-Darren Aronofsky, director of films including Black Swan, The Wrestler and Requiem for a Dream of course, has teamed up with Ted Robbins and Sandy Haddad to launch bi-coastal commercial production house, Chromista. link

-The 2013 AICP Week lineup has been announced. link

-GSD&M has promoted several staffers including creative partners Victor Camozzi and Bryan Edwards, who work on Walgreens among other accounts to SVP/group creative directors. In addition, the Austin-based, Omnicom-owned agency has bumped up Nancy Ryan and Carrie Hines to SVP/account directors while elevating Ronnie Steck to VP/account director and Madhavi Reese to VP/strategy director.

-B-Reel created a video for Google Chrome as part of Google’s 2013 I/O conference that helps the Mountain View, CA giant thank developers for their contributions to the internet’s evolution (above).

-Brooklyn-based agency Carrot Creative has launched its new website. You can find out more about the new site from Carrot CPO/co-founder Chris Petescia here.

-Portland, ME-based The VIA Agency has welcomed Richard Fryling as group strategy director for the Sam’s Club account, Deep Focus alum Abha Dhakal as client strategist and Chris Gilbert as a copywriter.

-Filmmaker Greg Kohs joined the roster of Venice, CA prodco Backyard for U.S. commercial representation.

Another year, another round of PETA’s “Great Ape Pledge” PSA campaign which aims to bring awareness of the plight of primates that suffer physical/psychological abuse at the hands of the entertainment industry. BBDO New York, which has taken the “Pledge” before with its nifty auto-correct effort from two years ago, joins forces with PETA once again for the spot above, which also features VO services from Oscar-winner Adrien Brody and VFX/production work from The Mill. If you stick around for the end, you’ll see that no real ape was used in the above PSA, which reemphasizes PETA’s whole purpose for launching “The Great Ape Pledge” in the first place.

Instead, the parties involved hammer home the message that primates shouldn’t be used as actors by creating  a photo-real CG chimp that’s seemingly at its wit’s end. If the stark message touched a nerve or inspired you to pledge (it’s perhaps a bit more effective than auto-correct messaging), you can go here. Credits after the jump.

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It seems like we’ve been hearing about cuts at TBWA\Media Arts Lab (although relatively minor) pretty much every week this month but all tips up until now have proven to be fairly inaccurate . Now, though, we’ve received word from sources that TBWA’s Apple-focused, L.A.-based unit did let go of some staffers last week (the \MAL camp, like always, is keeping quiet). From what we’re hearing, approximately a dozen or so \MAL folks have been cut based on skill sets needed for the business at present.

On the flipside, though, Media Arts Lab, which also has office space in London, Tokyo, Shanghai, Seoul and Sydney, did make some creative hires in recent weeks including former B-Reel creative directors Hector Muelas and Ricardo Viramontes, who now serve as GCDs at the former agency.

Not sure if you’ve peeped this epic effort just yet, but in case you haven’t, Tim Nolan, former JWT New York creative director and current head of BBH Labs/interactive GCD at BBH New York, has spearheaded a book project called The ABCs of Contemporary Creatives. As mentioned, Nolan, along with partner/Droga5 creative Jen Lu, have unleashed an alphabetical guide of sorts to the creative industry, complete with visual accompaniments for each letter from a roster of designer/illustrators repped by New York-based talent management agency, Bernstein & Andriulli.

This is not a snapshot, mind you, but a tome (ok, maybe not Ten Commandments-esque). It’ll take a few minutes of your time at least to scroll down and not only check out forewords from the likes of BBH CCO John Patroulis, but an elemental A-Z breakdown of what defines contemporary creativity, at least in Nolan’s mind. Some folks on the Spy line (perhaps haters, if you will) call it “advertising douchebaggery,” but being from the outside looking in, we can totally appreciate the effort.

This is no Merriam-Webster, but if you’ve ever wanted to define words like “poopocalypse” and “glueslime,” then the “Language of the Domestic Jungle” is the right dictionary for you. Created for Clorox by Onion Labs – the creative services unit launched by The Onion a year ago – the Domestic Jungle spots employ Discovery Channel-esque narration to color their potty humor with some faux-sophistication. If you’re a legal adult who thinks poop jokes never get old (like me) there’s even a comprehensive Icktionary that can provide grammatical guidance for immaturity.

In the coming weeks, three more spots will air for the campaign. I can confirm that one of the terms is, in fact, “Splatteral Damage.” Even though that’s a dumb phrase that will make some people shake their heads, I wish I could’ve come up with that myself. These dirty situations do exist, and it’s easy to shrug them off as disgusting, but maybe you’ll get a kick out of watching some silly videos. And maybe you’ll think of Clorox next time you need to disinfect. Or maybe I’m 23 and alone in my appreciation for bathroom humor, and commenters will line up to criticize these ads. We’ll see. You can watch the “Glueslime” spot after the jump.

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There’s not too much to say about this video. A creative advertising student, who wishes to stay anonymous at the moment, has made this one-minute digital pitch aimed at senior-level industry folks (from CDs to CCOs to CEOs) who have yet to pick out an errand boy or girl for the upcoming 2013 Cannes Lions Festival. The animated video is cloaked in some 80′s synth beats, pastel colors, and dry narration humor, which may not be your thing, but if it is, the anonymous creator wants you to find more information at the “Personal Assistant de Cannes” Facebook page. In return, the student is hoping to receive a Cannes Young Lions pass and accommodations  We’ll leave it up to you to decide if this is clever or cheesy or irrelevant. At times like this, it’s better to just report the facts and see what happens next.

Details are vague and no timetable has been set, but sources in the know confirm that Huge founding partner Gene Liebel, who’s been with the Brooklyn-based, IPG-owned digital agency for well over a dozen years, is moving on. From what we’ve been told by sources, Huge, which would not comment on the matter, is currently in a “transition phase” with Liebel, who moved up to chief strategy officer at the agency in fall 2010 (at the same time that fellow founding partner Aaron Shapiro was promoted to CEO).

We’ve been told that Liebel’s impending departure, which will just leave Shapiro as the last remaining Huge founding partner, is an amicable one. We’re hoping to fill in the blanks on his next move within the next couple of weeks. We’ll keep you posted.

-Director Dean Freeman has joined the roster of L.A.-based prodco Hello! for his first U.S. commercial representation.

-YouTube CEO Salar Kamangar has been selected as 2013 Cannes Lions Media Person of the Year.

-As you have may have heard, Yahoo is acquiring Tumblr for $1.1 billion and CEO Marissa Mayer is promising “not to screw it up.” link

-Actress Claire Forlani continues to enthrall in the latest Dewar’s spot promoting the Scotch whiskey brand’s Highlander Honey line (above).

-Moxie Pictures has signed award-winning director Kathi Prosser for U.S. representation.

Today in agency self-promos, we bring this 90-second clip from New York-based shop Rooster, which pretty much makes it clear in the brief amount of time what its first love is (its co-founder/creative director, Gavin McInness, is the co-founder of Vice and the “godfather of hipsterdom” after all).

We’re seen some pretty self-indulgent agencies patting themselves on the back clips in the past, but at least this one makes us want to revisit the ’80s flick, Gleaming the Cube, or that modern doc, Dogtown and Z-Boys. It appeases our short attention span and takes us back to the days when we scraped elbows, knees and more. So, good on ya Rooster. The shop currently works with clients including Red Bull, Qualcomm and Nissan (you might remember its recent work for the last brand starring Ryan Lochte).

It’s not a surprise that older people like classical music more than younger people. For the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra (OSB), that trend needed to be fixed. Since most of their audience is older than 65 years, the OSB started playing orchestral themes from blockbuster movies like Jaws, E.T., and Star Wars to show younger people that they had an unknown appreciation for classical music.

Rio de Janeiro agency Artplan also incorporated YouTube videos of film clips to add a visual presence to the experience. As a result, the OSB saw a 40% increase of young people in the audience. The case study gave a healthy boost to the box office draw as well: all of the orchestra’s concerts in the upcoming season are already sold out. Unfortunately, young people still like Kesha more than Wagner, but I don’t think there’s a lot that the OSB can do to remedy that. Credits after the jump.

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