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These are busy days for Chicago’s resident audio guru Hank Neuberger. Make that Super busy. He and Terry Fryer, his partner in recently formed Third Wave Productions, had an important hand in giving eight Super Bowl spots you’ll see this weekend more impact.

A week later on Feb. 8, some of those commercials will air on the Grammy award show, whose broadcast audio Neuberger has supervised for 15 years. Both shows air on CBS.

Not everyone is a football freak glued to his TV set on Super Bowl Sunday, reasoned independent filmmaker Jeff Daniels and his managing partner, Bob Brown, of Purple Rose Films. So why not capitalize on Midwesterners who would rather get out of the house and take in a good movie.

Cutters’ Grant Gustafson has earned a special place in the pantheon editorial excellence by having editing two of the most popular Super Bowl commercials of the decade.

In the “Super Bowl’s Greatest Commercials” special that aired on CBS Feb. 4, the Friday before Super bowl XLV, viewers voted his Budweiser spots their first and second most favorite spots.

HUNGRY MAN of New York, famous for its creative directors and take on comedy commercials, has won the Commitment to Excellence Award for TV commercials from the 2010 Hugo Television Awards, announced Jesse Berkowitz, competitions coordinator at a party Thursday night.

Hungry Man’s managing partner/executive producer Kevin Byrne will accept the Gold Hugo on behalf of his company at the April 15 awards ceremony at the Hard Rock Hotel.

Famous for comedy commercials, Hungry Man’s work is always a dominant force on the Super Bowl.

Milwaukee digital marketing firm Fullhouse Interactive will expand its Chicago presence mid-month, as client MillerCoors rolls out a Super Bowl mobile game that Fullhouse developed for the brewery.

Three account managers will move from Milwaukee around Jan. 15 to staff the new office at 300 S. Wacker. “They will be joined by four or five others within the first quarter,” says Fullhouse marketing manager Allison Gugala.

Currently 10 of Fullhouse’s 71 Milwaukee-based employees regularly commute to Chicago. A digital media strategist will be hired from Chicago, she adds.

Another Country has opened what is possibly the largest sound recording room in the Midwest — one that clients are calling “the best room in Chicago,” says partner/sound designer John Binder with justifiable pride.

Construction on the $1 million sound stage began last November and was completed by late January to handle sound for Super Bowl spots.

“The room was designed to mix all formats for broadcast and theatrical,” notes executive producer Tim Konn.

One of the city’s favorite sound designer /mixers, David Gerbosi, is gearing up for a month of work on a big package of Anheuser-Busch/DDB Super Bowl spots in his new 25th floor mixing room at Another Country.

Gerbosi joined Cutters’ sound division Monday, after his current contract with CRC expired in November after 16 years with the company.

DDB put a hold on its two favorite Bud brand sound designers, Gerbosi and John Binder, for a slew of Anheuser-Busch brands — Budweiser, Bud Light, Bud Light Lime and American Ale -? 2009 Super Bowl spots to air Feb. 1 from Tampa.

Backyard Productions is never one to stand still, always finding a new way to serve emerging trends?like its newly-formed Seed, a content company led by former DDB award-winning group creative director John Immesoete.

Immesoete is Seed partner/creative director and also a director for Backyard.

Seed will concentrate on “entertainment opportunities such as TV shows and Web-based films,” said Backyard partner/principal Roy Skillicorn.

Since signing with Backyard in December, Immesoete directed the “Lady” Bud Light Super Bowl spot in collaboration with DDB.

Chicago Access Network Television ? CAN TV ? is in serious trouble. Money trouble. And 21 years of service could end unless the Chicago City Council is persuaded otherwise at its Sept. 1 meeting.

Alderman Bernard Stone (50th) in May proposed an ordinance that one-fifth of the city’s cable franchise fee be designated to fund CAN TV. Almost 80% of public access centers across the U.S. are funded this way.

Said Stone: “To give you an idea of the amount of money we’re talking about, a Super Bowl commercial produces ad revenues of a little more than $2 million.

Joe Pytka needs no introduction. The King of Commercials ? the director who’s made billions of dollars for the biggest advertisers in the world, the winner of every conceivable commercial award, including three DGA Commercial Direction Awards, whose commercials have appeared 30 times on the Super Bowl ? will be in Chicago, in person, to win still another award.

This one is a Career Achievement Award and tribute at Park West March 11 from the Hugo Awards, a division of the Chicago International Film Festival.

Overall, the year coming to a close was nothing to cheer about. For most, October was a pretty good month, November was scary, but December, bless its cold and windy heart, is going to be okay from what we hear.

Here’s a rundown on some recent production activity.

DIRECTOR DENNIS MANARCHY came off a huge five-day Panasonic job, regrouped, and immediately went to Soldier Field to film four spots for LaVita (a Viagra type product) with spokesman Mike Ditka, the epitome of macho. They will air during the NFL playoffs and probably during the Super Bowl.

A MAJOR AGENCY CHANGE is at hand as Bob Winter will join Y&R as chief creative officer of the Chicago office, starting in December. He moves over from Leo Burnett where he was SVP/ECD for more than three years on Altoids, Kellogg’s, Greenpeace and Caesars Palace.

Winter succeeds Ken Erke whose departure shocked Michigan Avenue when he joined digital agency R/GA a few months ago as executive creative director. Erke joined Y&R in2000 from Cramer/Krasselt.

Chicago Recording Company created Freelancerinc.com “to address the interests and needs of the new society of freelance professionals,” says CRC VP Michael Gullickson, who manages the site.

He also poses questions to freelance agency producers, like A-list Bob Jackson, who has 20-plus years experience as executive producer working on award-winning accounts at DDB and FCB.

Here’s Jackson’s take on the freelance advertising world he travels.

MG: What are the intangibles that go into being a good producer?

BJ: Details, details and details.

Grant Gustafson, award-winning spot editor known for his high-profile work on Anheuser Busch brands, has joined Cutters, from a dozen years at The Whitehouse and its predecessor company, The Lookinglass.

Gustafson joined in mid-August as Cutters ninth Chicago editor and the fifth partner of the 25-year old post house. The move, he says, “felt like a good career move to branch out and expand my horizons.”

“It’s exciting to have Grant join us,” says Cutters founder/president Tim McGuire.

BRUCE MONTGOMERY, a co-founder of the two-year old, ever-growing Chicago Convergence, has stepped up as president. He is CEO of Wi-Fi Technologies and executive producer and host of long-running cable show, “Technology Access Television,” on CAN-TV Ch. 21, and a member of the Mayor’s Council on Technology, among others.

Montgomery succeeds fellow Convergence founder John Patterson, Pixel Brothers’ development director, who moved to L.A.

FIRST ASSIGNMENT for Towers Productions’ new casting director, Becky Cattie is to find the perfect cast for Towers’ “Housewives of Chicago” reality TV show, currently in development.

Cattie, who moved here from L.A. last summer, has six years experience casting unscripted TV shows, including “Extreme Makeover,” “America’s Got Talent,” “My Fair Wedding,” “10 Years Younger” and “The Simple Life.”

Response to the “Housewives” casting call has been “fantastic,” says Cattie.

Everybody was expecting a revolution, but the advertising contract AFTRA and SAG signed in the early morning hours of April 1 with the Joint Policy Committee of advertising agencies and producers looks a lot like ad contracts of years past.

There are some rate hikes ($36 million total) and some new Internet structures.

But in terms of wiping out the payment structure as we know it, that was tabled for study to be decided in 2012. Class A, pay-per-play commercials, in other words, have been preserved.

WHO HE IS: The new GM/EP at Digital Kitchen production house since March 12 is relocating to Chicago from Indianapolis where he’s freelanced as a producer for some 18 years.

HOW HE VIEWS HIS JOB: Helping to coordinate the production; seeking the work; getting projects in the door and then determining the most fitting music and settings.

Filmworkers Club inaugurated a fiber uplink service that facilitates the real-time delivery of HD commercials and other media to broadcasting destinations across the U.S. The service is being offered via Vyvx, operators of the country’s largest HD network.

The service can also be used to transmit standard definition video as well as audio media.

“This is a great option for clients who can’t wait for overnight delivery,” said Filmworkers president Reid Brody.

VINCE VAUGHN, whose every meal, drink and partying fills inches of column space, will give columnists serious delirium long after his film, “The Break Up,” wraps and the players return to Hollywood.

Vaughn plans on becoming a permanent Chicago resident, by virtue of the condo he’s in the process of buying and his shiny new Illinois drivers’ license.

WARNER BROS. SETS MAJOR FEATURE IN CHICAGO. A remake of a Korean movie now called “Il Mare” (“The Sea”) will start shooting in mid-March and is expected to be here for four months. Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves star; Argentinean Alejandro Agresti directs. Location is a house presently being built on a lake in the Forest Preserves.

Chicago native David Auburn (“Proof”) scripted the story for Chicago. Production designer is Matthew Crowley. Production headquarters are located in the Sofitel Hotel.

JWT wins the $12 million Illinois Tourism account, resigned last year by BBDO.

Tom Bernadin is Leo Burnett’s new president, from Interpublic’s Lowe’s/New York — the first non-Burnetter to have that post in the agency’s 70 year history.

DDB resigned the Lottery account, citing a difference of opinion over marketing and creative.

Marguerite Juliusson has added director Dennis Manarchy and Big Deahl Productions to her representation roster.

Oh-oh!