Broadcast design industry veteran Saam Gabbay has launched Humunculus, a new broadcast design and animation company in Venice, California. Humunculus provides audiovisual content for television networks, ad agencies, entertainment companies and major corporations. A 1992 graduate of UC Santa Barbara, Saam taught courses at UCSB on Adobe Photoshop and Premiere and helped to create the university's digital media lab. He formed production and design firm Gadget School in Venice in 1995 where he conceptualized and produced spots for top agencies, network identity packages and other high-profile presentations, and also directed a number of projects. Closing Gadget School to pursue freelance work in 1999, Saam served as director, composer, musician, artist and digital editor for clients including TBWAChiatDay (for the launch of Sony PlayStation 2), The Game Show Network, Fox Kids and many others. Gabbay will share creative director duties with award-winning writer, director, producer and designer Brumby Boylston. Brumby started his freelance career at Gadget as a designer/ director and has since earned top design awards from the Art Directors Club of New York, BDA, HOW Magazine and the Type Designers, among others. To design, create and deliver their projects, the Humunculus team employs a suite of Apple G4 dual 1-gig processor VOODOO and Pinnacle-card equipped workstations running Maya, Cinema 4DXL, Final Cut Pro and Adobe After Effects, Photoshop and Illustrator. Among the projects the team has completed this year in preparing for their official launch are a 60-second broadcast spot co-directed by Gabbay for the Infogrames game TEST DRIVE; Sony PlayStation 2's 2002 brand campaign mnemonic which debuted at E3; and two large-scale multi-screen presentations for TBWAChiatDay client Infiniti. For more information about Humunculus, visit their Website at www.humunculus.com.
