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Production company Hayden5 has hired Ben Nelson and Melissa Balan as director of Cloud Cuts and live operations and director of post production, respectively, the company said. Nelson will work out of New York, while Balan joins the firm in Los Angeles, where it recently opened an office.
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“Melissa and Ben are talented new leaders who will help position our organization for efficiency, quality, and scale,” said Milos Silber, Hayden5 co-founder and CEO, in a statement. “They’re members of the new school and will certainly shape and contribute to our vision for ‘the future of post production.’”
For nearly a decade, Balan has worked as both a producer and director of post for short- and long-form content, spanning commercials, documentaries, branded and scripted content. She most recently served as associate director of post production at Condé Nast, where she led the creation of unscripted editorial video content for the company’s various brands, including Vanity Fair, Vogue, Teen Vogue, Wired, Architectural Digest, Glamour, Allure, and GQ.
Balan graduated from NYU’s film and television production program, starting as an editor before transitioning to post management and joining CH Media as post supervisor when she relocated from NYC to Los Angeles. There, she rose through the ranks to director of post production, overseeing all aspects of post for the company’s digital properties, including CollegeHumor. Along the way, she grew the post team from seven to 20 people.
“I’m excited about extending my experience in growing teams to a fast-moving company like Hayden5, where I can be hands-on in an atmosphere that embraces creativity and innovation with a scrappiness that big media companies can’t always offer,” said Balan, also in a statement. “I also look forward to growing and diversifying the type of post work we take on, from episodic and long-form content, to furthering our motion graphics and VFX work.”
Nelson joins Hayden5 from Complex Networks, where, as manager of post and studio operations, he created the systems, processes, and resources for the post and studio teams to maximize efficiency. Prior to that, he was Complex’s post production manager at Complex, overseeing the post process across seven channels.
Nelson also graduated from NYU with a degree in film and television production. He launched his career as an assistant editor at Hayden5, where he worked on the company’s first feature Knucklehead.
After that, he continued his work as a freelance editor, creating content for such brands as Samsung, Facebook and Pernod Ricard. He later joined the team at Seriously.TV, a startup comedy channel, prior to its launch in April 2016, and also served as technical director for multiple live shows.
At Hayden5, he will oversee the company’s new cloud-based editing system Cloud Cuts.
“Hayden5’s relentless pursuit of learning, fine-tuning, and reiterating on its suite of services, like Cloud Cuts, is in lockstep with my own approach to creativity and execution,” said Nelson, also in a statement. “Todd always says, ‘go where the puck is headed, not where it’s been,’ which perfectly sums up the ‘futurist’ approach he and his team bring to the craft of production and post—- with both the needs of the client and the creative in mind.”