Beast - an editorial shop with offices in New York, Santa Monica and Austin - has announced the formation of a strategic alliance with Canadian counterpart Panic & Bob. Beast will represent the Panic & Bob roster in the US, while that company will handle Beast’s roster in Canada. The companies are connected by a shared belief in what they do and how to do it. Familiar sensibilities and process was very important to Panic & Bob.
Editors David Baxter, Michelle Czukar, Andy Ames and Griff Henderson will be available to cut through any of Beast’s three offices. Beast Managing Partner/Executive Producer Valerie Petrusson oversees a roster comprised of editors Kevin Garcia, Paul Kelly, Barnett Kiel, Igor Kovalik, Amanda Moreau, Paul Norling, Adam Schwartz, Sam Selis, Jim Ulbrich, and Rob Watzke.
“For Beast, this alliance represents an opportunity to make some remarkable talent available to the US market,” said Kovalik, citing Panic & Bob’s high profile, award-winning comedy work for Bud Light and collaborations with directors such as Joe Pytka, Floria Sigismondi, Tim Godsall, David McNally, Bryan Buckley, Kinka Usher, and Tom DeCerchio.
Ames and Baxter enjoyed a prior working relationship with Kovalik, who left Canada for the US twelve years ago, and they have followed his career in the United States. “We’ve both set up shops offering the highest quality of creative services, combined with unparalleled client service,” Ames said. “Taking the relationship to a new business level made complete sense. As Beast is new and exciting, it also allows Panic & Bob’s talent to add value and contribute to the overall success of building the Beast brand and company.”
Recent work from the Beast roster includes: Nike (Paul Norling edited, Andrea Buchanan directed), AT&T (cut by Adam Schwartz, for director Wes Anderson); the new Toyota Line of Scrimmage campaign (Kevin Garcia edited, for director Dan Levinson); T-Mobile cut by Rob Watzke; Tribeca Film Festival (Paul Kelly); Reebok (Amanda Moreau); Verizon (Jim Ulbrich); and a 10-spot campaign for SWA edited by Sam Selis and directed by Rocky Morton. Kovalik was nominated for a 2007 MTV Video Music Award for Best Editing on the Linkin Park video “What I’ve Done” (pict. l.). Kovalik is finishing work on Harpo Productions’ For One More Day, based on the novel by Mitch Albom, and a new Linkin Park video.
“We had been exploring ways to enter the US market, and Igor contacted us - he was the best fit by far,” explained Baxter, editor of In Bloom, starring Uma Thurman and directed by Vadim Perelman (House of Sand and Fog), which just premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. “I respect his incredible talents as an editor and know the excellent reputations of the editors with whom he’s associated. For our companies, the versatility of this unified roster - from comedy to stylized visual work - added to the appeal.”
Since opening in early 2006, Beast Editorial has racked up an impressive array of spot work, including projects for Reebok. Brahma Beer (both via mcgarrybowen/NY), Cingular (BBDO/NY), Toyota (Saatchi), Ford GT (JWT/DET), Burger King (Crispin Porter Bogusky), Buick (McCann Erickson/DET), ESPN Zone (The Ballpark/LA), and Partnership for a Drug-Free America (Dailey & Associates/LA).
With Beast’s three US editorial facilities, Panic & Bob’s editors are available to work as a local, in whatever market the project requires. “In addition to providing excellent creative editing, a key philosophy behind Panic & Bob was to provide better service for clients on all levels,” Czukar added. “Beast shares this philosophy and that was another factor in our amalgamation. The opportunity to work with Valerie Petrusson is the icing on the cake.”
Established in 1996 and one of Canada’s premier post production facilities, Panic and Bob’s collective reel shines with impressive depth, sporting such notable clients as A1, BMW, Budweiser, Fujifilm, Dove, 13 Eme Rue and Nike. Their work has won numerous awards, including: AICE, London International Advertising Awards, Clios, The One Show, and at Cannes (Michelle Czukar’s work on Zig’s “Prison Visitor” reflected Gold at Cannes as did Griff Henderson’s contribution to Downtown Partners’ “Fridge”; Baxter and Ames’ efforts on Budweiser’s “Real Men of Genius” campaign were recognized with Bronze Lions). Since 1999, Anheuser-Busch has turned to Panic & Bob, counting on the team’s editorial excellence for their Budweiser and Bud Light Super Bowl commercials.
“The editors at Panic & Bob are among the best in the business,” Kovalik concludes. “I’ve known these guys for 20 years and I’m excited to be in business with them and provide an opportunity for them to flourish in the US. Having this talent on our roster makes Beast much stronger in the marketplace by adding to our already solid, celebrated group of artists.”
Highlights of a whirlwind summer at Beast include two 60-second spots that debuted during the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. “It’s Time” for Home Depot and “Disappear” for Chevrolet were both cut by our own Igor Kovalik (Santa Monica) and continue running through the end of the month. The August 8 Opening Ceremony annihilated NBC competitors with 34.9 million viewers (the most-watched night of programming since the finale of Friends in 2004). Ratings were even better during competition the following Sunday evening and the average weekly viewers since are almost 18 million!