Sergio Lopez promoted to head of production at agency
Matt MacDonald, executive creative director of JWT New York, and Ryan Kutscher, former creative director at CP+B, have been appointed co-chief creative officers of JWT NY. As co-CCOs, MacDonald, 36, and Kutscher, 33, will be responsible for driving the creative vision and output of JWT’s flagship New York office. They will report to Jeff Benjamin, CCO of JWT North America.
MacDonald, an executive creative director at JWT since 2010, joined the agency in 2003 as a copywriter. He has been behind some of the agency’s most famous work, including the “Welcome Bigwigs” campaign for JetBlue, “The Magic of Macy’s” and “Believe” campaigns for Macy’s and the Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange. He also co-wrote the Yes, Virginia animated Christmas special for Macy’s, which airs each December on CBS. Over the years, he has worked on a number of other blue-chip brands like Cadbury, De Beers, Ford, Johnson & Johnson, L.L. Bean and Rolex.
Kutscher began his advertising career at CP+B. He has received some of the industry’s most prestigious awards for programs like Burger King’s “Whopper Freakout,” Volkswagen’s “Unpimp” and Method’s “Come Clean.” He has also worked on brands like Harley-Davidson, Miller Lite, Climate Reality, Toyota, and Skittles. Kutscher left CP+B in 2009 to freelance as an independent creative director with some of the world’s top agencies on a wide array of clients. For the past several months he has been at JWT New York.
Additionally, JWT New York announced the promotion of Sergio Lopez to head of production. Previously, he served as director of content. Reporting to Mike Geiger, president, chief integration officer, JWT North America, Lopez, 35, will be responsible for ensuring the seamless integration of brand ideas across disciplines and agency departments.
Lopez joined JWT in 2009 as director of brand production for Diageo, Macy’s, Microsoft and Nestle. Prior to JWT, he worked as vice president, director of broadcast production at Cramer-Krasselt, where he produced work for clients like Corona, Heinz, Hyatt and Porsche. He previously worked for Leo Burnett in Chicago and Madrid, traveling around the world producing for clients such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Nintendo, P&G and Samsung.
Full Lineup Set For AFI Fest; Official Selections Span 44 Countries, Include 9 Best International Feature Oscar Submissions
The American Film Institute (AFI) has unveiled the full lineup for this year’s AFI Fest, taking place in Los Angeles from October 23-27. Rounding out the slate of already announced titles are such highlights as September 5 directed by Tim Fehlbaum, All We Imagine As Light directed by Payal Kapadia, The Luckiest Man in America directed by Samir Oliveros (AFI Class of 2019), Zurawski v. Texas from executive producers Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and Jennifer Lawrence and directors Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault, and Oh, Canada directed by Paul Schrader (AFI Class of 1969). A total of 158 films are set to screen at the 38th edition of AFI Fest.
Of the official selections, 48% are directed by women and non-binary filmmakers and 26% are directed by BIPOC filmmakers.
Additional festival highlights include documentaries Architecton directed by Victor Kossakovsky; Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie directed by David Bushell; Devo directed by Chris Smith about the legendary new wave provocateurs; Gaucho Gaucho directed by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw; Group Therapy directed by Neil Berkeley with Emmy® winner Neil Patrick Harris and Tig Notaro; No Other Land directed by a Palestinian-Israeli team comprised of Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor and Hamdan Ballal; Pavements directed by Alex Ross Perry; and Separated directed by Errol Morris. Notable narrative titles include Black Dog (Gou Zen) directed by Guan Hu; Bonjour Tristesse directed by Durga Chew-Bose with Academy Award® nominee Chloë Sevigny; Caught By The Tides directed by Jia Zhangke; Hard Truths directed by Mike Leigh with... Read More