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Brian Benson Joins Smoke & Mirrors

Post-production veteran and Clio Award winner Brian Benson has joined the Flame team at Smoke & Mirrors, a New York and London-based design, animation and VFX studio.

Brian Benson

Press release from TRUST

Smoke & Mirrors has further enhanced its world-class Flame team with the hiring of Brian Benson. With more than 16 years in the post-production industry, working on countless projects - ranging from highly creative and design-based to extremely technical with photo-real effects - for movie openings, film effects, music videos, broadcast promos and television commercials, Benson will be a significant asset to Smoke & Mirrors' NYC office. His extensive experience along the entire visual effects pipeline includes, but is not limited to, pitching, evaluating and breaking down boards, bidding, beauty retouch, match moving, compositing, CG integration, online editing, and VFX supervision both on and off set. "Having Brian here gives us a massive technical edge and he compliments the team here perfectly," noted Smoke & Mirrors CCO Sean Broughton. "He is well known, well liked and well-respected, working in every genre and with pretty much every agency in town. We're very proud to add him to the roster." Benson has collaborated with major agencies for big-time brands, including BBDO NY for Pepsi and Lowe Worldwide for GMC. His commercial clients have included Nike, Dunkin' Donuts, Burger King, Showtime, Canon, Mercedes, NASDAQ, Twix, Domino's Pizza, Dr Pepper, Hallmark Channel, Snickers, TNT, Revlon, Coca-Cola, Sprite, ESPN, HBO, Samsung, Disney/ABC, Animal Planet, Nickelodeon, eBay, Bank of America, Gillette, GE, Reebok, Tropicana, Coppertone, BellSouth, Pantene, E*TRADE, AT&T, Volkswagen, HP, Boost Mobile, Microsoft, Smirnoff, Verizon Wireless, Wendy's, and LG, among many others. Benson has earned a Clio for work with AT&T, a BDA Gold for his TNT spots, a BDA Gold for his Nickelodeon campaign, and an IMA and BDA for his work with Showtime Networks. Prior to joining Smoke & Mirrors, Benson worked as a freelancer for four years, collaborating with Method NY, Spontaneous, Framestore, Massmarket, Psyop, Pure, Charlex, Click 3X, Company 3, Brickyard, and ABC, among many others. Before joining the freelance ranks, Benson worked at Saucer Attack, Inc., PostWorks, NY, Black Logic, Tape House Editorial, and Telezign.

About Smoke & Mirrors:

Founded by Creative Director/VFX Artist Sean Broughton (NY) and CTO Mark Widig (UK), Smoke & Mirrors is a New York and London-based design, animation and VFX studio. The recent addition of a powerful grading suite delivers complete solutions for any type of project. A creative and artist-driven company synonymous with vision and originality since its inception, Smoke & Mirrors has consistently succeeded because of its collaborative approach and ability to build lasting creative relationships with directors, producers, agencies and clients alike. Production in the New York office is led by CCO Sean Broughton, MD Jo Morgan, and Head of Production Sue Romweber. Diverse projects includes the highly challenging Beatles spot for Rockband, as well as spots for LG, Jose Cuervo, and Dove. Recent music video work includes Deadweather's Treat Me Like Your Mother and Michael Jackson's This Is It. Smoke & Mirrors has also been involved with such feature films as James Bond and Harry Potter. Each office is fully networked via complementary systems allowing the companies to share resources, expanding their local capacities. Close involvement with hardware and software manufacturers and developers has kept Smoke & Mirrors at the forefront of innovation and technology

Dan Sarto's picture

Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.