Infused with a batch of proven new talent from Dallas, Vitamin, the digital media arm of Filmworkers Club, has been relaunched and revitalized with plans for expansion into broadcast and feature entertainment graphics.
New executive creative director is Danny DelPurgatorio, along with three cohorts, who were transported here from Radium/Reel FX, Dallas, a prominent movie and TV commercial/effects company with a Santa Monica office.
New team members from Dallas are art directors Matt Behary, a Cincinnati native, and Rob Foster, originally from Tampa. Fran Gaconnier, a native New Yorker like DelPurgatorio, is executive producer. A creative assistant is in the process of being hired.
While everyone has a title, DelPurgatorio said, “We all do everything across the board.”
For the past few months, DePurgatorio and team have been reinventing and rebranding Vitamin into a multi-disciplinary studio that offers a mix of conceptual, design and production services. Its core services include live action production, visual effects, motion graphics and 2D, 3D and traditional animation.
Among the new leadership’s goals are targeting new and broader areas of business among major movie studios for titling and graphics design,” experience that DelPurgatorio uniquely brings to Vitamin.
During his seven years at Radium/Reel FX, DelPurgatorio was creative director for broadcast on the Radium side, and effects director of entertainment features for Reel FX.
His experience spans features (the award-winning main title and end crawl for “Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium”) television branding and graphics (MTV, VH1, FUSE TV, HBO, “CONversations with Ricky Jay”), commercials (Gatorade, AT&T, Pepsi, Southwest Airlines and Subaru) and theme park attractions (Universal Studios).
He also directed a 30-minute animated short, “Tales of the Black Freighter” for Warner Bros. that was released on DVD and Blu-ray as a tie-in to the “Watchman” feature.
The new team has already begun production on several high profile projects. The most current one is creating graphics for a second, 4.5-minute music video for Denver-based director Bob Carmichael and the Maroon Five band.
DelPurgatorio, a graduate of the Ringling College of Art and Design, said he loves being in Chicago and finds the city’s massive array of creative agencies, broadcast companies and talent pool “inspiring.”
“It’s also a great base to reach out to other markets around the country. It’s a great place to do great work,” he added.
Vitamin is located at 232 E. Ohio; phone 312/664-6683. See
