Bill Reilly

New York, NY – May 17, 2011 – Bill Reilly, the Owner and Executive Producer of the L.A. based live action production company Space Program, has been named the new Executive Producer for commercials and advertising content at Curious Pictures, the New York-based animation and mixed-media production company. Reilly will merge Space Program, his live action production house, into Curious Pictures, bringing with him directors Zach Braff and Scott Duncan.  The announcement was made by Jan Korbelin, Managing Partner of Curious Pictures.

In addition to the hire of Reilly as EP, the studio has also announced the opening of an office in Santa Monica, the first outside New York in its 18-year history and has named new representation for the East Coast.  The new office will provide a base of operations for the studio’s growing involvement in feature film, TV programming and other entertainment projects, as well as service the work of its West Coast-based directors.  Reilly will divide his time between the New York and Santa Monica offices of Curious.

Handling East Coast representation for the company is the repping firm Hello, Tomorrow, consisting of reps Michelle Stuart and Mary Eiff. They previously repped Space Program.

Korbelin says the moves are in response to changes in the studio’s historical positioning of being a New York-based animation house.  While maintaining its status as one of the top animation studios in the US, it’s also been steadily adding live action directors to its roster and extending its production footprint to the West Coast in terms of both advertising and entertainment work, he says.  The hire of Reilly, an experienced live action EP with a background in visual effects and animation, along with the new office in Santa Monica, furthers its growth in both regards.

The studio is now producing a network pilot and is working on various development projects for both advertising and entertainment, Korbelin points out.  The workload has increasingly seen Curious’ producers and directors travelling to California for meetings and shoots, making the L.A. office a needed outpost to complement the work of its New York studio.  That’s where the bulk of its staff of 150 producers, directors, animators, CG artists and other specialists are based, working out of a 30,000 square foot studio.  One of the largest animation and visual effects production companies on the East Coast, Curious boasts a shooting stage, a full CG department and motion capture capability, all in house.

“We’re continuing to lay the groundwork for the future of commercial content at Curious,” says Korbelin about Reilly’s signing.  “As advertising is now incorporating so many new forms—everything from games to apps to long form—the signing of Bill is going to go a long way to ensuring our role as partners and producers for both agencies and brands.

Reilly sees joining Curious as way for him to offer a broader range of creative options and resources to his agency clients.  “At Space Program, we were frequently asked to provide different kinds of deliverables that we didn’t have the capability of executing on our own,” he says.  In his new post he’ll work closely with Camille Geier, Curious Picture’s Head of Production/EP, who’s joined the studio last year from the New York visual effects shop Rhino.  She had previously worked with Reilly on numerous projects, handling visual effects on jobs shot by his Space Program directors. 

Indeed, Reilly initially viewed Curious as a potential co-production partner for Space Program, but the more he learned about the studio the more compelling he found the idea of joining in a full time capacity.  “Being here gives me so many more things to talk about with agencies,” he explains.