Audio Post Moves: Digital Arts Acquires Nutmeg Creative Talent

August 19th, 2019 by David Weiss

NYC post keeps on seeing big shifts.

One of the notable losses to the city’s post—both video and audio—landscape was the closure of Nutmeg Creative, which went dark at the end of 2018 after a decades-long run. Although home to advanced studios and a talented cast, Nutmeg eventually succumbed to the same pressures that made NYC unhospitable to a number of post shops: rising real estate and infrastructure costs, tightening budgets, an increasing tendency for clients to bring services in-house, and more factors converged to take the highly respected Manhattan post HQ down for the count. With it went a trusted provider of audio post, color, creative, editorial, graphics, visual design, interactive, and production services for ad agency, network, animation, and film studio clients.

(l-r) Mixer Frank Verderosa, Colorist Gary Scarpulla (colorist) and Mixer Brian Beatrice have joined Digital Arts.

But one facility’s pain can translate to opportunity elsewhere. For the ambitious Digital Arts NY, the prolific post production facility on West 29^th Street, the end of Nutmeg meant the chance to provide a new home for some of its people. As a result, Digital Arts has added several former Nutmeg Creative talent and production staffers members to its roster. These new additions include Senior Producer Lauren Boyle; Sound Designer/Mixers Brian Beatrice and Frank Verderosa; Colorist Gary Scarpulla; Finishing Editor/Technical Engineer Mark Spano; and Director of Production Brian Donnelly.

As part of this expansion, overseen by Digital Arts Owner/CEO Axel Ericson, the four-floor facility announced an upcoming infrastructure expansion featuring an ADR stage/mix room. Digital Arts currently comprises several audio suites, their notable first-ever 4K finishing theater/mixing dubstage on the East Coast, four color/finishing suites and expansive editorial and production space, which is spread over four floors.

Recent projects for the incoming Nutmeg squad includes color work by Gary Scarpulla for HBO’s VEEP and Los Espookys. Frank Verderosa has been working with Ogilvy on several IKEA campaigns, while Brian Beatrice has been mixing for Tom Ford’s cosmetics line series of spots.

The Digital Arts in-house theater/mixing stage has also been used for several high-profile TV productions, including recording recent commentary sessions for the HBO series, Game of Thrones and the final season of VEEP. Digital Arts’ Owner/Colorist Axel Ericson and Finishing Editor Mark Spano also collaborated with Oscar-winning directors Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim to help complete their upcoming Netflix documentary “The Great Hack”.

Digital Arts is fully capable of end-to-end production, with the recent expansion of its offerings to include production services. Projects in the production realm include work for agencies Area 23, FCB Health and TCA.