. She started her profession at Ernst & Younger in accounting and tax. She acquired a Bachelor of Commerce Diploma in accounting from Carleton
College.
VFX and animation studio DNEG (dneg.com) introduced that Daniel Jurow has been employed on as Chief Working Officer. Jurow, who brings greater than 20 years of artistic trade expertise to the position, will likely be based mostly out of DNEG’s London studio, reporting on to Chairman & CEO Namit Malhotra.
Jurow joins DNEG from Technicolor, the place he was COO of the corporate’s Movie and Episodic VFX division. Previous to this position, he spent over 15 years at world digital product and advertising and marketing company R/GA, the place he rose to the rank of EVP, International Head of Manufacturing, main greater than 200 producers. Throughout his time there, Jurow oversaw the launch of the revolutionary Nike+ product partnership between Nike and Apple in 2006, which led to R/GA being named ‘Digital Company of the Decade’ by Adweek. He additionally helped the company develop from a workers of 200 workers to greater than 2,000 throughout 17 world places of work by the point of his departure in 2019. He has additionally offered at quite a few worldwide occasions, together with the inaugural 4 As Digital Convention for Companies, Web & Cellular World, Innovation Summit, ArabNet Digital Summit and the Inventive Equals convention.
“I’ve lengthy admired DNEG’s give attention to its folks, uniting the enterprise in help of its extremely gifted artists, artistic technologists, manufacturing and help workers,” mentioned Jurow. “Because of this focus, DNEG has an incredible monitor report of leaping from energy to energy, delivering stunningly modern artistic work, navigating unprecedented trade shifts, and stewarding spectacular world progress. I really feel very privileged to affix Namit and his workforce as we usher within the subsequent sensible act of the DNEG story.”
Devdatta Potnis has determined to half firm from prime Indian animation studio Cosmos-Maya after a decade-long affiliation throughout which the studio went from energy to energy. “It has been a pleasure working with this unimaginable firm, Cosmos-Maya, and I thank the founders Ketan Mehta, Deepa Sahi and Anish Mehta who gave me the chance to develop this firm, plan its strategic course & take it to the stage the place it’s now India’s #1 animation studio,” mentioned Potnis. “I owe a variety of my skilled experience & growth to Cosmos-Maya and the workforce who will at all times be a particular for me, personally & professionally. I want all of them the very best for the long run.”
Presently the studio’s Chief Development Officer, Potnis joined the studio as head of gross sales in 2011 and was instrumental in getting the animation studio’s first home IP, Motu Patlu, off the bottom (the hit present is celebrating its tenth anniversary this yr). In 2015, he diversified the studio’s income streams by establishing one of many largest digital children’ networks globally, WowKidz, which has over 90 million subscribers worldwide throughout YouTube and Fb. Underneath Potnis, the studio went on has produced a large number of exhibits with main children’ broadcasters in India together with Nickelodeon, Disney, Cartoon Community, Sony and Discovery, and cemented bonds with all the important thing OTT gamers like Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Voot, Zee5 and Disney+ Hotstar amongst others.
Setting the studios’ sights on the worldwide market, Potnis set Cosmos-Maya on a structured progress path throughout Europe, Asia and North America, and have become the face of the animation studio globally. The studio grew from 30 folks to 1,200+ artists and secured non-public fairness funding, first with KKR-backed Emerald Media in 2018 after which with TPG affiliate NewQuest Capital Companions in 2021. The exec was a key architect in constructing the studio from producer of 1 Indian sequence in 2012 to a market management place in India with a reported valuation of over 90 million USD.
Digital manufacturing firm Not possible Objects (impossible-objects.co) has introduced hiring the multitalented VFX supervisor and business director Ruel Smith as Head of VFX and Animation. Smith brings greater than 15 years of expertise in movie, tv and digital manufacturing to the submit, and will likely be based mostly in Los Angeles. Ruel will likely be working alongside IO founders Joe Sill and Jerad Anderson in his new position, the place he hopes to construct out expanded groups together with a pipeline and inside infrastructure to help real-time VP workflows utilizing off-the-shelf and internally developed artistic instruments.
“I’m trying ahead to taking the lead on constructing a workforce and leaning on greatest practices from my expertise in each conventional visible results and the quickly evolving instruments methodologies in real-time manufacturing and in-camera visible results. Not possible Objects has an unimaginable portfolio of labor and really represents the state-of-the-art in digital manufacturing in the present day,” mentioned Ruel.
Ruel comes from a extra conventional VFX background, working at a few of the most prestigious studios within the trade. He started his profession at Digital Area, creating award-winning VFX for promoting and movie, at all times with a watch to the following evolution in manufacturing. His ardour for real-time filmmaking was sparked when he joined the digital manufacturing workforce for the award-winning Disney’s The Jungle E book (2016), which is taken into account a milestone movie showcasing the artistic potential of actual time. Ruel was additionally integral to the VFX groups for Flags of Our Fathers, Black Panther and Captain Marvel.
Extra Strikes
- DeAPlaneta Leisure (deaplanetaentertainment.com) welcomes Luisa Ramírez on board as Franchise Supervisor for the corporate’s in depth IP Portfolio. She as beforehand the Model Supervisor for Pocoyo (Zinkia Ent.) for over a decade.
- Digital Area (digitaldomain.com) has tapped tech veteran Hanno Basse (Microsoft Azure Media & Leisure, twentieth Century Fox Movie Corp, DirecTV) as its first Chief Expertise Officer.
- Ukrainian producer Oleksandra Kostina (The Tribe, Evge, Pamfir), the co-owner of stop-motion studio Completely satisfied Hippie Lab and founding father of prodco Bosonfilm, has been awarded the worldwide 2022 Academy Gold Fellowship for Ladies (€20,000 award). Stay-action filmmaker Karishma Dube received the U.S. prize ($35,000).
- Warner Bros. Discovery‘s GM for France, Benelux & Africa Pierre Branco laid out his new management workforce, efficient instantly:
- Romain Carbonne – Insights & Analysis
- Guillaume Coffin – Affiliate Gross sales, Advert Gross sales & Content material Licensing
- Yves Elalouf – House Leisure (Video, Video games & Digital) & Client Merchandise
- Tatiana Lagewaard – Content material & Programming for Common Leisure and Factual
- Stephane Queneudec – French Theatrical Native Manufacturing, reporting to Branco / Content material Licensing, reporting to Coffin
- Gregory Schuber – Group Advertising and marketing & PR (GE and Factual) / Content material Licensing, reporting to Gregory
- Olivier Snanoudj – Theatrical Distribution for France & Benelux