Chris McGurk
Okay, I admit that the headline of this post is pure click bait. But did you really want to read another story headlined “Chris McGurk Named Cinedigm CEO”? Truth is I wasn’t in Cinedigm’s board room when they offered Chris McGurk their Chairman and CEO positions, and thus I have no “inside” information. However, from the moment Cinedigm announced McGurk as their new CEO earlier this week my inbox has been flooded with emails from those asking about my own thoughts on the news.
Rather than take the usual Internet approach of writing up an analytical post before the ink was dry on Cinedigm’s press release, I chose gather my thoughts about the news for a couple of days. While it may seem at first that McGurk is an odd choice to head a digital cinema deployment entity, upon reflection one can see the benefits Cinedigm gains with the hire.
As the press release trumpeting the hire so diligently pointed out, McGurk has a ton of film industry experience. Every story reporting McGurk’s new role at Cinedigm recounted his lengthy professional history. Still I feel compelled to do it here. I first became aware of McGurk in the early 1990′s while working as an intern at Walt Disney Studios. At the time McGurk was President of the Walt Disney Motion Picture Group and it was hard to find anyone who had a bad word to say about him. Quite the opposite in fact. McGurk’s tenure at Disney from 1988 to 1996 included a stint as Chief Financial Officer on the studio side, among several other roles. He held similar senior titles (President and Chief Operating Officer) during his three year stay at Universal Pictures from 1996 to 1999.
McGurk is probably most associated with his last two companies Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where he was Vice Chairman and COO from 1999 to 2005, as well as Overture Films, where he served as founder and Chief Executive Officer from 2006 to 2010. This may have more to do with the current state of those companies than McGurk’s actual achievements, but more on that later.
Read More »
Popularity: 4% [?]
Posted in
Integrators,
People
Tagged as
Adam Mizel,
Chris McGurk,
Cinedigm,
Deadline,
MGM,
Ned Gilhuly,
Overture Films,
Sageview Capital,
Universal Pictures,
Walt Disney Studios
Ever since March of 2008 when the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) announced that they would be holding their own trade show in 2011 just before NAB the question has been, who will the organization get to put the event together. Speculation was that Bob and Andrew Sunshine who have been producing NATO’s official trade show, ShoWest, since 2001. After all, the Sunshine’s, who originally started out as the Sunshine Group Worldwide before being sold to Nielsen, have tons of experience organizing annual exhibitor conferences such as ShowEast, Cinema Expo and CineAsia.
Such a guess would not have been far off given that earlier today NATO announced they had hired Mitch Neuhauser to be the Show Manager of their official trade show, the first of which will be held in March of 2011. Presently, Neuhauser works with the Sunshines as Vice President of Nielsen Film Group. He is also already involved with NATO in some capacity as the assistant executive director of NATO of New York.
If you’ve ever been to any of the four trade shows Nielsen holds for exhibitors and distributors each year than you definitely know who Neuhauser is. Read More »
Popularity: 28% [?]
Posted in
Organizations,
People
Tagged as
Andrew Sunshine,
Bob Sunshine,
Bruce Snyder,
CineAsia,
Cinema Expo,
Lee Roy Mitchell,
Mitch Neuhauser,
NATO,
Nielsen Film Group,
ShowEast,
ShoWest
Industry vet Rob Hummel—who most recently served as president of digital cinema at Dalsa—has been named CEO of Hollywood-based postproduction house Post Logic Studios, a division of India’s Prime Focus.
Post Logic’s Larry Birstock is vacating this position to move into an international role within the organization as president of Prime Focus Global Integration.
“Rob’s deep industry experience and long-standing relationships with Hollywood studios will be an enormous asset to Post Logic Studios and the Prime Focus companies,” said Namit Malhotra, founder and global CEO, Prime Focus, in a released statement. “We’re also thrilled that Larry has moved into a strategic global role within Prime Focus to help us more tightly integrate sales and operations across facilities in India, the UK, Canada and the US.”
Prior to his tenure with Dalsa, Hummel served as SVP, production technology at Warner Bros. There, he oversaw digital restoration work on such films as “Gone With The Wind” and “The Wizard of Oz.” Before joining Warner Bros., he held positions including SVP, digital cinema for Sony Corp.; EVP, digital development for Technicolor, and head of DreamWorks Animation Technology, during which time he oversaw the building of the company’s animation technology infrastructure. Hummel also held positions in postproduction, Imagineering, and TV animation at Walt Disney Studios.
Popularity: 13% [?]
Crediting their “aggressive commitment to explore and implement the latest technological advances in production and industry standards” Warner Bros. promoted Wendy Aylsworth to Senior Vice President, Warner Bros. Technical Operations. Aylsworth, who has been with the studio since 1994, previously served as Vice President, Technology, Warner Bros. Technical Operations.
Many in the industry are familiar with Aylsworth through her work as Engineering Vice President of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. Over the past year she was instrumental in reorganizing the Technology Committees to better service emerging technologies such as digital cinema. In fact, before she took over as Engineer Vice President she was Chair of SMPTE’s D-Cinema Technology Committee, a group that created the first 24 standards for D-Cinema. Like many executives who work in standards bodies, Aylsworth participates in other standards activity, including those run by ATSC and CableLabs. Most recently she announced the creation of the 3-D Home Display Formats Task Force within SMPTE, a group that will help set standards for mastering stereoscopic content for home viewing.
Aylsworth’s new position within Warner Bros. is not unlike her old one in that she will be overseeing a group that is responsible for pushing the studio’s (as well as the industry’s) agenda in both national and international standards organizations. In addition, she will continue to head up the group within Warner Bros. responsible for reviewing and implementing emerging technologies in the content production and distribution space. In the press release announcing the promotion Chuck Dages, Executive Vice President, Emerging Technologies, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group was quoted reiterating Aylsworth’s background and rising stature within the industry:
“Wendy has taken a lead position not only for our studio but in the external organizations dedicated to creating new standards for such exciting innovations as digital cinema and 3-D viewing for the home. This promotion recognizes not only her achievements to date but the increasing importance of her efforts to our studio and our industry.”
While Aylsworth has built a strong reputation for herself in the entertainment industry, she began her professional career in technology working in the aerospace industry at companies such as Lockheed. She earned her MS/MBA in Managerial Sciences and Strategic Planning fro the University of Southern California and holds a BS in computer Sciences from the University of Michigan.
Popularity: 20% [?]
Pan-European digital cinema integrator XDC has poached the Benelux head of pan-European cinema advertiser Screenvision to head up its virtual print fee effort as the company get a 7.5m euro cash injection. Serge Plasch is replacing Laurent Minguet as head and will go head to head with the likes of Arts Alliance Media in promoting digital cinema all over Europe. From the press release:
Serge Plasch (40), has been Managing Director of Screenvision Benelux since 2001 where he reinforced the leadership of that major advertising saleshouse for the Cinema Industry. Speaking fluently four languages, English, French, Dutch, German, he will contribute to strengthen XDC position in the large but fragmented European Cinema market. Enthusiast over this new opportunity, the new Managing Director & CEO says : “After years of talks and trials, large DC deployment is starting. All market players are convinced that Cinema will be digitized and that will improve the business model of the industry, for the good of the audience. XDC has proven its skills to operate DC screens through a full range of services and technologies. XDC is the first DC Content lab in Europe and it has built the largest early stage DC network exceeding 300 systems for leading cinema groups. I am also very pleased to work closely with a very motivated team and in particular with Bernard Collard.
Though tucked away at the bottom of the press release, but in many ways no less important, long-term consultant to XDC John Burchill Hughes has been appointed “special advisor to the Board of Directors and member of the management board for content related matters.”
Read More »
Popularity: 27% [?]
Landmark Theatres’ chief operating officer Ted Mundorff has been promoted to the post of CEO, putting him in charge of the 58 properties in 28 US markets. From Variety article:
Former CEO Bill Banowsky will continue to develop business opportunities for Landmark.
For the past year, Mundorff has helped oversee Landmark’s expansion, including the opening of flagship theater, the Landmark, on the Westside. All told, the circuit has increased its screen count by 19% in the past 12 months.
Mundorff was instrumental in the opening last month of Landmark’s newest theater in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Slated to open in December is the Landmark Greenwood Village in the Tech Center of Denver.
No word on digital, which Landmark has been growing in their own unique way for the past few years, but Mundorff did get in place a big media deal with Samsung.
Popularity: 11% [?]
Deluxe and Sony have both announced senior management appointments in their digital cinema divisions.
Deluxe has appointed former Loews Cineplex VP John Wolski to look after the exhibitor side of their digital cinema operation.
From the press release:
Deluxe Digital Cinema, a unit of Deluxe Entertainment Services Group Inc., has announced that John Wolski has joined as its new Vice President of Exhibitor Services. Wolski will be leading Deluxe’s relationship management with the exhibition community, helping to build a national satellite network, and representing Deluxe at major industry events and standards bodies.
What is most interesting about this is the implicit admission that Deluxe is now seriously exploring satellite distribution for their digital cinema films. Read More »
Popularity: 17% [?]
Industry veteran Larry Jacobson is joining Digiserve as President this month, leaving Kansas and his role as President of the Entertainment Division of where-are-they-now server manufacturer QuVIS. For those of you who have not heard of Digiserve (full name: Digital Entertainment Services, LLC.) the press release informs us that:
Formed in 2006, Digiserve operates an electronic distribution digital network for the motion picture industry and its suppliers. The Digeserv platform of services delivers digital content for studios, exhibitors, alternative content providers, advertisers and other digital purveyors. In its core business, Digeserv offers a suite of services that enables theatres around the world to convert from analog 35 mm film projection systems to digital delivery at minimal cost with maximum efficiency. Digital content includes motion pictures, pre-movie programming, alternative entertainment and advertising, all of which may be received by exhibitors through the Digeserv delivery network.
So it would seem that they are effectively an AccessIT without any announced virtual print fee deals. Jacobson thus has his job cut out for himself in positioning Digiserve in a space where larger companies such as Technicolor are struggling to achieve lift-off. His first action should be to change Digiserve’s website, which is truly dreadfully amateurish, with its strips of 35mm-film graphics and popcorn buckets, presumably there so that you understand that they are in the cinema business. Digiserve may have something useful to contribute in this space, though as every cinema manager knows, poor presentation will not entice potential customers.
Popularity: 11% [?]
The trade body of the United Kingdom’s cinema industry has appointed former government film deputy secretary Phil Clapp as its new chief executive. Clapp thus replaces John Wilkinson, who stood down earlier this year (or was stood down?) , as head of the Cinema Exhibitors’ Association (CEA). Though Wilkinson remains head of the European Digital Cinema Forum, so the two will have to get on when it comes to UK-European digital cinema issues. What little information there is about the appointment comes from an article in the Hollywood Reporter, which tells us that Clapp, “joins from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport [DCMS], where he most recently was deputy director, responsible for policy on the creative industries, including film.”
Given that digital cinema is the greatest challenge facing the UK exhibition industry, this is not encouraging as the DCMS’s interest in digital cinema has been measured to date, compared to the Department of trade and Industry, which for many years encouraged digital cinema meetings while a new DCMS representative would show up for each meeting. However, this is not a reflection on Clapp, who must have something going for him to have qualified for the post at CEA. The CEA itself has always been the poorer cousin of its US counterpart NATO, unlike whom it does not even have a website, only these contact details. Most interesting to watch will be the dynamics between Clapp/CEA and UK Film Council/Peter Buckingham, that were responsible for the 240 screen-strong Digital Screen Network (DSN) that has made the UK the poster child of government sponsored digital cinema deployments in Europe.
Popularity: 20% [?]
Entries RSS
