AtomFilms adds 3, inks USC
Marcom named senior veep of worldwide revenue
Separately, the USC School of Cinema-Television has inked an exclusive deal with Seattle-based AtomFilms, to exclusively stream its library of 100 short student films online for the next 18 months. Pics, shot as graduate student thesis, include works by George Lucas and Robert Zemeckis.
AtomFilms plans to promote the USC catalog online via a "USC Cinema Yearbook" site (usc.atomfilms.com) set to launch today.
According to Larry Auerbach, associate dean of student-industry relations, the AtomFilms deal marks a major Internet first for USC's School of Cinema-Television: "Affiliating with AtomFilms enables the school to achieve a couple of goals. First, it gives our talented students a worldwide public venue for showcasing their work, which for them and us is very exciting. Secondly, licensing the rights to AtomFilms allows us to expedite archiving our 75-year-old film collection. That should make film historians and fans alike very happy."
Additionally, Richard Barton, prexy and CEO of online travel service Expedia, has joined AtomFilms' board of directors, which already includes Frank Biondi Jr., former chairman and CEO of Universal Studios; Mark Torrance, vice chairman of Getty Images Inc.; and Thomas Hoegh, founder and managing director of Arts Alliance.
Marcom will coordinate worldwide online and offline sales efforts to better serve AtomFilms' clients and partners, while working to strategically organize Atom's growing catalog of short-form entertainment.
At Time, Marcom managed a portfolio of more than a dozen national and international news, business, and lifestyle publications worldwide.
"John has an unparalleled understanding of global advertisers' needs as it relates to offline content, effectively leading one of the world's most diversified and far-flung media organizations," said Mika Salmi, founder and CEO at AtomFilms.
"In my 20 years in the media business, there, of course, has been nothing like the rapid rise in power and influence of the Internet on the entire industry," Marcom said.
Marcom joined Time in 1993, first working as development director in Japan, where he led a team exploring the Japanese market for news magazines. He became publisher of Time magazine's Asian edition in 1995 and prexy of Time Inc. Asia in 1998.
Prior to joining Time, Marcom was a business reporter in Tokyo, New York and London, working for the Wall Street Journal and Forbes magazine.
Calderon will be in charge of identifying and developing animation and digital media talent and content for AtomFilms as well as expanding upon Atom's talent and new entertainment technologies.
Calderon previously led the animation development department at MTV, where he was responsible for generating some of MTV's popular animation series -- "Cartoon Sushi," "Celebrity Deathmatch," "Daria," "Downtown" and the upcoming "Spygroove."
