PRODIGY FOUND IN NEW YORK

Australian based production and production services company Prodigy Films today announced the opening of its New York office. The company’s full roster of directors is represented through the North American operation, the company’s fourth office but first outside of Australia and New Zealand.
Headed by New Zealand born Executive Producer, Ms Nic Barnes, Prodigy’s New York presence plans to bring a fresh approach to production to US advertising agencies. In particular, Prodigy does not plan to use a network of reps; rather Ms Barnes will be directly responsible for meeting and developing relationships with the agencies.
“At Prodigy, we believe US agencies will appreciate dealing directly with the Executive Producer because of the familiarity with the directors an EP has,” Ms Barnes said. “By eliminating an intermediary between agency and Director, we hope agencies will benefit from a more timely and transparent level of service from the production company. This foundation is established during the pre-bid stage and stands us all in good stead right through the entire production process”.
Ms Barnes added: “Prodigy has always been about doing things a little differently. So much of production is based on precedent but with increasing global competition and corporates driving marketing budgets down, we all need to ask whether the old ways will work in this new world”.
Company owner and Sydney based Executive Producer, Jonathan Samway, is a firm believer in what he terms ‘zero geography’. “The last 6 years have really seen clients and agencies understand that production is a global industry. Early in my career, taking a production to a different country was exotic and only reserved for multi-million dollar campaigns. Now, with the developments in communications technology and increasing sophistication of lower cost countries, the size of the shoot is irrelevant, it’s more about where in the world does it make economic sense to get the job done. Luckily for us, Australia and New Zealand offer great value to northern hemisphere advertisers and we look forward to helping US clients and agencies with this through our New York office”, he said.
Prodigy currently has a roster of 10 directors including short film festival and Cannes Lion winner Tim Bullock, drama specialist Brendan Donovan and much awarded visual design experts Tina Bull and James Hackett. The company plans to add to this roster, seeking US based Directors looking for representation outside of the US. Also, while not in a position to make an announcement at the moment, Prodigy expects to make public the new of signing some “name” directors shortly.