DUCK has sliced two birds with one stone, considerably escalating its presence in both the live-action and animation realms with the addition of versatile director Knife Party. The Sydney, Australia-based talent - also known as Simon Robson - will focus on ad campaigns, full-length feature films, and cause-based special projects.

jumP LA is delighted to announce the hiring of veteran editor Richard Cooperman. His recent work for L'Oreal, Lincoln and T-mobile, in collaboration with Jonas Akerlund and Emnet Mulugeta via top tier agencies, offers prime examples of the creative and technical spark he brings to jumP.

"We are so excited to continue building our LA office with a talent like Richard," noted jumP LA EP Betsy Beale. "He brings the exact combination of talent and experience that we were looking for to expand our roster."

On the heels of hiring Misha Louy as EP and Partner, Decon continues its steady ramp-up in the advertising space with the addition of Creative Director and Director Wyatt Neumann, who joins the studio from R/GA. Neumann brings a solid resume on both the production and agency sides of the business, with experience leading accounts for Verizon and shooting campaigns for clients like Nokia and Frontier Airlines (including Super Bowl spots). He has also contributed to countless campaigns for major brands, including work for HP, Nike, Ameriprise Financial, Microsoft, Adobe, Yahoo!, Virgin, Target and Starbucks.

On the left we have Tendril in Toronto, Canada, the director-driven workshop where designers and artists from diverse backgrounds craft visual experiences. They just joined the Blacklist family.

“We're delighted that Tendril had decided to join the Blacklist family,” says Andrew Linsk, Executive Producer, Blacklist. “They're an amazingly talented group of folks, and are quite perfect for capturing many of the high end design driven projects that we see on a regular basis. Also, because Tendril is based in Toronto, they are very accessible for agency collaboration in either New York or LA.”

Five hours ago I managed somehow to record Bob Knorp's the Beancast together with the excellent ad-critics Ken Wheaton ( @kenwheaton ), Managing Editor Ad Age, David Burn ( @davidburn ) Editor/Publisher of Adpulp and Bill Green ( @mtlb ), cofounder of Adverve Blog and Podcast.

Cliff notes: we hated the super bowl ads. So much that Bob had to delete all the "shit" we said. I'm sorry for being a pottymouth, Bob. My bad. I still reckon that Madonna won the super bowl.

I was on the Beancast last night, sans caffeine which apparently makes me extra sarcastic, in the episode called A picture with Guy. Yes, that was the Kodak moment. Had a grand old time with Natalie Zmuda, ( @nzmuda ) reporter at AdAge , Ian Sohn, Group Director at SVP ( @iansohn ) and Dave Haan, the Executive Director at the Creative Circus. We talked about Cause Marketing, crowd-sourced beer, The death of Kodak and Paula Deen's diabetes spin. All in all, a pretty chatty episode, tune in now via this link or subscribe via iTunes.

We've raised $1,287.15 for the $2,658.50 so far, but that's not even the best news here. The best news is that so many of you care enough to retweet and donate and post blog posts and tell your friends. I honestly wasn't expecting this much love, and I am humbled by it.

@Adfreak asked everyone to please help save us, @agencyspy put a link in their tuesday morning stir to longtime adgrunt Purplesimon's appeal post. I didn't ask @purplesime to do that, and I didn't ask @imperica to post this appeal post either. I'm grateful they both did. Turns out that Imperica have a good grasp of how much I do here (read: everything), and some readers revealed they had no idea. Thus came the tweets showing me building hardware (acme, apex and acme again) which was quite fun for a bit. At least for me. :)

Even the End days of advertising joined in making a special sarcastic toon just for adland. Sweet.

And to top it all off, my ex-ex hosting place Memset contacted me over twitter to see if they can help. They must have forgiven me for almost taking down their network a few superbowls ago.

And today, Amazon in Ireland phoned us up, they've not just extended the deadline, they're going to help figure out how to make a better setup that won't cost a fortune each month.

LOS ANGELES Director/cameraman Eric Saarinen, a winner of five Clios, a Cannes Grand Prix and numerous other awards for excellence in advertising, has joined Bully Pictures for exclusive national representation. Saarinen is widely considered one of the industry’s top directors of automotive advertising, with recent credits including Chevy, Fiat, BMW and Jeep. Many have credited him with having redefined the car genre through his use of unique visuals and engaging stories. His work, in fact, extends far beyond cars, touching virtually every product category and advertising genre, and also includes feature films and documentaries.

Continuing its long tradition of signing top feature directing talent, Crossroads has added filmmaker Dennis Dugan to its impressive roster. Long considered one of the industry's top comedy feature directors, with classics such as Happy Gilmore and Big Daddy to his name, Dugan now brings his talents to commercial film production for his work with Crossroads.

"Everyone at Crossroads is delighted to be working with Dennis," noted Crossroads owner/EP Cami Taylor. "He's extremely well-known and accomplished in the comedy features space, yet is perfect for commercials. We're looking forward to establishing such a talented director in our arena and to spending time with such a smart and funny guy."

LOS ANGELES-Director Tom De Cerchio and his production company, Incubator, have joined bi-coastal production and post production company Original. De Cerchio is one of the most successful comedy directors in advertising and a winner of three AICP Awards among many other honors. His Bud Light spot, Limo, is in the Advertising Hall of Fame and is listed among USA Today's Top 20 Spots of All-Time.
Original Partner/Executive Producer Joe Piccirillo called De Cerchio a superb storyteller whose work continues to improve and evolve. "I have been a fan of Tom since we were both at the same production company in early 90's," Piccirillo says. "I am thrilled to have him be part of the Original family. Tom's work has always been able to stay so current and feel fresh."

“Ocean's Eleven” star directs Whirlpool campaign for Latin American markets.

HOLLYWOOD—Andy Garcia has signed with Dark Light Pictures for representation as a commercial director. In his debut with the company, Garcia has directed a campaign for Whirlpool and Buenos Aires agency Madre that will air across Latin America and South America.
Although best known for his work in front of the camera, Garcia has a number of credits as a director in television and film, the latter including The Lost City, a 2005 film (in which he also starred) about a Cuban nightclub owner whose family becomes embroiled in the violent transition from the dictator Bautista to Fidel Castro. His alliance with Dark Light, however, marks his first foray as a director of commercials.

Manic has signed post-production veteran Jason Ortenberg as Sr. VFX Artist to join the company's renowned creative team. A mainstay in the advertising and feature film spaces, Ortenberg's recent credits include beauty work for Maybelline and L'Oréal, as well as lead VFX artist work for brands like Hershey's, Wendy's, The NFL, Verizon, American Express, and Citibank. His feature film work includes credits on the Star Wars Trilogy special edition and the epic Cremaster 5 directed by Matthew Barney, among others. He has worked as an inferno artist on Sphere and Alien: Resurrection, and as a digital composer on The Proposal, Hey Ram, DragonHeart, Twister, Jumanji, The American President, and The Indian in the Cupboard.

Elias Arts music supervisor and music-industry veteran Jason Kramer has been promoted to a new time slot at Los Angeles public radio station KCRW, moving to Saturday evenings from 10 to midnight PT on 89.9 FM and KCRW.com.

In his weekly show, Kramer will continue his tradition of introducing new artists alongside a string of established musicians.

"I like all styles of music and KCRW gives me the freedom to play whatever I want, which is something I treasure. The creative element is not just selecting individual songs but putting together an entire show. My goal is that when people are listening, they don't want to get out of the car."

I was as per usual, staying up all night working when @Thebeancast's Bob Knorpp asked if I could join the beancast as he had a last-minute cancellation. Thats how I ended up talking about Panda-updates and a vat of ranch dressing in the wee hours, as you do.

Jason Falls - @jasonfalls - Founder of Social Media Explorer and Shiv Singh - @shivsingh - the Global Head of Digital at Pepsico Beverages joined in. (Shiv has a blog called goingsocialnow too) were on the show with me, and of course our host Bob Knorpp @thebeancast .

Sony Pictures Entertainment today announced that Sony Pictures Stock Footage (http://www.sonypicturesstockfootage.com) has introduced a first-of-its-kind stock footage collection featuring motion picture quality clips with custom-designed, studio-produced 5.1 soundtracks.
Sony Pictures Stock Footage’s unique new "5.1 Collection" includes car chases, explosions, helicopter shots and other types of stunts and pyrotechnics, all drawn from recent studio film and television productions. The soundtracks were designed, edited and mixed in 5.1 surround sound by industry award-winning artists from the Sony Pictures Sound facility.

This year's Lürzer's Archive Creative Leadership Scholarship has been awarded to Midori Ikematsu from Japan.
The experienced creative director has been working in the advertising industry for 31 years, the past four of them at Japan's leading ad agency, Dentsu Razorfish. The chance to take part in the Berlin School MBA program comes at the ideal moment as she prepares to take the next step up on the career ladder.
"There is no place and time more suitable than the Berlin School to pursue my quest for creative leadership at this point in my life," said Midori. "I'm a firm believer that true creative chemical reactions happen when creative minds from different cultures and backgrounds come together in a positive environment that invites new thoughts and ideas."

Posting this now, as the Beancast show that we just recorded is up now, and I can for once beat Bob to a post about his own show. Woo!

I'm hopped up on an energy drink called "white cola" (which is neither white, nor does it taste anything like cola) so I won't be getting any sleep until Tuesday anyway. In this weeks episode, the Ad contrarian, ( @adcontrarian ), John Wall at roninmarketeer ( @johnjwall ) and Peter Shankman Shankman.com ( @petershankman ) gab about Google (again) and Nivea's uncivilized ad. That's when I mess up pronouncing Hadji Williams twitter handle something awful, it is @BlackCanseco but I said something that sounded closer to Crisco. WTH, Dabitch? I'm totally blaming the godawful energy drink for that.

Longtime readers of Adland will already know that I'm a fan of the Advertising week in New York city. Who wouldn't love a week full of seminars, parties and popular brand characters like Charlie the Tuna and the Pillsbury doughboy parading down Madison avenue? Lots of people? Fine, I'll rephrase that; this shindig is like made for ad-dict weirdos like you and me.

NEW YORK, LOS ANGELES and LONDON — August 15, 2011 — Jonathan Notaro and his colleagues at international production company and design studio Brand New School (BNS, www.brandnewschool.com) are very proud to announce the appointment of Blake Huber to the position of Flame artist and lead compositor for their East Coast studio.

"We couldn't be happier to have Blake back," Jonathan said. "Since he left, we've all grown and come to appreciate what we had. Seldom do you meet Flame/VFX artists that understand VFX and design the way Blake does."

Originally from Indianapolis, Indiana, Blake studied Radio/Television and Business at Indiana University, and at the encouragement of his professors, he left for Los Angeles soon after graduating in 1998.

NEW YORK – Aug. 11, 2011 – The principals of award-winning design and production company Thornberg & Forester (T&F) are very proud to welcome Vi Nguyen as their head of 3D and VFX supervisor. This is a new position within the growing company, which was launched in the heart of New York City in 2007.

"I was very attracted to Thornberg & Forester's open creative environment, the quality of work and the concentration on environmental and sustainable advertising," Vi said.

"As a company, we have now grown to the point where we need Vi's leadership and amazing talents every day," explained co-founder and creative director Justin Meredith. "Working with us in a freelance capacity, he has been instrumental; by streamlining our workflow and render farm, he's made large-scale CG jobs run smoothly, and he is a proven master at resolving VFX challenges in beautiful ways. With Vi on our team, we feel that our creative powers and our capabilities are unmatched."