Two bits of news... First, the Cortez Brothers (or BB Rivero, at least) is happy to report having served on the jury of the Promax/BDA awards for the second year running. Promax is an association for promotion and marketing execs in electronic media and the Broadcast Designers' Association is the org for pros who work in motion graphics. Which is a nice way to segue into some more creative news, which is a shout-out to the combined (yet insane) efforts of our director Nelson Cabrera, La Comunidad, MTV and the spirit of a certain music star.

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Building Information Modelling Asia 2009

I've recently returned from a conference on BIM in Singapore. Apart from an injury I received on the flight home I considered it to be a very worthwhile event.

There were key speakers from Developers, representatives of BuildingSMART, Tekla, Autodesk, Gehry Technologies as well as numerous others.

I guess the biggest thing I got out of it was that Revit isn't the centre of the universe! BIM can still work equally as well even if a number of the disciplines are using difference platforms. Yes if everyone is utilising the same platform such as Revit it can somewhat automate some of the more mundane co-ordination tasks - but it is not pivotal to a successful BIM. There were quite a few quoin phrases thrown about such as "Big BIM", "Little BIM" and "Integrated Project Delivery (IPD)" but only the latter had any real significance. Big BIM and Little BIM seemed to me to be a cop out to being able to say "this was a complete BIM project" when BIM was only partly implemented.

IPD refers to the involvement of all the Owners, consultants and Architects right at the conception of the BIM to establish project deliverables, specific outcomes and results to ensure the project is developed in such a way as to automate and produce these outcomes with minimal effort. It also involves the entire team communicating at equal levels in a Project Documentation/Design/Analysis Utopia all operating for the sole purpose of whatever will best benefit the project. Rather than, "its not my job"...

Over the next few weeks I plan to compile and develop a spreadsheet of BIM capable software for all stages of a building lifcycle including FM, that identifies the best way's for each of them to communicate with each other with regards to file types, formatting and setup for various uses that maximises data integrity through the life of the project. I welcome people to post their findings and designs for best interoperability methods with the various other packages as well as most applicable software to co-ordinate it all. Personally, we are going down the Navisworks road...

If anyone also has any questions specifically about the conference please ask as I will be more than happy to elaborate on any of the subjects if people are interested.

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After an exceptionally busy start to the new year, we are happy to report that we have shot spots for everything and everyone under the sun -- including beer, pizza, burgers, phones, cereal, enormous superstores, soft drinks and everything else you would want to hole up in the house with (or near) to outlast the Apocalypse. We have also added a few fresh new names to our roster of directors on the heels of our forays into Colombia and other fun places in South America. Some of our newbies include Daniel Gruener, Bruno Stagnaro, Diego + Vlady, Sergio Pineda, Alex Durán and Luís Kuri. All exciting new guys heading into exciting new projects for us.

Meanwhile, on the Storytelling Department side, we have lent our wordsmithing and creative services to jobs involving large Korean airlines, big American movie studios, established Hollywood production companies and a couple of blockbuster films that, hopefully, will get amazingly big releases this fall.

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Happy 2009, and we raise a toast to the beginning of a new production season. We just wrapped shoots in Mexico, Colombia and Argentina (both solo and via our partners) and will be heading back to Mexico soon for another one. We're adding a few new directors to our roster and we'll reveal them shortly... Otherwise, we're battening down the hatches and preparing to face an absolutely crazy sea of work this year--and that includes more web shoots, more digital shoots and a lot more international commercials waiting to be filmed.

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The Cortez Brothers welcomes Marcos Cline-Márquez to our company as an executive producer; he'll be corralling our hottest, freshest and all-around coolest new talent. As the headcount in our Marina del Rey office expands, so too do our forays into South America. We'll be shooting in Colombia again, plus traveling to the Dominican Republic to take part in a Hollywood filmmaking conference there. The Storytelling Department is happy to lend a hand helping directors land studio-backed feature films, producers land television series deals and the one-and-only Disney reach people through the written word. At the same time, we welcome director Nelson Cabrera to our roster... Nelson has an impressive reel that includes Crispin Porter+Bogusky, Grey, BBDO, JWT, Merkley, Cole Weber, DDB, Euro NY, Zubi, La Comunidad, Dieste and COD (to name just a few). Also, a shout-out to director Ago Panini, since we've just gotten a sneak peak at the trailer for his upcoming feature film, "Waiting for the Sun."

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Quick (and much deserved) congratulations to our director Carlos V. Gutierrez. Proving we've got him listed as promising New Talent for a reason, his script "Black and Blue" has just been named as a Thriller finalist in the Fade In Screenplay Contest.

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It's one of those seasons where we're so busy working that we haven't had time for proper updates, but this is the gist of it... We've shot a LOT of stuff, analyzed a LOT of scripts, worked with a LOT of directors and DPs and producers and agencies and writers and creatives and other sundry (yet fascinating) characters. We've been in, shot in, and/or colluded with North America, South America, Europe and the Middle East on products that you wear, drive, eat, read and/or see. We've consulted on feature film campaigns, things written in Spanish and English, scripts, treatments, pitches and documentary projects. When we have a break in the craziness we'll certainly go into detail about those projects, but mostly we've just got our fingers crossed that we'll never HAVE a break at all...

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