People on the Move

Production and entertainment company Alldayeveryday has added Renee Krumweide to its management team, hiring her as executive producer to head up the commercial division. The move comes on the heels of John Kaplan joining the company as partner and president.

Krumweide comes to Alldayeveryday with two decades of experience building connections and businesses across the advertising and entertainment industries and a reputation as a thoughtful matchmaker of today’s best creative talent. In 2012, she joined forces with Raquel Elfassi to form R&D Placement, a talent management company born from a desire to nurture and progress directorial talent. During her time at R&D, Krumweide also developed and produced a slate of documentaries, films and episodic content, including the Go90 docuseries Why We Fight.

Prior to R&D, Krumweide was part of the team at Resource LA, representing a roster of companies including Biscuit, The Directors Bureau, Spot Welders, and Serial Pictures. There, she worked with directors such as Noam Murro, Mike Mills, Roman Coppola and Tim Godsall.

Krumweide will be based in Allday’s LA Arts District office, where her focus will be developing and managing talent for both advertising and entertainment projects in a collaborative environment. Alldayeveryday is already off to a strong 2018, having produced work for clients including Nike, Beats, Nest, Puma, as well as upcoming film projects for HBO and Viceland.

Digital content creation studio yU+co has added Robert Checchi, the award-winning former sr. exhibition designer for the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, as its new director of museum and special projects.

Checchi joins yU+co following 12 years at The Getty where he oversaw both temporary and permanent collection exhibition development, design, fabrication and installation at one of the world’s most acclaimed cultural institutions.

“This year marks yU+co’s 20th year in business, and one of the reasons I think we’ve had such a long run of success has been our ability to diversify and experiment,” company founder and creative director Garson Yu said. “Whether it’s in our strategic thinking and story-telling, the technology we use or seeking out opportunities beyond film and television, we’ve always been willing to try new things.” 

For Checchi, the move to join yU+co comes on the heels on the successful collaboration between the two on the “Cave Temples of Dunhuang: Buddhist Art on China’s Silk Road” exhibit, which featured a 3D immersive experience of the interior of one of the caves. The exhibit received several prestigious awards including a 2017 AAM Excellence in Exhibitions/Special Achievement Award, and a 2107 Gold Muse Award in the Multimedia Installations Competition.

“yU+co created the 3D immersive experience and produced the videos that accompanied the exhibit, and I got to see up close just how talented they were and the attention to detail they bring to their work,” Checchi says. “I was impressed. I had been looking to get more involved in the digital side of museum/exhibition design, and thought with my understanding of exhibit design and how major cultural institutions operate overall, coupled with yU+co’s creative design brilliance, we offered a potent combination of skills for today’s museums, cultural and educational institutions, and beyond.”

Checchi notes that as the technology has advanced, so has audiences’ demand for more immersive types of learning experiences that enhance the understanding of today’s exhibits.

“For a long time museums were resistant to putting anything digital next to their art,” Checchi said, “but that mindset is changing as more and more major museums are looking to enhance exhibits with interactive, immersive experiences that engage audiences and offer a deeper understanding of the subject.”

Decades Of Experience:
In the case of The Getty’s “Cave Temples of Dunhuang: Buddhist Art on China’s Silk Road,” yU+co created a 3D experience in which viewers entered a digital replica of one of the cave temples resplendent in art and sculpture that seemed to hang right in front of them. In addition, yU+co’s original video content offered further details about the art. 

Checchi brings over two decades of experience working in the art world. He began his career in 1993 as a designer at Statue of Liberty Monument/Ellis Island in New York. From there he embarked on a successful freelance career where he worked with such Los Angeles-based institutions as the Italian American Museum, Norton Simon Museum and the Skirball Center before joining The Getty in 2006.

At the Getty he was lead designer for such landmark exhibitions as “Drawings by Rembrandt and His Pupils: Telling the Difference”; “Leonardo da Vinci and the Art of Sculpture: Inspiration and Invention”; “Josef Koudelka: Nationality Doubtful” (winner of the 2015 Lucie Award for Exhibition of the Year); and the recent “Golden Kingdoms: Luxury and Legacy in the Ancient Americas,” the flagship exhibition for the Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA citywide initiative.

Carol Wong, yU+co VP/executive producer, added that many museums, exhibitions, educational institutions, live events, brands and retail spaces are looking to partner with smart, conceptual studios like yU+co that can use not only their design and CG skills, but also their visual storytelling talents to create something truly memorable for viewers.

“With our design skills and creative use of technology, coupled with Robert’s deep understanding of the museum world, yU+co is well positioned to help today’s cultural institutions find innovative ways to educate and engage audiences,”  said Wong.

Annabel Bennett has come aboard Whitehouse Post as executive producer of its London office. Her experience includes more than a decade as an agency producer for JWT, TBWA, Publicis and Leo Burnett. In more recent years, she brought her talents to VFX working at both CherryCherry and MPC. 

“Having been an agency producer as well as a VFX producer, I feel lucky to have been a part of both sides of the process,” she said. “Joining the Whitehouse as EP, I feel I already have an overall understanding of the industry and clients, which affords me the ability to jump right in with this new role.”

During her career, Bennett produced work for brands including McDonald’s, L’Oréal, Rimmel, HSBC, and Vodafone. Her first contact with Whitehouse was as a client, where she experienced its editorial roster first hand. “Looking at the roster, the talent is so strong and it feels like such an exciting time to grow and develop the editor’s work and expand their client bases,” said Bennett. In addition to working with the editors, Bennett will focus on creating the best possible experience for clients.

Director and visual artist Shane Griffin has joined Los York as a partner and the global creative director of Los York Studio. Griffin will lead Los York Studio from the New York office, collaborating with both agencies and brands, fostering a collective of artists and multi-disciplinarians to create notable content.

Los York Studio is the mixed-media design and production division of a larger family of enterprises that includes Los York Label, Los York Ideation, Los York Entertainment, and Los York Films, where Griffin is represented as a director.

Griffin has directed films for Apple, Google, Microsoft, Ford, and Adidas, and his work spans a broad range of disciplines from animation and live action, to sculpture and CGI. He has worked with Los York before, including on Apple’s “Let Your Red Out” spot.

Griffin comes to Los York after serving as creative director at VFX house Method Studios, head of motion design at ManvsMachine, and founding partner of creative studio and artist representation agency Sunday Afternoon, based in New York City. He is joined in Los York Studio’s New York office by Garrett Braren, who was recently brought on as executive producer, following stints at 1stAveMachine and Laundry. Los York sr. EP Santino Sladavic will help Griffin lead Los York Studio.