London's Stark Films has expanded with the signing of directors Simon Green, Christian Johnston and Jason Harrington, and producer Barry Hughes.

Harrington and Hughes come to Stark after having a go at their own production company, London's Huge. Green comes from Harry Nash, London, while Johnston was previously unsigned.

"The changes we are making are pretty much to keep our roster broad and the company competitive, and to make sure we are represented in as many different areas of the market as possible," says Stark MD Stephen Gash.

Green has already shot his first job through Stark, an FX-heavy Halifax spot through Delaney Lund Knox Warren, London. Johnston, who Gash describes as a "Californian extreme sports, doc director/ cameraman," made his name shooting extreme sports programs and commercials, and then selling them to broadcasters.

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Fashion photography and animated spot company Holy Cow Spots has moved into live-action and re-branded as MooUSA.

MooUSA sees producer Roger J. Hunt, director Amie Steir and directing team Fabric join resident director Shaun Sewter. Exec producer David Lyons has also announced the formation of three new divisions: MooSpots, representing live-action commercial and music video directors; MooUSA Management, representing make-up artists, stylists and photographers and, MooPrint, handling print productions, with former Vogue West Coast editor Amy Fleetwood at the helm.

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Will Van Der Vlugt Films (WVDVF) and Casegiraldi have formed an alliance with outposts in Amsterdam, London, Miami, New York and Los Angeles. WVDVF, with offices in Holland, the UK and Miami, reps director/DP Will Van Der Vlugt, while Casegiraldi has operations in New York and Los Angeles and reps directors Bob Giraldi, Joakim Eliasson, Abel Ferrara and Randee St. Nicholas. Will Van Der Vlugt most recently wrapped a three-day Miami shoot for Truth through Crispin Porter + Bogusky.

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London-based viral marketing company Digital Media Communications (DMC) has struck a deal with Hollywood broadband entertainment network iFILM to act as the exclusive UK commercials agent for iFILM.com's soon-to-be-launched commercials channel.

DMC, whose successes include viral marketing for MTV and Microsoft Xbox "Champagne" (see Boards, May 2002), will be responsible for sourcing commercial material to be streamed on the channel.

Prior to this agreement, DMC contributed content to the Web site's Viral Vault channel. iFILM is one of the Web's top five streaming video sites and attracts a monthly audience of over six million.

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Also on the Web: Ads.com.

Founded by former RealNetworks VP and GM of media publishing John Atcheson, the Seattle-based Internet media company has launched a new site offering consumers a commercial database searchable by product name, brand name or by the ABC television program it ran on (in return for cross-promotion on ABC.com). In addition, advertisers can pay for product information, Web links and consumer feedback functions to be listed with its ads, and will be required to pay for additional bandwidth if popularity so dictates. Spots will be streamed in Windows Media Player in return for promotion on Windowsmedia.com.

Ads.com has also brokered a SAG/AFTRA agreement allowing commercials to be shown legitimately with actor compensation. Ads where there are celebrity agreements prohibiting Internet use will not be offered.

Ads.com no doubt aims to fill the niche left vacant when previous "it" site adcritic.com went belly-up last winter.

Webfiles:
Case Giraldi> http://www.casegiraldi.com
DMC> http://www.dmc.co.uk
iFilm> http://www.ifilm.com
Ads.com> http://www.ads.com