Director Elizabeth Orne has signed with bicoastal The Famous Group for spots and branded content. Her reel includes spots for French’s, IROBOT and Coors. Back in 2011, Orne’s short film titled Crazy Glue landed her a slot in SHOOT’s New Directors Showcase. Orne has already wrapped her first project at The Famous Group, a spot for Hasbro and agency Townhouse….
Havas Group has acquired UK-based life communications agency SO What Global, which will join the Havas Health & You business unit as Havas SO. The brand’s two complementary agencies, SO Healthy and SO Active, will bring synergies of philosophy and service offerings to the Havas Group agency roster, via its full spectrum of science- and consumer-focused communication skill-sets for global clients. As part of this deal, the existing Havas Group agency Health for Brands London (H4B London) will become part of the Havas SO Group, with the expanded group offering the full range of services from PR to creative and digital. With a focus on “life communications”–namely health, well-being and lifestyle-SO What Global currently works with many of the top pharma, consumer lifestyle and wellness companies as well as global associations. Along with its client roster, the agency will bring and further evolve its proprietary mapping and development framework, called RelationSHIFT, which helps define where clients are in terms of reputation and then creates a tailored pathway that moves them closer to the relationships that matter with key stakeholders. Following the acquisition, the management team of Scott A. Clark and Oliver Parsons–SO’s co-founders and managing partners–will continue to head up the team of health, well-being and lifestyle comms professionals. Clark and Parsons will report to Donna Murphy, CEO of Havas Health & You, and will work closely with European senior leaders for day-to-day operations.
Boutique production house and mixed media specialist Sedona Productions has opened its doors in Sydney, Australia. Sedona is the brainchild of former Exit Films managing director and award winning producer Kim Wildenburg. With a career spanning over 19 years working in Australia and the United States, Wildenburg has experience delivering across live action, design, post production and emerging technologies. Her most recently produced project, an interactive experiential campaign for Google, titled “Through the Dark,” has won 28 awards to date, including seven Cannes Lions, D&AD, AWARD, ADC/One Club, FWA and Webby awards. Sedona’s roster includes award winning commercial and interactive studio Nexus Studios, Sydney based directors, illustrators and animators of finely crafted stories Mighty Nice, Gentleman Scholar, who fuses story, style, technology and design. Also on board is Assembly, an innovative team of directors, artists, engineers, designers and animators based out of Auckland, NZ; Mill+, an integrated team of directors and designers, Melbourne-based design and animation directors XYZ Studios; Quad Productions' sister design, animation and direction company WIZZ; automotive specialists and directing collective Carnage; indie visual director Paul Mitchell; and Blacklist directors Cisma and Terry Hall….
