Doing It All Boutique-Style

Doing It All Boutique-Style

Fashion, beauty, lifestyle, comedy, music driven – what do all of these wildly different commercial genres have in common? BOND.

BOND has already earned a stellar reputation for its diverse talent, creative spirit and comprehensive capabilities. Looking at recent work for Eclipse chewing gum, Tecate Beer, Wendy’s Restaurants, Cablevision and Sprint, together with music videos for We The Kings and a spot for Barack Obama produced with RED camera system, it’s easy to see that the buzz is fully warranted.
 
“BOND was started as a company with a passionate, yet impeccably balanced creative team,” says Jeff Beckerman, President/Creative Director. “BOND doesn’t adhere to a single ‘style.’ Our people are different ages and from different countries. The one thing we all share, however, is the ability to bring something special to every project.”

The BOND editing team includes fashion/beauty expert Claudia Reda-Walker, who in her native Rome, Italy began her career working at a production/post house that hosted numerous top directors including Woody Allen, Spike Lee, Ridley Scott, and Federico Fellini.  In fact, one of Reda-Walker’s first jobs as an assistant editor was a commercial directed by Fellini, which required her to be on his set.  There’s lifestyle and youth-oriented talent Sebastian Wainstein, a native of Buenos Aires who discovered film editing in high school and became one of the region’s most in-demand editors by his early 20s wining a clio for his Bavaria Red spot; acclaimed comedy editor Greg Kiernan who began his editing career cutting baseball and humor spots and whose Cablevision work has been featured on Gawker.com thanks to an estimated 17,000 impressions per-New Yorker; Gustavo Bernal, BOND’s youngest editor whose music-centric work includes a webisode for Turner Broadcasting featuring The Roots’ “?uestLove” for agency Spike DDB; and of course Beckerman himself. The BOND team is rounded out by motion effects artist Jeffrey Spangler and sound designers/engineers Joe Casalino and Mark Cobrin.

In an unpredictable industry, Jeff Beckerman has been a lot more than lucky. The veteran editor who founded  BOND -- the full-service creative editorial, visual effects/3D animation and sound design/audio post house that launched in 2006 -- has simply made too many right moves to chalk it up to just good fortune. “It comes down to really understanding the industry in its entirety, from production to post,” says Beckerman. “The postproduction business is littered with companies that didnullt adapt to the changes within the industry. Creative, technical, new media, and desktop software have all had unexpectedly profound effects on client needs and budgets. Today’s clients expect quality in quantity; a seamless blend of high concept creative, efficient budgeting and convenience. I had a sense of that direction when I started BOND, and it looks like we made the right choice.”

From the outset, Beckerman went about assembling a tight, versatile, and comprehensive creative team capable of covering the entire post production process, all within an intimate, boutique-style atmosphere far removed from traditional post houses.  “I love the energy of the place,” said Reda-Walker. “What makes BOND special is everyone’s passion and commitment to both the business and to the art of editing. We’re all perfectionists and that attention to detail is something clients notice and appreciate.”

With the new work, certainly comes new challenges.  BOND recently worked on the ad Before Now -- a new spot for Sprint and ad agency The Vidal Partnership.  In it a small town theater is used to highlight the multitude of benefits now available through the Samsung Instinct, a phone with a super fast internet connection. The spot was completed almost entirely at BOND, with editing by Wainstein, visual effects from Spangler, and audio from Cobrin and Casalino.  The visual effects presented a particular daunting challenge to Spangler and his BOND FX team. In one of the more challenging scenes, rigging wires supported a group of musicians who appear to fall from the sky. While the actual rigs had to be removed, Spangler and his team needed to add marionette-style strings to each musician’s limbs.

With the Tecate Beer ‘Con Caracter’ campaign, BOND was entrusted with the entire post. Simply entitled Anthem Part 1, 2 and 3, the campaign humorously celebrated the bold and authentic character of Tecate and Mexican men. By highlighting their successes in American society, the campaign connected with consumers on a much deeper level. Noted comedy editor Greg Kiernan cut the spots, while BOND Audio’s Casalino worked on the extensive audio post and sound design, with Spangler contributing visual effects and graphics.

BOND has also earned a reputation as one of New York’s leading RED Camera experts. Beckerman and company recently began working with Spotlab/Group 101 Spots, an organization that helps establish new directors. The relationship led to Because We Can, a spec spot for the Barack Obama presidential campaign, directed by noted photographer Jeffrey Lamont Brown, cut by Kiernan and shot with the RED Camera.  BOND and Kiernan created their own particular workflow for the project to take advantage of BOND’s Avid set-up. The spot also features sound design from Mark Cobrin.

It should come as no surprise then, with the talent housed at BOND, that the shop is beyond busy. “We’ve been very fortunate to be ahead of the curve technology-wise,” says Beckerman.  “But the most important thing for success is the talent you have and the working environment you create for the talent and your clients.  I truly believe BOND delivers all of this, creating a very positive, creative and collaborative experience. ”