People news from Backyard, Slim and more

Backyard has added director Seth Townsend to the roster.
Townsend's speciality is comedy, including an Axe spot starring a
sweaty small town hero who keeps live fish under his armpits, a
spot for Google Plus featuring a backyard pick-up game with running
commentary from NBA talent, and a Pringles spot depicting a
supermarket-turned-funhouse. He spent a number of years as the sole
American member of the Swedish collective Traktor before becoming
one half of the directing duo Seth&Bobby at Partizan. He went
solo in early 2011.
Slim has added director Melissa Silverman to its roster. Clients
include Starz/Directv, McDonalds, Revlon and Tuborg Beer, and she
has an EMMY nomination for Nickelodeon. She began her career at On
Air Promotions at MTV where she conceptualized, wrote and directed
campaigns with celebrities including Madonna, Conan O'Brien, Donald
Trump and The Foo Fighters. Recent work includes spots for The
Cooking Channel as well as the 30-minute scripted comedy All
Over It that she co-created and co-directed with fellow MTV
Alumni Ted Pauly.
Logan & Sons (L&S), the live action division of bicoastal
Logan, has added directors Emily Kai Bock, Paul Minor, Hauke
Hilberg, Jens Gehlhaar and Luke Gilford to its roster. Minor has
directed spots for Nike, Tenant's Lager and O2 featuring Coldplay,
and has started his tenure at L&S strongly with projects for
Microsoft, Kinect and
Cricket. Hilberg has just completed a film for Nike featuring
Dallas Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki,while Gelhaar just finished a
6-spot Skylanders campaign through 72andSunny. Kai Bock
has recently completed her first commercial assignment via Logan
& Sons for Coca-Cola and
NYC agency Johannes Leonardo
while Gilford has just completed a film for Dom Perignon featuring
David Lynch.
Psyop has hired visual effects engineer Jean-Francois "JF" Panisset
as chief technology officer, bridging the bi-coastal production
company's technology and creative teams. Panisset has worked at
Discreet Logic and then Autodesk, where he was instrumental in
writing the code for the first version of Inferno. He worked with
Psyop's COO, Mark Tobin, for several years at Rock Paper Scissors
and a52, and again at Moving Picture Company
