Former Harvey head Rick Mischel takes the reigns as CEO of Mainframe Entertainment, the pioneering computer animation studio in Canada. He replaces Brett Gannon, who stepped down as president in October 2002 for medical reasons. Mischel will be based at the company's headquarters in Vancouver, overseeing production, development, distribution, licensing, operations and business affairs. "We are looking to Rick to expand our computer graphics animation expertise beyond television and into new areas such as feature films. Rick will also guide Mainframe's growth through international television co-productions, increase Mainframe's involvement in animation for video games and other new media platforms and augment their existing licensing and merchandising programs with a build-out of proprietary properties associated under the Mainframe banner," said Yad Garcha, SVP at Growthworks Capital Ltd. and a member of Mainframe's board of directors. As president/COO of The Harvey Entertainment Company in Los Angeles, Mischel was in charge of managing the business and creative affairs for such lucrative intellectual properties as Casper The Friendly Ghost and Richie Rich. Mischel began as an entertainment attorney with O'Melveny & Myers in 1987. Two years later, Mischel joined Electric Pictures Corporation as a VP responsible for the development of feature film projects. From 1993 to 1997, Mischel served as SVP of Live Entertainment, responsible for the acquisition, development and production of all completed feature films, co-productions and co-financing film projects, as well as all animated direct-to-video features, television specials and other Family Home Entertainment (FHE) branded children's programs. In 1998, Mischel joined Harvey Entertainment and led the company to increased earnings from $3 million to a projected $25 million through sales and mergers prior to the company's sale of its Harvey assets to Classic Media. Most recently, Mischel served as an independent producer in Los Angeles, developing and/or producing projects for Nickelodeon, Fox Television Studios, F/X and Canal Plus. Mainframe has produced more than 230 half hours of computer animation since its inception in 1993. It is currently in production of 13 episodes of SPIDER-MAN for Sony Pictures Television and the HOT WHEELS HIGHWAY 35 videos for Mattel, Inc.
