Thelonious Brooks and Kai Regan have launched Afterhrs., a content studio based in Los Angeles. Longtime friends, collaborators and now partners, Brooks and Regan--producer and director, respectively--came of age with the street scene in New York, the ingenuity and artfulness of which permeated and informed their work in various genres: branded content, music videos, films, and multimedia experiences. Among them, the award-winning features We Are Not Cats directed by Xander Robin, and director Jim Hosking’s The Greasy Strangler. Last year, Brooks and Regan’s pilot These Days, produced with Peter Saraf and Big Beach, was featured in the Indie series section of Sundance. Brooks also produced the pilot presentation for Starz’ widely celebrated Vida also for Big Beach. Regan was a founding partner of Alldayeveryday and has directed advertising projects for many brands and agencies; Brooks was sr. producer for Gloria Content and EP of my his service company, Behemoth Production. He has also been a line producer for such directors as Jeremy Saulnier, Diego Luna and Rodrigo Valdes. Over the years, Brooks and Regan found a calling in the curation of artist development; inclusive and diverse storytelling talent. Among the many artists with whom Afterhrs. is collaborating on a nonexclusive basis (affording the studio with the flexibility to match the right storyteller to select narrative projects) are Sunbeam (aka Dean Fleischer-Camp and Nick Paley, whose upcoming live action and animated film Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is being released through A24), writer/director Maegan Houang (Counterpart, Three Busy Debras), writer/director Harry Israelson, photographer, curator and filmmaker Manon Macasaet, Australian documentary and commercial director Selina Miles, visionary photographer Jason Al Taan, director Petra Collins, Hans Emanuel and Nick Cammilieri. The company launches with two national campaigns--Starbucks directed by Collins in collaboration with the Scholar animation team, and Icyhot directed by Emanuel and supported by UPP VFX. Brooks and Regan are in development on the feature debut of Cammilieri, whose docu series Lady and The Dale premiered on HBO Max and was recently nominated for Independent Spirit and GLAAD awards. The film will go into production at the end of this year. Afterhrs. Is represented by Devine Reps for advertising and branded content projects on both coasts....

Tampa, Fla.-based ad agency PPK has hired creative director David Smail, who is joining its creative team of 19 and reporting to executive creative director Paul Prato. Smail will be leading creative work for Bridgestone Retail Operations at PPK, a legacy client who has been with the agency for 14 years. Having spent his entire career in the advertising industry, Smail brings with him a wealth of expertise from his time as a freelancer, the founder and owner of a BBDO office in Vietnam, an advertising professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder and more. He has worked on projects with a wide variety of brands throughout his career, including PepsiCo, Nike, Twitter, Dove, Harley Davidson, Jim Beam, Kodak and FedEx....