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

CP+B creative director Evan Fry has rejoined the agency as executive director of creative development, a newly created role. During his initial time at CP+B, Fry served as a creative director on a number of the agency's key campaigns. He left in 2009 to co-found the agency Victor & Spoils in Boulder.