“It was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up,” says Steve Morrison about his new position as VP/general manager/editor of Foundation Content. He will assume his new job Jan. 2, after five years as Draftfcb’s SVP/director creative editorial.
“I was Foundation’s first employee and worked there for two-and-a-half years before Draft hired me away. Going to Draft was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up at the time,” he adds.
“Now that Foundation has opened a branch in Los Angeles, they needed someone here and it sounded like a good chance for me to get out there and work on projects other than strictly commercials.”
Morrison previously had been a creative editor at Red Car and Editel, where he had worked with Foundation co-founder/editor James Lipetzky.
At Draftfcb, he had been in charge of Inside Job, the agency’s in-house creative editorial department, with staff of 25-30 people. Since Morrison just resigned from Draftfcb on Dec. 8, no successor has been named.
Morrison to manage a 23-person staff
At Foundation, Morrison will manage a staff of 23 people. They include four producers, led by executive producer Tracy Heropkie; six editors ad two assistants; Kyle Shoup’s motion graphics design team of five; Tom Rovak’s color correction and Ryan Privy’s audio.
Heropkie had worked with Morrison during her first year at Foundation. “I’m thrilled to be working with him again, this time as a team. It’s a great fit and the time is right,” she says.
Morrison was Foundation’s first staff hire when the then-strictly post company opened in 2004, founded by partners/presidents Lipetsky and his wife, chief creative officer Samantha Hart.
Since then, Foundation has grown into a full-service company for all genres and all visual media. From its first four rooms at 200 E. Ontario, the company now occupies two connected floors in the same building.
Currently in progress are spots for Citracal/Energy BBDO, edited by Christina Stumpf; Rush University Medical Center that Lipetzky is editing for Storand, Pann, Margolis and two music videos for band Arctic Monkeys, which were shot in L.A. by directors Focus Creeps and are being edited in Chicago Max Gold and Drew Hall.
An L.A. branch was opened last year
Last year, Foundation opened its L.A. branch in artistically converted former warehouse space in the Hayden Tract in Culver City, the center for an eclectic group of advertising and entertainment-related companies. It now has a staff of 10.
Discussions between Morrison and Foundation’s owners began early last summer when it became obvious to Hart that the L.A. office’s rapid move into more and different directions and required increasing more of her and Lipetzky’s attention.
“With Steve, alongside our talented staff in place, we have a dream team heading up Chicago,” she says. “Since we’ve been in L.A., we’ve always had this plan of dual management in mind and now it’s in place.”
Hart, incidentally, is a native Angelino, with previous experience in L.A.’s entertainment and record industries.
She and Lipetzky have changed their residential address from Chicago, where they maintain a condo, to a home in Beverly Hills.
