Don Levy joined Sony Pictures Imageworks when it was “just 40 people and a dream” in 1995. Starting as an awards campaign consultant, he helped the studio grow in both size and reputation, beginning with its first Academy Award for the animated short “The ChubbChubbs” in 2003 and continuing with the 2005 Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for “Spider-Man 2.” As the senior vice president of marketing and communications for Sony Pictures, he directed corporate communications, marketing and public relations for Sony Pictures Imageworks, Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment, as well as for Sony Pictures Animation and Sony Online Entertainment.
Levy left Sony Pictures in June of 2012 to develop a new family entertainment venture and found Smith Brook Farm, a media, entertainement and tech consultancy. At the same time, he is a visiting scholar at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts' Entertainment Technology Center and is teaching entertainment marketing at Boston University's Los Angeles Internship Program.
Levy is also member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, on its feature animation nominating committee. The Academy helped tremendously in crafting the video montage in his talk, an exclusive for TED.
Think quick: what was the best film of 2012? Amour, Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Miserables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook or Zero Dark Thirty? This question will be decided tonight at the 85th annual Academy Awards. As you prepare your Oscars ballot and debate whether Seth MacFarlane will […]
Continue reading[ted id=1639 width=560 height=315]“Movies have proved to be the ultimate medium for magic,” says Don Levy in today’s talk. A member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and former senior vice president of marketing and communications at Sony Pictures, Levy has always been fascinated by the sleights of hand that filmmakers use […]
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