MADE-SF, a creative studio offering editorial and other services, has launched in San Francisco. Executive producer Jon Ettinger, editor/director Doug Walker, and editors Brian Lagerhausen and Connor McDonald, all formerly of Beast Editorial, are partners in the new venture, which aims to provide agencies and brands with flexible, streamlined solutions for producing advertising and other content. Along with creative editorial, the company will provide motion graphic design, color correction and editorial finishing. Eventually, it plans to add concept development, directing and production to its mix.
MADE’s partners are drawing on their editorial expertise to build a platform that will give them the flexibility to work across many media, tailor services to individual projects, and provide the turnkey solutions that advertising clients are seeking. “Clients today are looking for creative partners who can help them across the entire production chain,” said Ettinger. “They need to tell stories and they have limited budgets available to tell them. We know how to do both, and we are gathering the resources to do so under one roof.”
MADE’s launch is also motivated by the partners’ desire to broaden their creative horizons. “It gives us a structure where we can form strategic alliances and collaborate with each other and with outside creatives,” noted Walker. “It’s a chance to apply our skills in new ways and create interesting content.”
MADE is currently set up in interim quarters while completing construction of permanent studio space. The latter will be housed in century-old structure in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood and will feature five editorial suites, two motion graphics suites, and two post-production finishing suites with room for further expansion.
The four MADE partners bring deep experience in traditional advertising and branded content, working both with agencies and directly with clients. Ettinger and Walker have worked together for more than 20 years and originally teamed up to launch FilmCore, San Francisco. Both joined Beast Editorial in 2012. Similarly, Lagerhausen and McDonald have been editing in the Bay Area for more than two decades. Collectively, their credits include work for top agencies in San Francisco and nationwide. They’ve also helped to create content directly for Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Salesforce and other corporate clients. “We have deep roots in the Bay Area and strong client relationships,” said Lagerhausen. “We look forward to, not just maintaining those relationships, but deepening them and exploring them in new directions.”
MADE is indicative of a trend where companies engaged in content development are adopting fluid business models to address a diversifying media landscapes, and where individual talent are no longer confined to a single job title. Walker, for example, has recently served as director on several projects, including a series of short films for Kelly Services, conceived by agency Erich & Kallman and produced by Caruso Co.
“People used to go to great pains to make a distinction about what they do,” Ettinger observed. “You were a director or an editor or a colorist. Today, those lines have blurred. We are taking advantage of that flattening out to offer clients a better way to create content.”
6 people accuse Diddy of sexual assault in new lawsuits, including man who was 16 at the time
Sean "Diddy" Combs was hit Monday with a new wave of lawsuits accusing him of raping women, sexually assaulting men and molesting a 16-year-old boy — the first time he's been sued by a person alleging they were abused as a minor.
At least six lawsuits were filed against Combs in federal court in Manhattan, adding to a growing list of legal claims against the indicted hip-hop mogul, all of which he has denied. The lawsuits were filed anonymously to protect the identities of the accusers, two by women identified as Jane Does and four by men identified as John Does.
Some of the Does, echoing others who've accused Combs in recent months, allege that he used his fame and the promise of potential stardom to entice victims to lavish parties or drug-fueled hangouts where he then assaulted them. Some allege that he beat or drugged them. Others say he threatened to kill them if they didn't do as he pleased or if they spoke out against him.
The lawsuits describe alleged assaults dating to the mid-1990s, including at Combs' celebrity-studded white parties in Long Island's Hamptons, at a party in Brooklyn celebrating Combs' then-collaborator Biggie Smalls, and even in the storeroom at Macy's flagship department store in midtown Manhattan.
The plaintiffs in Monday's lawsuits are part of what their lawyers say is a group of more than 100 alleged victims who are in the process of taking legal action following Combs' Sept. 16 arrest on federal racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges. The lawsuits are among more than a dozen in the last year that accuse Combs of sexual assault.
Messages seeking comment were left for Combs' lawyers and other representatives. When the planned lawsuits were announced Oct. 1, a lawyer for Combs said the... Read More