Preymaker Retains Rising with Three New Hires

Posted on Friday, November 20, 2020 Leave a comment

From the publication:

Following the introduction of Preymaker in October by industry leaders Angus Kneale, Melanie Wickham and Verity Grantham, the creative and technology studio is announcing three major hires. Jasper Kidd, Alan McSeveney and Jamie Scott have joined the team. They bring a wide range of experience, including working with the top directors in the industry on high-profile, award-winning work.

"Preymaker is built on three pillars: technology, creativity, and most importantly, our people," said Kneale. "We're building on this foundation by hiring three extremely talented people. Jamie and Jasper are exceptional creative forces and Alan is a brilliant technical mind. They are all best in class with skills and a work that reflects a dynamic between creativity and technology, which is an integral part of our work at Preymaker. We consider ourselves lucky that all three of these talents are enthusiastic about taking on challenges, developing innovations and doing things in different ways. "

Award-winning creative Jasper Kidd is a cinephile Kneale described as "a rare breed of artist proficient in live action and highly technical CGI disciplines." Most recently, he worked as a VFX supervisor for the fantasy drama film Wendy with Oscar-nominated Beasts of the Southern Wild director Benh Zeitlin. Kidd previously worked for Absolute Post, Rainmaker and The Mill and had experience as an animator, composer, designer and director. His promotional credits include Hennessey's "The Piccards" and "Major" as well as the Sony Playstation "The King" and "Star Wars Battlefront". He's raised the bar in collaboration with directors like Daniel Wolfe, Martin De Thurah, Wayne McClammy and Chris Cunningham.

"What I love most about Preymaker is keeping my inner polymath alive and growing in all of the incredible areas that are developing in our industry," said Kidd. “From producing extraordinary works to exploring the incredible possibilities of the cloud to all of the exciting possibilities of real-time. The benefits of our new model are innumerable, but I also enjoy the challenges of being up to date as we all have to invent things that must exist in order to live in this new paradigm. "

Alan McSeveney brings extensive technical know-how to Preymaker, which he has gained over a decade at The Mill as a Senior Systems Engineer, IT Manager and most recently as Head of Technology in the New York studio. The opportunity to work with long-term colleagues Kneale, Wickham and Grantham in building a brand new, future-oriented startup motivated McSeveney to join Preymaker.

"At Preymaker, we implement cutting-edge technology and a scalable structure that enables us to grow and collaborate globally, giving everyone the latest tools they need to stay one step ahead," said McSeveney. “I'm responsible for everything from remote setups for our staff to designing the cloud architecture and the entire workflow to make sure the workflows are as coherent and efficient as possible. I also manage security to ensure confidentiality for our clients and their campaigns. All of this comes with stimulating challenges. The simpler we want our processes to be, the more complex things have to be in the backend to make it easy for everyone else. I cut out my work for myself, but in a good way. ”

For Jamie Scott, who has worked as a VFX supervisor and compositor at Psyop, Method and The MIll, Preymaker is an opportunity to continue doing great work with the latest advances in cloud technology. Scott's experience includes working with A-list directors like Rupert Sanders, Tom Kuntz, Ringan Ledwidge, Daniel Wolfe and Michel Gondry. He has also achieved success as an experimental filmmaker. Commissioned by Chanel, Spotify and Dell, his work includes a number of critically acclaimed time-lapse movies of the Seasons in Central Park that went viral and generated media coverage around the world.

"Preymaker is a great fit for me," said Scott. "I will work with colleagues I know well and with customers who are adventurous and driven by the power of storytelling. The advances in cloud-based technology offer so many benefits that Preymaker is pioneering and enabling us to Seamlessly collaborate with other artists around the world. Preymaker also offers the ability to dynamically expand as needed and access unlimited amounts of rendering power. All of these benefits help keep creativity flowing and creative culture thriving. "
Preymaker leverages an advanced custom cloud-based platform created in collaboration with Amazon Web Services and is one of the first cloud-native creative studios to create content entirely in the cloud. Preymaker has already started projects in collaboration with McCann, BBDO, 72andSunny and Johannes Leonardo as well as the directors Peter Thwaites, Daniel Wolfe, Lance Accord and David Gordon Green.