Production Company of the Year 2011: B-Reel
Founding partners Petter Westlund, Pelle Nilsson and Anders Wahlquist, who have respective upbringings in the digital, film and business worlds, launched B-Reel in 1999 with the aspiration to experiment and play with media and technology in new ways. "It just seemed like you should be able to do things that were more interesting, had more impact online -- that you should be able to use video and animation in a bigger way," said Mr. Westlund. "It felt like a natural evolution, and working together felt like it could be a good way to try to push that type of production forward."
The trio first met through mutual connections at St. Paul Film. The Stockholm production company was founded by Fredrik Heinig and Johannes Ahlund. In 2009 it partnered with B-Reel on the launch of its films division, adding two new "founders" and rounding out B-Reel's offerings as an integrated production company.
Even on its first job, a 2000 campaign for Swedish fashion brand Whyred, B-Reel was already exploring the outer reaches of production. An interactive site put a modern-day twist on the fashion show: on display were models dressed in Whyred, lounging around an apartment and shot on security cams from a variety of angles. The idea then became a real-world event for which B-reel recreated the apartment scene in the middle of an art gallery, coupled with projections on the venue walls. All the directing, production, editing, design and coding fell to Mr. Westlund and Mr. Nilsson.
"I guess if I would have been told back then about all the projects we do now, it would have seemed insane," said Mr. Westlund. "In a way it makes sense, because we were already then trying to do mashups of different technologies. It's just on a bigger scale now."
Bigger scale, indeed. Today, any given B-Reel project will require skills even more varied than that first one. But the teams are bigger, thankfully. The company has grown from the original three to 120 employees in offices in Stockholm, New York, Los Angeles and London. For each project, B-Reel takes a "modular" approach, building teams equipped with whatever skills are necessary -- from creative technologists and developers to film and technical directors, producers, motion artists, designers and creatives.
Grand Prix Auto Sales Los Angeles - News
LOS ANGELES, Feb 08, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Grand Prix Entertainment, a Los Angeles-based sports and entertainment company, announced today the appointment of one of the most iconic leaders and innovators in global sport, Alan Rothenberg as a
including the Cannes Cyber Grand Prix-winning "Wilderness Downtown" for Arcade Fire (directed and conceived by @radical.media's Chris Milk and Google's Aaron Koblin) and the much-buzzed-about Live Drive for Mitsubishi, from 180, Los Angeles.
13 that Irwindale Speedway, the half-mile paved short-track just east of Los Angeles, was closing, and that the operators were filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. But all is not lost, says Doug Stokes, who has been a spokesman for the track since before
It's also been the site of the famous Turkey Night Midget Grand Prix for USAC sprint and midget cars promoted by the Agajanian family, together with Toyota's Showdown for NASCAR late model drivers aspiring to advance their careers.
The canceling of the racing season at Irwindale Speedway marks the end of stock car and NASCAR-sanctioned short track racing in Los Angeles County. Drivers, employees and NASCAR were expecting that Irwindale Speedway was going to cancel its racing
