New York

Directors Alex Winter and Alex Halpern have formed Hyena Films, a New York based commercial production house. The shop's roster also consists of comedy directors Suzanne Luna, Art Haynie and a directing duo dubbed the Majorcan Liberation Army a.k.a. Marcel Lundberg and Max Makowski.

Halpern and Winter, who attended New York University's film school together, have long discussed launching their own company. "One of the main driving forces for opening [Hyena] is because we wanted to work together," noted Halpern. “I think we have a unique opportunity to pursue a course ... which gives us more control to grow the company at a good pace.” Winter and Halpern also related that they are interested in exploring new media and client direct projects.

“It was a two fold deal, because both of us are filmmakers as well, who work in advertising in tandem with our other work,” noted Winter, who continues to direct spots in the U.K. through Brave Films, London, a shop he co-founded in 1994. “I’ve had a company in London for the last seven years, and I've been doing features here, and my commercial work there, and I really wanted to work more in the states [in commercials]. I didn't want to come back to the U.S. without starting my own company and having a chance to get involved in advertising in a more lateral way and doing client-direct stuff, and it seemed like a really good fit [to work with Alex]."

Halpern, who recently made his feature directing debut with the documentary Nine Good Teeth, the tale his 103 year-old grandmother, is also president of Post Factory, New York, an editorial house he started in '96 with an editors' roster comprising Jinx Godfrey, Darek Bell and Mark Nickelsburg. The latter recently joined the company. In addition to its commercial work, Post Factory also services the feature film industry, with directors such as the Coen Brothers who direct spots via bicoastal Villains and Steven Soderbergh cutting films there. While Hyena will be housed in the same facility as Post Factory, the two companies are independent entities, although both Halpern and Winter noted that agencies using Hyena directors were free to use Post Factory editors, if that worked best for a particular project. Halpern also noted that since Hyena is sharing space with Post Factory, there will be opportunities for collaboration in both formal and informal ways.

Halpern, who is mulling over putting together a spec reel, is looking forward to getting into commercial work; he was previously represented for music videos by F.M. Rocks, Santa Monica, and prior to that by Portfolio Artists Network. Portfolio was eventually consolidated into Black Dog Films, the music video division of bicoastal RSA USA."

Winter, a comedy director who has helmed ads mostly in the U.K. through the aforementioned Brave Films, also directs feature films, including Fever, which he wrote. Starring Henry Thomas and Teri Hatcher, the movie is a psychological thriller about a Brooklyn artist who becomes involved in a murder investigation. Fever was an official selection in the Directors Fortnight at the 1999 Cannes International Film Festival.

Winter is also known as an actor, having appeared in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and its sequel, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, among other films. Some of his recent short form credits include several comedy based spots for advertisers such as Pringles, BBCi, Weetabix, and the National Lottery, all of which were for the U.K. market. Winter's last stateside representation was with Creative Film Management, New York; prior to that he was with now defunct Atherton, where he directed two spots for the Pennsylvania Lottery. An '83 graduate of New York University's film school, Winter signed with now defunct Propaganda films in '87, directing music videos and television shows.

Winter and Halpern are currently doing double duty as exec. producers at Hyena, along with Post Factory executive producer / head of sales Jim O'Hagen, while they seek out a fulltime executive producer for the production house. Sandi Mollod of Sandi Mollod & Associates, New York, handles East Coast representation for Hyena, which is currently seeking West Coast representation.

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