Psyop’s Reverse Merger with Fortissimo

Okay okay, enough already. We’ve known about the Psyop “buyout” now for almost two weeks, but we didn’t report it because it’s industry news and not a spot for Zune or something. After tons of email inquiring about it, I’ve decided to refer readers to the definitive response from Psyop’s CEO, Justin Booth-Clibborn.

In addition to explaining that the deal isn’t really a buyout in the traditional sense, Booth-Clibborn explains that “day-to-day running remains in the hands of the people who are running Psyop right now. My role will change a little bit, obviously being the CEO of a public company brings with it some responsibilities that I haven’t faced up to now, but I’ll be very much involved in what I do now, the public running of the company.”

Please read the full interview before predicting the end of the world. Thanks to Booth-Clibborn and Creativity Online for providing such a lucid account of the arrangement.

About the author

Justin Cone

/ justincone.com
Together with Carlos El Asmar, Justin co-founded Motionographer, F5 and The Motion Awards. He currently lives in Austin, Texas with is wife, son and fluffball of a dog. Before taking on Motionographer full-time, Justin worked in various capacities at Psyop, NBC-Universal, Apple, Adobe and SCAD.

12 Comments

oeuf

That’s all you got to say?

a

oeuf: what do you want him to say? think for yourself about issues in this industry.. if you cant, then i feel sorry for you.

kudos to psyop for being on top of their business game. thats not always so easy for creatives to do.

Sao_Bento

I’m sure that the top guys will make a lot of money on the deal, but in the end I have a feeling that it will be the end of Psyop as we know it.

I’ve worked at several startup companies that have gone from an R&D phase, to a sales phase, to publicly held companies and the same stuff always happens. The company expands so rapidly that it loses it’s soul.

The one thing I admire about Sagmeister is his resistance to that temptation. It’s the point when you decide if you’re in this business to do good work, or just to make money.

oeuf

“oeuf: what do you want him to say? think for yourself about issues in this industry.. if you cant, then i feel sorry for you.”
-a

take it easy son. I ain’t the one that kicked your dog.
I was merely commenting on MarcB’s lack of entertaining smart assery.

a

you kicked my dog? :(

my bad. wheres the delete button on these comment things anyway.?

skeletor

Sao_Bento says: “The company expands so rapidly that it loses it’s soul.”

Looks like there’ll be a Psyop in Europe and the west coast by the end of the year in addition to the Israeli wing. BOOM!

Simon Robson

I agree with Oeuf. Marc B’s comments are usually way more entertaining than that…You ill or something Marc?

Marc B.

Israeli firm, hmm. Smells fishy.

Marc B.

But the money sure does smell good. Yum Yum. The employees won’t benefit from this merger really. The partner$ will. It’s funny how mr. Booth-Clyborn is saying the people were all excited about it.

It’s a big corp now. Disgusting.

notyrmamasan

Marc B, I wasn´t aware you were present at the time the announcement was made to the artists…I wish you would give us a bit more insight on their reaction to this whole thing…

Sao Bento, I believe that Psyop passed that R&D phase you talk about a long time ago; though judging by their work it seems to be an ongoing process side by side with the sales phase; after all that is a huge part of what makes their work stand out

THA_DON

making some millions off ink footage mattes and birds flying leaving blooming flowers seems to work. im in, sign me up

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