Hasta La Creative!

Doner L.A. made three appointments to its account and production departments. Hamid Saify joins the agency as vice president, account director, Julian Smith was appointed as director of digital production and Scott McDonald arrives as a digital producer. 

Saify arrives at Doner from California ticket exchange company Razorgator, where he served as senior vice president, marketing for the past nine months. Prior to that he was agency-side with Deutsch, where he spent over five years as vice president, search marketing and paid social. In his new role with Doner L.A., Saify will report to managing director Zihla Salinas. 

Smith most recently served as program manager for Rosetta, working primarily on Samsung. Before that he spent nearly four years at Deutsch as senior integrated producer, digital, working on the agency’s Volkswagen, Pizza Hut and Sprint accounts. Prior to Deutsch he spent four years with AKQA as project manager and then senior project manager, leading digital interactive marketing campaigns, primarily on the agency’s Visa account. 

McDonald joins the agency from Thirst Agency, where he was responsible for running operations and connecting brands, studios and start-ups with agency partners. He began his career as an architectural draftsman, moving on to become a set dresser, a production designer and then directing and producing digital content. 

The new appointments follow the arrival of five new creatives last month and the agency winning AOR duties for Children’s Mercy Kansas City.

RPA teamed up with production company tool for a new campaign celebrating Newport Beach Film Festival’s 15th anniversary entitled “15 Years Under the Influence.”

The centerpiece of the campaign is a short film called “Bedtime Story.” In the two and a half minute video, directed by Tom Routson, a daughter asks her father to read her a story before bed. The father begins a story about “a beautiful princess who lived in a magical castle far, far away,” but soon finds himself bored with the story and strays from the narrative, deciding that the princess is not actually a princess but a “beautiful operating system” (referencing Spike Jonze’s Her). From there his story bounces all over the place, referencing memorable moments in independent film from the last 20 years or so, with a rather gory ending. Somehow, through all this his daughter manages to fall asleep, making the display of truly awful parenting seem almost sweet. In addition to its home online, the film will screen during this year’s festival in Newport Beach, which will take place from April 24th-May 1st. Stick around for credits after the jump. continued…

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