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Screen Magazine - Index

Screen Magazine - Screen Magazine: Vol. 29, Issue 19 - Index

CHICAGO-BASED MOTION GRAPHICS BOUTIQUE REBUS FARMS
SIGNS WITH CURIOUS PICTURES FOR U.S. REPRESENTATION
Curious Pictures has signed the new Chicago-based motion
graphics and digital production studio Rebus Farms to an exclusive
representation agreement for the U.S. and Canada. Under the
terms of the deal, Curious will handle all sales representation for
the studio, which was founded earlier this year by Erin Sarofsky, Ian
Prior and Dan Bryant, as well as any New York-based production.
The announcement was made by Mary Knox, Executive Producer
at Curious Pictures.
Sarofsky is a designer and director who was previously with the
New York office of Superfad and before that the Chicago office of
Digital Kitchen. Her partners hail from the agency and production
company sides of the business—Prior was an art director and
creative director, most recently with Element 79, and Bryant was
a former executive producer with Backyard Productions and has
produced on a freelance basis for major Chicago-based agencies
as well as a range of live-action production companies.
“Erin, Ian and Dan really broaden the range of solutions we
can provide our agency clients, regardless if they’re working
on a traditional TV spot, a web viral, an interactive piece, or a
branding or identity project,” says Knox. Another key aspect of this
arrangement is that Curious now gains an office in Chicago, an
extremely important market for the studio.
Rebus Farms opened its doors in Chicago earlier this year and has
quietly hit the ground running, booking nine assignments in its first
several months. It produced two rounds of GM spots for McCann-
Erickson Detroit that incorporated live-action and graphics, as
well as work for Kraft and Draftfcb, Tide and Burrell, and Midwest
Airlines and Noble. Already, the team has booked their first job
under the Curious deal, out of DDB in New York.
The unusual partnership structure of Rebus Farms is not an accident,
says Sarofsky, who joined Digital Kitchen’s Chicago office right
out of the computer graphics school at
Rochester Institute of Technology. “Having
Ian [Prior] on board changes everything,”
she comments about partnering with a
former senior agency creative director.
“To have someone with his experience
as part of our management team adds
tremendous depth and insight to what we
can do, in addition to providing us with a
strong manager who knows how to run a
department. He’s going to play a pivotal
role as we expand into providing clients
with more than just design and production,
but creative development and strategic
thinking as well.”
Prior notes that the partners decided to
align themselves with Curious because they felt it presented distinct
competitive advantages. “One thing we like about them is that
agency people see the company as a resource,” he says. “They
call and ask, who do you have that might be good for this job or
that? As a result, we believe our relationship will give us access to
scripts and storyboards that we might not otherwise see.”
Prior feels good about their success rate once they get called in to
pitch on a board. “I was in a position to hire companies like Rebus
Farms,” he says about his former career. “I think this gives us a
pretty good insight into how best to pitch jobs and win them.”
For Bryant, joining forces with Sarofsky and Prior is the logical next
step to a career that’s touched on every side of the business. In
addition to freelancing as an agency producer and helping run
a major live-action production company, he also spent a year on
the editorial side of the business at Cut + Run.
He was COO of Backyard when the company launched both the
motion graphics studio Transistor and Science + Fiction, a branded
content company initially part of Backyard but now independent.
Bryant moved from Chicago to L.A. to Area 51 Films, now über, as
an Executive Producer, and got hooked on digital production and
digital media while freelancing for such studios as Digital Kitchen
and Shilo.
“There are tremendous opportunities for the digital side of content
production in advertising,” Bryant says, “and I think we’re well
positioned to be a major resource for agencies in this area, given
our location and the collective backgrounds.”
The fact that Curious is well versed in all aspects of animation, VFX
and design was also a tremendous draw. “We wanted to work with
a company that understood what motion graphics is like today,”
explains Sarofsky. “It’s so much more complex than it used to be.
We really view ourselves as a design-driven production company,
and motion graphics are one element of the work we produce,
which often incorporates additional formats. Given this approach,
we felt we’d be right at home at Curious, and would also have
access to their facilities and their talent pool, which is very deep.”
Adds Bryant, “We were looking to align ourselves with a brand
that had recognition, credibility and an infrastructure, and Curious
provides ample amounts of all these criteria.”
With the Curious Pictures deal, the Rebus Farms reach now extends
to both coasts, as Bryant will remain based in L.A. The studio now
has the capability to produce jobs in New York through Curious,
while simultaneously providing Curious with a home base in the
Chicago market from which it can better coordinate its sales
efforts. John Robertson, based in New York, heads up Midwest
sales for Curious and now Rebus Farms.
//www.rebusfarms.com