People on the Move

Catherine Nieves has joined enso as a sr. digital producer. In her role, Nieves will help create innovative solutions for enso’s clients that will inspire, engage and activate audiences online and spark cultural movements around shared values.

Nieves will oversee digital across all of enso’s clients, with her largest account being Google. The most recent launch is Google News Lab, a destination that aims to connect journalists with programs, data and other resources to aid in their reporting and is, according to Business Insider, Google’s commitment to “build the future of media.” Nieves will report directly to Carla Fernandez, enso general manager.

Prior to enso, Nieves served as a sr. digital producer at Havas Worldwide where she worked on the Hershey’s, Mondelez, Atlantic City, and Reckitt Benckiser accounts. Prior to Havas, she worked at Huge, LA and Blitz in Santa Monica producing websites, apps and social campaigns for clients such as VIZIO, Riot Games, Oakley, and Tempurpedic.

Nieves’ appointment marks a successful year of agency growth within enso’s leadership team to build out a diverse roster of talent in core disciplines, specifically innovation, brand impact and creative. The company recently increased its leadership team headcount, including the appointment of Niklas Lilja as innovation lead, Shelley Ong as brand impact lead, and most recently, Kendra Wan as sr. creative.

Oscar-winning studio Framestore has brought Resh Sidhu aboard as creative director of its Virtual Reality Studio. In her new role, Sidhu will report directly to Christine Cattano, who was recently promoted to executive producer of the VR Studio. She will use creative direction, storytelling and conceptual ideation to help lead the growing VR team in creating groundbreaking work for clients.

Framestore’s VR studio opened its doors in April of last year. Since then, Framestore has broken new VR ground, initially with the massive success of the “Ascend the Wall” activation for HBO’s Game of Thrones at SXSWi, and then with nearly a dozen pioneering projects for brands across Oculus Rift, Google Cardboard, and Samsung Gear VR. Other highlights have included Merrell’s “Trailscape,” billed as being the first-ever commercial “walk around” use of virtual reality; a zero-gravity tour of the spaceship in Interstellar; “The Teleporter” for Marriott Hotels; the “Volvo Reality” app to test-drive the auto brand’s XC90 vehicle; and the recent Avengers experience for the new Samsung Gear VR.

“We have grown so much since we opened the VR studio last year, and expanding our team is essential for us to further the possibilities for our upcoming projects,” said Cattano. “Resh has a one of a kind skillset and high caliber experience in creating seamless visual work for a variety of clients. Over the next year, we’re focusing on brokering new partnerships with some of the most anticipated VR platforms in the industry. With that will also come opportunities for creating proprietary VR content--pushing the boundaries of what the industry thinks we’re capable of. Adding Resh to the team was vital as we continue to be a pioneering force in virtual reality.”

Prior to Framestore, Sidhu was a creative director at AKQA London, where she lead multi-disciplinary teams serving clients like Xbox, Nivea, M&S, Nissan Global & Nissan Europe, Infiniti, Kraft Mondelez and Beiersdorf. Sidhu’s most recent work includes the award-winning Nissan IDx experience featuring the world’s debut of Oculus VR technology. Sidhu is also the founder of Virtual Realms, an online blog and community that centers on developing VR creative technologies and innovations.

Design director Leo Nguyen has joined creative studio Carbon VFX. His skillset spans art direction, illustration, 3D, motion graphics and editing. Prior to Carbon VFX, he spent two years at Light of Day as design director and eventually, creative director. 

Nguyen has applied his talents to everything from branding to commercials, short films, music videos and broadcast promos. Recently he completed a manifesto for Royal Canin pet food, and the animated Christmas short Window Washer for DDB NY, as well as “The Big Picture,” a collection of shorts scored by acclaimed jazz musician David Krakauer. Nguyen also directed a series of broadcast promos for the 54th and 55th Grammys and Australia’s Next Top Model.

Over his design career, Nguyen has been honored with five PromaxBDA Awards: one International Rocket Award for Best Up-and-Coming Broadcast Designer and four for his design work on hit Australian TV shows Cricket Superstar and Slide. As a director, his short film Paper Boats & Paper Planes was also an official selection at the Sydney International Film Festival in 2010.

Shannon Lords has joined Humble as executive producer in Los Angeles. Lords comes over from Warpaint, Morgan Spurlock’s commercial production company, where she served as managing director and executive producer. She is the newest addition to Humble’s growing Los Angeles office, alongside EP Dawn Fanning Moore, and brings a wealth of experience and strong bicoastal ties to the company.

A seasoned production veteran, Lords has worked with dozens of commercial, documentary, and feature directors to develop commercials and branded content for top international brands. Prior to Warpaint, which she helped launch in 2012, Lords spent over a decade as a freelance producer for both feature and commercial projects, working with directors ranging from Barry Levinson and Spike Lee to Noam Murro and Joe Pytka. Over the years Lords has collaborated with many of the top commercial production companies and ad agencies in both New York and Los Angeles, and has delivered work for clients including Apple, Volkswagen, ESPN, Heineken, Coca-Cola, Mercedes, and McDonald’s.

Humble is a bicoastal integrated content studio created in 2006 by founder and president Eric Berkowitz. With sister company Postal, Humble offers full concept-to-completion creative resources, from live action production to full editorial, visual effects, CG, design and postproduction.