VETERAN AD MAN RON BESS, who in August was named president/CEO of Hy Connect agency, was just appointed CEO of the agency’s ownership entity, Boston-based Myelin Communications, which bought the Chicago office of Hy Connect last year.
Four-year old Myelin, owned by Chicago’s Baird Capital, is a network of companies specializing in health and financial services. HY Connect’s accounts include Blue Cross Blue Shield and Indiana University Health.
In his new role, Bess will “aggressively pursue growth opportunities for the broader Myelin agency network,” while serving as the day-to-day senior leader of HY Connect.
At Hy Connect, he replaced president Rich Levy who left after holding that position since June.
Most recently Bess headed Havas Worldwide. Previously, he’d had been worldwide president of FCB following its purchase of his Bayer Bess Vanderwarker agency, famous for its Gatorade “Be Like Mike” campaign, and earlier he’d been president/CEO at DDB and Y&R.
CUTTERS IS BUILDING OUT new “rotating space” in downtown Detroit, where it’s closer to its agency clients than its Oak Park, Michigan office. The new space is basically a live-shot stage, says managing director Craig Duncan. “It’s beautiful space in an older renovated building in a new part of Detroit that has great energy, just a short walk to Tigers Stadium.”
This year Cutters’ popular annual Halloween party has a new theme and a new venue. No longer a costume party, it’s now the Creative Black Tie, an invitation-only event. The venue is the post house’s spacious State Street facility, where 500 guests are expected to attend.
SCREENWRITER FREDERICK MENSCH, who wrote the single-character thriller “Nightingale,” starring David Oyelowo that aired last year on HBO, is working with producer / director Duane Edwards’ low-budget feature, “Wrong Numbers” starring Steppenwolf’s James Vincent Meredith and Marina Squerciati, “Chicago PD’s” officer Kim Burgess. “The production is slightly bigger than ‘Nightingale’ since there are two characters instead of one, but they’re they only two characters in the film, and they’re on-screen 100% of the time,” says Mensch.
They plan on shooting next spring in Chicago.
Mensch and Edwards are also working on a bigger-scale feature, “Supreme Ruler,” starring Ron Livingston, Billy Zane, Minnie Driver and Brian Geraghty.
Mensch is the founder and publisher of Moviebytes, the screenwriters’ bible of script contests.
ACTRESS CHRISTINE EBERSOLE (“Royal Pains,” “Madame Secretary”) voiced a Harper Collin’s children book, “Amelia Takes the Cake,” at ARU via Skype. Engineer/partner Mark Zeboski says he prefers Skype recordings because the voice is much clearer to hear than via phone.
SOMETHING DIFFERENT IN SCREENINGS is THE Oct. 21-22 presentation of “Silent Funny,” a live event created by filmmakers Sara Zalek and Eugene Sun Park, that centers on a series of short films about an androgynous trickster hero who travels through watery environments where time, memory, and dream states co-mingle.
It screens at 7:30 and 9 p.m. both nights at 4106 W. Chicago. Free, optional donation and tickets are available here.
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