From a background in design, advertising and fine art, Alan Bibby directs commercials, fashion films and music videos, collaborating with artists such as Stevie Wonder, Ariana Grande, Pharrell, Zendaya, Coldplay and Rihanna, and global brands including Audi, Lexus, Microsoft, Google, Sony, Nike, Marc Jacobs, General Motors, IBM and Budweiser.
His films have been shown at international festivals and museums including MoMA PS1 andthe Museum of Art and Design in New York, the Tate Modern in London and Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
Alan has served as a judge for The One Show, ADC and AICP, and regularly speaks at conferences across the world. With a focus on automotive, fashion and technology, his eye for design, storytelling and visual effects has created award-winning work exploring the intersections between art, music, advertising and culture.
Borja Peña Gorostegui is a Spanish Director based in Los Angeles with over 16 years of experience in the advertising industry.
Borja has written and directed a wide range of animated and live-action films over his career. He has garnered hundreds of millions of views online and won several awards, including THE ONE SHOW, AICP & ADDY. His work for the Clash mobile game franchise continues to be one of the most celebrated campaigns in advertising.
Growing up, he idolized the films of Steven Spielberg, influencing his approach to storytelling and his passion for adventure. Borja is incredibly detail oriented when it comes to his work and passionate about every aspect of the process.
Borja attended the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) where he practiced and experimented with every medium of storytelling he could get his hands on. While finishing SCAD he freelanced at both The Ebeling Group and Radical Media before moving to New York in 2005.
During his time in New York, Borja worked for some of the top advertising studios taking on a wide variety of roles and responsibilities. Over the years his “Swiss Army knife” set of skills placed him as a designer, lead compositor, 3D animator, CGI generalist, technical supervisor and project lead, to name a few. In 2012, Borja accepted a Director position with Psyop, honing his craft as a storyteller while working with high end clients, such as COCA COLA, PEPSI, SUPERCELL, NINTENDO, SAMSUNG, FRITO-LAY, PLAYSTATION AND DELTA AIRLINES.
Borja relocated to Los Angeles in 2018 to further his career in filmmaking. Most recently, he wrote and directed his first animated short film, due to release in the fall of 2020.
Christian Bevilacqua is a versatile filmmaker, visual artist and storyteller with an ever evolving style which he describes as inspired by a pleasant barrage of new things. His background as an animator and addiction to technology lends an extra dimension to his craft. He combines live action with performance, VFX, and design to create dynamic and distinctive work. He’s directed innovative attention-grabbing campaigns for major brands worldwide such as the NFL, Nescafe, Toyota and Mastercard to name a few. He has won multiple industry awards, among them a pair of Cannes Young Director Awards, multiple Creative Circle awards, and ADDY and APA accolades.
CRCR is a French collective whose members met at Gobelins, the most famous animation school in Paris. From their first films as a collective and interns at WIZZdesign, CRCR have garnered international attention and developed an ardent fanbase with their modern and quirky style. As mixed-media innovators and artists, CRCR use their wide graphic palette to direct commercials and music videos with an ever-increasing artistic vision and energy, and along the way have picked up a Young Director Award nomination at Cannes, Silver and Bronze Cubes at the prestigious ADC Annual Awards, “Animated Commercial of the Year” at the Shots Awards, and most recently a Gold Lion at the Cannes Lions in 2019 among others.
Golden Wolf is an Emmy-nominated studio founded in 2013 with offices in London and New York. Their work lives in the space between irreverent humour, intensely dynamic action and psychedelia. Their unique and youthful perspective has been applied to global commercial campaigns, opening titles, music videos, AR filters, VR experiences and social media campaigns. They are passionate about creating entertaining content that creates a lasting and shareable impression. Since their inception they have quickly established a global reputation, catching the attention of major brands and networks such as Nike, Facebook, Gatorade, Disney and Adult Swim.
Igor + Valentine is the creative mind of Matt Smithson (formerly Man vs. Magnet) and David Stanfield. The name does not refer to any two distinct people, but hints at a creative split personality that the duo share and embrace. Matt Smithson trained as a fine artist, his animation work often possesses a tactile handmade quality, typically illustration based. David is a motion designer and director employing both illustration and graphic design in his visual language. They are both storytellers who relish the opportunity to make others smile. Matt and David love to help brands and organizations tell their stories authentically with meaning. Matt received a Young Gun Award for his work from the American Directors’ Club, and his video ‘The Girl Effect,’ produced for the Nike Foundation, was included in the Cooper Hewitt Museum’s National Design Triennial.
This collective of French directors caught the attention of the animation world in 2016 with their graduation short film “Garden Party,” which was nominated for Best Student Project at the VES Awards in Los Angeles and went on to win Best Young Production at the Animago Festival among other accolades. Not only does the film show their highly developed animation skills, but also a great instinct for storytelling, which as already been put to use in a series of films for the luxury brand Van Cleef.
Prior to joining Psyop, Jack directed the award-winning animated short “Wire Cutters” which showed at over 100 film festivals worldwide and went on to win runner up for Vimeo’s Top Animated Film that year and garnered nominations for both a Student Academy Award and a Student BAFTA.
Technique agnostic and a compulsive learner, Jack Anderson never misses an opportunity to add new tools and abilities to his skill set, adapting to the fast moving technical landscape of computer animation and always identifying the best ways to tell memorable stories. The end result is a portfolio of work that spans a spectrum of emotions and new media platforms.
His most recent projects at Psyop include a multi-faceted campaign for Cricket which spanned a 3 minute Blockbuster film, a real-time, live stream event featuring the Cricket CG characters alongside Mario Lopez and an interactive OOH activation, as well as, a bittersweet film for Traveler’s on the dangers of distracted driving.
Le Cube is an animation powerhouse studio renowned for its original characters, imaginative worlds and environments, action-packed camera movements, and impressive morphing transitions.The studio collaborates with prominent brands such as Apple, Spotify, MTV, Heineken, Coca-Cola, and Nike, among others.
Le Cube’s talented team works across various disciplines, including illustration, 2D and 3D animation, and motion graphics. Their exceptional work has been recognized by prestigious awards and festivals worldwide, such as Cannes Lions, Clio, Annecy, Ciclope, LIA, Promax, BassAwards, and NY Festivals. Le Cube has offices in Madrid and Buenos Aires.
With a passion for any project that requires thoughtful and expressive imagery, Luca draws inspiration from several fields including DIY music, counterculture, fashion, Japanese and European comics+animation, graphic design and of course cinema.
His main interest is in character-driven storytelling that maintains its emotional content and significance regardless of the genre.
Luca brought his years of expertise and diverse influences to Psyop with the Taco Bell film “Nacho Fries,” an action driven piece that he balances with beautifully executed tonal shifts and subtle moments of drama and humor. Using a mix of traditional 2D techniques, digital painting and 3D, Luca creates beautiful work that is often rooted in stylized realism.
In addition to directing, he also spends his time working on personal paintings and illustrations.
Born and raised in Milan, Italy, Luca moved to NYC to attend the School of Visual Arts. After having graduated he spent 6 years working as an animator on both 3D and traditional animation before realizing his passion for design and painting. He then transitioned to concept art and spent several years as a designer, art director and now director, with the goal of telling more personal stories and bringing the best collaborators and artists to each project.
While in New York Luca kept working on personal artwork and collaborating with top studios and brands including Sony, Coca Cola, Microsoft, Activision, Disney +, Airbnb and Nike. His work earned a number of awards including a Webby Award, Clio Award, AICP Award and a D&AD pencil.
After 18 years in Brooklyn Luca relocated to Tokyo to expand his artistic environment and keep pursuing his career in animation.
Every human being is an artist, a freedom being, called to participate in transforming and reshaping the conditions, thinking and structures that shape and inform our lives.
– Joseph Beuys
As founder and Emmy winning Director for Psyop, Marco Spier has directed the Gold Cannes Lion-winning Adidas “Together” campaign, as well as the more recent projects for Adidas Parley, Apple, Facebook, IBM and the new Sesame Street opening, to name a few.
Outside of Psyop, Marco helped start Parley for the Oceans, a creative collaboration space where creators, thinkers and leaders come together to raise awareness for the beauty and fragility of our oceans and to stop their destruction.
Compelling stories and spellbinding visuals characterize the diverse commercial films of Director Marie Hyon, a co-founder of Psyop. Marie has recently released her short film Bottle Cap, which is making a splash at film festivals such as Clermont Ferrand, Stuttgart, Aspen, and at Annecy, among others. The film highlights our society’s toxic love affair with plastics and she hopes it will inspire change and action against single use plastics. Marie’s versatility and her unique vision allows her to flow from character driven heartfelt, emotional stories, to hard hitting action game trailers, to the mesmerizing visual language of music videos and installations, and a variety of dramatic and whimsical commercial entertainment. Her work has won numerous accolades over the years including top awards at the Cannes Lions, the Clios, D&AD, AICP, and ADCs to name just a few.
Marie is a Korean American who moved from Seoul to Williamsburg, Brooklyn at the age of 9. Growing up as a female immigrant in the city, Marie was faced with many challenges, but the tactile, disruptive, inspirational atmosphere of New York City is where she has grown to love and call her home. She earned her BA at Parsons School of Design for illustration, had her work published in publications, such as the New York Times and the Village Voice, and had a long run as a designer/art director at Nickelodeon and MTV Networks. In 2000, Marie co-founded PSYOP with four other partners in a small storefront bar in New York’s East Village. Recently named a Standout in Ad Age’s 2022 Production Company A-list, PSYOP has been raising the bar for design-led visual storytelling for over two decades, and has now grown into a global creative collective of makers who inspire one another to keep evolving and doing the best work possible.
Marie views the world through empathetic eyes, sees beyond the surface of things, and her passion pushes her to create with meaning and depth, transporting audiences into the heart and soul of a scene. Marie continues to explore, feeding her curiosity, discovering opportunities to grow, and expanding her horizon, both internally and externally, always seeking joy in the process.
Based in Argentina, Rudo is an animation studio formed by directors Pablo R. Roldán and Ezequiel Torres with the mission to explore and create different visual modes of storytelling. Through excellent design and a good sense of rhythm, Rudo is able to create animated pieces that are aesthetically rich and diverse as well as visceral and emotive.
Influenced by the works of Japanese artists and animators like Mitsu Iso and Taiyō Matsumoto, Rudo also draws inspiration from everyday life — things that are very colorful, accidents that surprise them, a nice piece of packaging design at the store. With such creative imaginations and open minds, Rudo is always exploring different aesthetics to create stories that are not only beautiful but also emotionally stimulating and thought provoking regardless of the medium or format.
In creating their first narrative piece in 2017 for Siamès “The Wolf,” Rudo discovered their passion for storytelling and creating visual universes. Since then they have directed a number of other narrative projects including Siamès’ music videos “Mr. Fear,” which is beautifully graphic and atmospheric, and “Mañana,” their most experimental piece which played at many festivals, as well as their MTV film “Mr. Fear” which successfully evokes a sense of fear and suspense.
Saiman Chow is a NY based multi-disciplinary creative, working under the titles of artist, animator, director, designer and illustrator . Born and raised in Hong Kong, Chow immigrated to Los Angeles in the 90’s and studied at Art Center College in Pasadena. Constantly re-inventing his approach, Chow’s work broadly includes intricate stop-motion animations, digital illustrations, and fine art.
His work has been featured in publications such as Juxtapoz, Print Magazine, Beautiful Decay, and Tokion. Chow’s commercial clients include, among many others: Apple, Adult Swim, Google, Nike, New York Times, SONOS and Warby Parker.
Shotopop always aims for epic. Based in London, the studio consists of a dynamic and imaginative collection of illustrators, designers, and animators able to turn their hand to everything from fully cel animated magic to innovative 3D design. Whether the destination is fun and bold or emotive and beautiful, a carefully curated team of talented artists drives their full and rich creative vision for every project.
Shotopop’s international client base seek them out for their hands-on collaboration, thoughtful problem solving, and watertight attention to detail. Each new project is an opportunity to level up, tell stories, explore new territory, and reach for something that is not just good, but great.
Alongside producing work for some of the world’s most recognisable brands – Nike, Adidas, Apple – Shotopop dedicates time to studio shorts that challenge the team to flex their minds and muscles in brave new directions.
With studio shorts informed by client projects and vice versa, Shotopop’s work ethic ensures that imagination and experimentation are consistently championed. Forever ambitious, this team of creative explorers always have their eyes on the horizon. Take their hand. Let the journey begin.
Sun Creature is a multi-faceted creative studio based out of Copenhagen, Denmark perfectly calibrated to developing rich, compelling stories and cinematic experiences. With both a deep understanding of their audience and their fingers on the pulse of the best creative talent, Sun Creature regularly tailors bespoke teams of elite artists to meet the unique needs of each project.
Launched by audience demand on a Kickstarter for their original entertainment property – The Reward, Sun Creature’s dynamic, creative pipeline positions them to flexibly and thoughtfully take on a range of work from feature films to episodic series to commercial campaigns. Their reputation has quickly grown across the industry attracting them attention from heavy-weight entertainment and commercial brands like Cartoon Network, Netflix, Riot Games and Travel Oregon.
A young studio with a fresh perspective and the collective expertise of a seasoned veteran, Sun Creature’s magic lies not only in their world-class animations but their ability to anticipate needs each step of the process. Their range expands with each new project, always surprising our imaginations with new, charismatic characters, fantastical worlds and epic stories.
They’re currently in production on an original feature film set to release in 2020.
Teddy Newton’s unique sense of humor mixed with his ability to whip out characters with only a few strokes of a pen gave rise to his career in the animation field. Teddy has contributed as a designer and story artist to many of the top animated films in the industry, including The Iron Giant, The Incredibles 1 and 2, Ratatouille, Toy Story 3 as well as many Pixar short films including Presto, Jack-Jack Attack, Your Friend the Rat, Partly Cloudy, and Day and Night, which he also wrote and directed. Day and Night played theatrically with Toy Story 3 and was nominated for an Academy Award. It won both a VES and an ANNIE award for outstanding short film of 2010. In December his animated short film “Snow Day” for the popular mobile game Clash of Clans was released and has earned over 27 million views on YouTube. Teddy is currently designing for Brad Bird’s next animated feature and in Development on multiple animated projects.
Terry Hall grew up in West Yorkshire, England, and now resides in Los Angeles. He studied Graphic Design at Falmouth College of Arts. After graduating in 2003, he won the BBC New Talent Music Video Director competition. He’s since tackled branded films, and has directed spots for VW, Virgin Media, Sony Playstation, and Ikea. His live action work is grounded in design.
Often solving vfx in camera, Terry always employs an artful hand, quirky playfulness and a fashionable eye. His work has won various awards at the Webbys, the One Show and a Bronze Cannes Lion. He is featured in numerous publications both in print and online. Terry has surfed, fished, and done some fantastic road trips.
Since Psyop came into existence in 2000, Todd Mueller and Kylie Matulick have been turning out memorable, boundary-pushing work all over the world. Lending their creative talents to brands including Nintendo, Nokia, Nike, Bombay Sapphire, Twinings and beyond, the duo continues to show that their artistic range knows no boundaries. This is showcased with their long-running relationship with Cricket Wireless, continually weaving imaginative spots for the brand with the help of Cricket’s imaginative, colorful cast. In 2007, their work received an Emmy nomination for Coca-Cola’s ‘Happiness Factory,’ was honored with the Silver Cannes Lion, and then went on to garner an Emmy Award for Coca-Cola’s ‘Heist’ in 2009.
Awards won in the name of Psyop include honors from D&AD, the CLIOS, the Annie’s, Ciclope and have also led to addition of the MOMA’s permanent collection. Most recently, Psyop was awarded “Best Animated Television / Broadcast Commercial” for their beloved Coca-Cola spot “Man and Dog” at the 2015 Annie Awards. Whether it is a long running campaign or a new opportunity to put the Todd and Kylie touch on a new creation, the outcome of their work never fails to push the envelope.
Directors’ duo Julien Vallée and Eve Duhamel, or as they’re more widely known, Vallée Duhamel, create exciting and unexpected work that twists reality through visual storytelling. They continually surprise and delight the viewer with complex narratives that combine high end production techniques with their own poetic brand of design and art direction. This signature playful style can be seen throughout their work for some of the world’s most iconic, sought after brands, including Target, Apple, Google, Samsung, Hermès and Coca Cola.
Wizz offers a robust Animation/VFX and Live Action production team based at their Headquarters at the Quad Group in Paris. Wizz Directors are storytellers, schooled in the esteemed French schools of beaux art, animation and filmmaking. Wizz has garnered numerous awards for their creative excellence and annual recognition at Advertising Cannes Lions festival. Wizz is a true creative laboratory employing 2D, 3D, stop motion, and mixed media.
They love developing new artistic worlds for commercials, music videos, films, series, or something in between. Wizz is dedicated to being a true creative storytelling partner. Wizz has collaborated with Blacklist in the US market since 2010, expanding the reach of their superb directors including CRCR, The Andy’s, Illogic, Geoffroy de Crecy, Flying V, and No Brushing.