Chelsea LA's Summer Days:

With everyone back to school and back to work, Chelsea LA holds on to the last days of summer...

Chelsea Director Nadav Kander Photographs Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill for New York Magazine

Photograph/director Nadav Kander shot Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill for New York Magazine's cover and article about Moneyball starring Pitt and Hill.  The film is an adaption of Michael Lewis's 2003 book about Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane's (Pitt) struggle to turn an impoverished team into world champions.

Read More: Brad’s Pitch: Why an A-list actor was willing to go to bat for Moneyball—an adventure story about sabermetrics.

Jonah Hill and Brad Pitt on the cover of the August 29 issue of New York magazine, as photographed by Nadav Kander.

Brad Pitt. Photo by Nadav Kander for New York magazine.

Jonah Hill. Photo by Nadav Kander for New York magazine.

Robb Bindler Tackles Philadelphia Eagles for Comcast

Boyhood dreams came true as Chelsea's Comcast crew filmed field level near the endzone.  Here are some pictures of director Robb Bindler and crew from the shoot:

Robb Bindler giving the thumbs up.

Digitas's Paul Cammarota and Nic Mordecai pose on the Eagles's field pregame.

DP David Morrison all smiles during the game.

Chelsea East's Gelato Tasting Part 3

While temperatures reach the 100s in New York, Chelsea East continues to keep cool with gelato tastings!  

For this tasting, we chose  Ciao Bella, a noted Nolita shop that has since gone national.  We ordered  chocolate, espresso, pistachio, Oreo cookie dough and vanilla.  Lisa especially enjoyed the pistachio while Pietra, our staff production assistant, thought the espresso was smooth and flavorful.  There was not a scoop of Oreo cookie dough left over!

To get the true flavor we insisted on purchasing the hand packed pints.  While we would've given the gelato a 7, we're docking it to 6 because the server gave us lip for having to hand pack!  And so, Ciao Bella receives a 6/10.

Pietra and Celia serving Ciao Bella

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Chelsea Signs Director Jack Cole For U.S. Spot Representation

Chelsea proudly announces the addition of director Jack Cole to their roster. Cole’s flare for creating visually striking films across a broad spectrum of genres attracted clients such as Reebok, Panasonic, Subaru, and most recently Stride Gum.

“I had a great experience working with Chelsea shooting the last Stride spot,” said Cole. “When the offer to sign up to the ranks officially came along it was a no-brainer. I’m really looking forward to working more in the States and hope I can offer something a little different by bringing this particular Englishman’s eye to the table.”

Tom Christmann, Executive Creative Director at JWT, worked with Cole on Stride. “Jack can direct ostriches to run through walls. He can direct nineteen-year-old girls to wrestle rams. And yet he still hasn’t let those talents go to his head and is a pleasure to work with. Amazing,” said Christmann.

Jack began his directing career as one half of duo Liff. Their work was nominated for the Newcomer Award at the Soho Rushes Shorts Festival, screened at the onedotzero Film Festival, and short-listed for the Nike Young Directors Award. In 2005, Shots Magazine New Directors Reel featured Liff. Their short films received international acclaim, most notably “Practice Makes Perfect”, nominated for the TCM Classic Shorts Award at the London Film Festival.

“Image making has always been what I do,” said Cole. “From spending hours drawing A-team cartoons as a kid to painting graffiti in English suburbia while fantasizing I was in New York as a teen. Now as a ‘grown-up’ I chase ostriches, rams and actors around film sets. I see it all as an extension of the obsession I’ve always had to create pictures.”

“Visualist comedy directors are few and far between. Add in Jack’s stills background and you have a very potent director,” said Chelsea co-owner Lisa Mehling. “I am so pleased to add Jack to the Chelsea roster.”

Shoot Magazine features Cole signing with Chelsea.
Jack Cole Reel

Chelsea West Dines at Red Lobster

After working hard on Neil Abramson’s Red Lobster spots, Chelsea West wined and dined at a local Red Lobster restaurant. 

Here are some pictures of Chelsea West staff with their entrees:

Denise, Assistant Controller.

Carol, Controller.

Allie, Production Coordinator.

Adam, Bidder/Production Manager.

Thea, Allison's daughter.

Susan, Office Manager

Leslie, Head of Production

Delicious!

Q&A With Chelsea Director Kevin MacDonald

Oscar winner Kevin MacDonald sat down with Huffington Post to discuss his new film, Life in A Day, which opened in theaters July 29, 2011.

In the Q&A, MacDonald discusses his inspiration for the YouTube global film experiment and what he took away from the unique experience.  "I got [a] sense of this tremendous life force, that people -- even when they're in their last hours or days of life, confronting death -- they still have this sense of wanting to live, of life being special and wonderful," said MacDonald.

The rest of the interview can be found here.

Former Chelsea Intern Rahel Araya Awarded with GroupM Scholarship

Congratulations to former Chelsea intern Rahel Araya! GroupM North America has named Rahel and two other honorees in the GroupM Diversity Scholarship program it established with City College of New York as part of an ongoing effort to promote diversity and inclusion within the media and advertising industry.

Adage featured Rahel and the scholarship program on June 30.  Click here for the article.

Best of luck to Rahel in the coming semester!

GroupMNorth America's HR Director Tim Cecere (left) and CEO Rob Norman (center) join Salwa Sayed (second left), Rahel Araya and Cory Rainford, the first GroupM Scholars.

Five Times the Fun: Summer on the East Coast

Dan’s five things are less specific and more mood pieces, so enjoy the songs and pictures and combine them in your head for a vision of Dan’s summer plans.

Pietra:

Here's a collage of Pietra's picks:

Five Times the Fun: Summer on the East Coast

Chelsea folks are a fun bunch, that much is clear, but what do they do for fun? Particularly in summer, the funnest season of all? In the blazing sun or blasting AC, here’s a list of Chelsea staffers’ top five summer plans, starting with our New York office.

To start us off, here are Lisa's and Pat's lists! Stay tuned for more staff summer plans!

Lisa:

"Reading, reading, reading.  On my list are:

Alan Hollingsworth- The Strangers Child

Bruce Chatwin- Patagonia

The Long Goodbye- Megan O'Rourke

The Faith- Jennifer Haith

Tender Is The Night-  F Scott Fitzgerald

Harry Potter-- The First One (read with my kids)"

Pat:

 

CHELSEA DIRECTOR BRUCE HUNT AND RP& CREATE FORCEFUL ELEGANCE FOR ACURA

Chelsea director Bruce Hunt created four new television spots for Acura’s latest campaign: “Aggression in its Most Elegant Form.” Hunt’s work balances pristine visions of the vehicles with raw demonstrations of speed and power, creating an abstract and beautiful canvas to highlight Acura’s 2012 line-up.

In “German,” Hunt offers a clever play on the typical sports sedan commercial, using the traditional visual cues associated with German luxury cars, then revealing the Acura RDX compact SUV.  In “Meant,” we see an Acura TL sedan being taken through its paces while a list of its most sophisticated features is read in voiceover.  And in “Smart,” Hunt creates a slow burn, having us hear the smart features of the new Acura MDX, then abruptly demonstrating the one feature that can save a life.  “Truck” will be released in the coming weeks.

Hunt’s other recent work includes feature film 2nd Unit director duties, in particular on Guillermo del Toro’s Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, opening nationwide on August 26th, 2011. 

"Meant"


"German"

Chelsea's Michael Muller shoots "True Blood" for "Entertainment Weekly" Covers

Michael Muller shot three covers for Entertainment Weekly’s June feature on HBO’s True Blood, which premiered season 4 on June 26th.  The American Gothic inspired covers feature Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) posing with each of the men in her highly complicated love triangle: Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgard), Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer), and Alcide Herveaux (Joe Manganiello).

Keep your eye out for upcoming EW issues with Michael’s other iconic painting inspired work featuring the True Blood actors.

 
 

Chelsea Discovers Best Way to Beat Summer Heat

Chelsea has been pondering ways to cool down from NYC’s sweaty subways and sweltering summer sun—without turning our offices into AC tundra.  The only possible answer is of course gelato.  Over the summer, Chelsea NY will explore downtown Manhattan's best gelato and rank them based on texture, packaging, and most importantly – taste!

Eager to start our adventure off right, we popped into two gelaterias this week: Il Laboratorio del gelato on Ludlow St and Grom on Bleeker St.  Our only two constant flavors are vanilla and pistachio.

Laboratorio gelato in their fantastic packaging.

                                    

Our intern, Evan, delivered bourbon pecan, pistachio, vanilla, espresso, and chocolate hazelnut in baby blue lunch box coolers. Very chic!

Kudos for Laboratorio for creative flavoring.  Everyone enjoyed the decadant bourbon pecan gelato.  The chocolate hazelnut was not that creamy and very thick, almost like a fudge. Unfortunately, the pistachio and espresso came prepacked instead of freshly scooped. This definitely took away from the gelato. The pistachio was weak and the espresso very grainy – almost like they used the beans and not the coffee.

Overall, we ranked Laboratorio a 6/7 out of 10 for creative flavoring and packaging.

 

Intern Sara Haile (left) and Staffer Pietra Impastato (right) show off Grom's gelato.

For our second gelateria, we chose more traditional gelato: nocciola, vanilla, chocolate, and tiramisu. Grom packages their gelato ecofriendly biodegradable bags. We love how green they are!

Grom’s gelato is so smooth and creamy. It was hard for us to pick a favorite flavor – they were all very delicious.

Our rank for Grom: solid 8.5 out of 10.

Director Colin O'Toole Joins Chelsea's Roster

Chelsea welcomes visual effects and documentary director Colin O'Toole to our roster.  Known for his high concept special effects and unvarnished real-life moments, O'Toole has created insightful work for clients such as Nike, Playstation, Alfa Romeo, Adidas, and Reebok.

The diversity of O’Toole’s commercial work is mirrored by the diversity of his larger body of work. Deeply involved in the music world, O’Toole has shot a number of music videos, particularly for cult musician Ian Brown and Polydor Records.  His love of music also lead to the creation of Let Us Be Golden, O’Toole’s documentary hit at this year’s Edinburgh Film Festival.  Moving from film to television, O’Toole was also co-director on the recent BBC 4 series Drivetime, and he won a D&AD award in 2009 for his PSA “Pick It Up,” for the Home Office Anti-Knife Crime campaign. 

Colin O'Toole Reel

Chelsea's Alex Gibney interviewed on NPR about his new documentary "Catching Hell", which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival, and will be screening at upcoming Silverdocs & Chicago International Film Festivals

In Game 6 of 2003's National League Championship Series, a Chicago Cubs fan reached for glory ... and caught hell.   In his new film , Oscar-winning Director Alex Gibney records the fallout of a fateful flub.  Along with half a dozen other Cubs fans, Steve Bartman stuck his hands out for a fly ball hit by Florida Marlin Luis Castillo just as Cubs outfielder Moises Alou also went after it. But Alou didn't quite make it. Instead, the ball glanced off Bartman's hand and into the crowd.

 

     

          Bartman reaches to catch the ball that will change his life forever. 
 

Gibney tells NPR's Neal Conan that Bartman was immediately singled out after the incident. "The entire stadium focused their ire on him and almost tried to kill him," Gibney says. When he saw just how furious everyone got over someone doing the most innocent thing a fan could do, Gibney says he knew there was a story there.

Superstition plays such a huge role in sports that Bartman's name is now inextricably connected to the Cubs' loss. But Gibney says there's also something darker going on.  "Very often, we look to find scapegoats," he says. "Bartman was a perfect scapegoat."  That day changed Bartman's life forever. 

Click here to listen to the rest of the June 22 NPR interview.