The production partnership of CinemaStreet Pictures and director Ed Han has signed for national representation with the independent sales agent Dana Dubay. CinemaStreet is the New York-based production company founded by former agency producer and independent film producer Dana Offenbach. It works in commercials, features, promos, documentaries, short films and numerous forms of brand content.
The signing marks the first independent sales agreement for CinemaStreet, which has increased its visibility and awareness in the agency marketplace thanks to the work it’s produced over the past three years for iRobot, all of which was directed by Han.
Most recently, Han and CinemaStreet helped launch the newest addition to the
Roomba line, the Roomba 980. As a former ad agency creative director, Han
served as Creative Director on the work and also provided strategic
direction.
Han says the agreement between CinemaStreet and Dubay will help him and
Offenbach as they offer their unique approach to production to a wider agency
audience. “We’re definitely not the traditional production company model,” he
notes. “This association allows us to use traditional channels to show both
agencies and brands how Ed Han Consulting and CinemaStreet work together.
“Dana and I believe in delivering a final product that is bigger than the
budget, so we’ve been patient about developing our network in order to bring
best-in-class capabilities to each project,” Han continues. “We both felt that
signing with Dana Dubay was the next logical step in getting our name out
there. We weren’t going to talk to agencies until we were confident that our
process was tested and proven.”
Adds Offenbach, “We also feel agencies will respond positively to having a
different option in terms of resources and experience to draw on. In Ed’s case,
an agency creative who’s moved into directing isn’t new. But his experience as
a brand consultant and knowledge of how to build a story around a brand can be
useful in ways big and small.”
Offenbach first met Dubay when she was an agency producer and he was handling
sales on the post production side of the business, and was impressed with how
he presented his clients and their capabilities. (Prior to founding his
independent repping agency, Dubay was Head of Sales for such companies as
BlueRock, Spontaneous, Compulsive Pictures and others.) For his part, Dubay
says that in the CinemaStreet / Ed Han partnership he sees the future of
producing ad content for agencies and brands.
“I’ve been specializing in representing companies that are able to handle
projects from concept through completion,” Dubay notes. “That ability to
deliver from soup to nuts is a growing trend, and that’s why CinemaStreet
perfectly fits the model of how I’ve built my agency. Dana Offenbach can
produce anything, and Ed Han can do everything from strategy to storyboards.
They’ve got a wealth of experience and great pedigrees between the two of them,
and they represent where the business is headed: it’s moving towards people who
can perform multiple roles and do each of them well, and towards people who
know how to creatively stretch budgets.”
Dubay adds that he was eager to meet with Han after hearing Offenbach describe
him. “I’ve known Dana for many years, and I know the kinds of directors she’s
worked with, so to hear her speak so highly of Ed was really intriguing,” he
says. “And then when I met him, I was as impressed with his skills and vision
as a director as I was with his deep knowledge of the business.”
Han’s work with CinemaStreet reveals his holistic expertise in both strategic
and creative thinking, backed by Offenbach’s talents as a producer. Their first
spot for iRobot, which broke in early 2015, was named one of the five-most
effective ads of Q2 that year by Ace Metrix, the industry-leading research
firm.
Prior to launching Ed Han Consulting, Han was ECD at
the boutique agency Walton Isaacson, where he oversaw the creative output of
its offices in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Before that he spent a decade
at Publicis in Chicago and New York, rising to the position of Sr. VP/Creative
Director.
Offenbach, who first worked with Han at Walton Isaacson, brings an extensive
agency background to the equation as a broadcast business manager at Y&R
and Head Of Business Affairs at UniWorld before she began producing and
eventually launching CinemaStreet. Her experience
in both advertising and entertainment – she’s served as producer and executive
producer on a number of independent feature films, and most recently produced
two segments for the ABFF Honors Awards, which aired on BET earlier this month
– allows her to bring not just creative insights to each project, but
production efficiencies as well.