Edisen Appoints Jay Harwood as ECD

Creative CGI/VFX Studios, Edisen has today announced the appointment of Jay Harwood as ECD of Creative Productions to lead an exciting new chapter for the production agency. Brought in to further enhance Edisen’s technology services and production capabilities, Jay brings over 15 years of experience in the film and advertising industry, working for traditional animation and VFX production companies as well as digital agencies, creating cinematic visuals that engage a new and demanding audience. 

Powered by technology and fuelled by creativity, Edisen is an independent global specialist in production and marketing communications. Boasting 17 global offices and an impressive portfolio for some of the world’s biggest and most innovative and recognisable brands, including Ikea, H&M, and Netflix, Edisen creates ‘unskippable’ content for clients worldwide. Moreover, the creative CGI/VFX studio has also worked on a number of blockbuster films and TV shows, including comedy horror film, ‘The Dead Don’t Die’ (2019), ‘The Contractor’ (2022) and Lamb (2021).

Having worked with an array of top directors for productions that have won Emmy’s, Cannes Lions and Gold Pencils, Jay's work has been featured in top global publications such as the Washington Street Journal, Vogue, and The Fast Company. A career highlight was the innovative event for fashion brand Rag & Bone, which Jay directed with Arron Duffy. The event combined AI, volumetric cameras and a real-time engine to create a self-edited fashion film, showing the evolving relationship between fashion and science.

Over the last few years, Jay has been directing a range of live action and VFX commercials, which has led him to produce a number of virtual production shoots over the last year. Adopting this new technology within the craft of filmmaking was a natural step in Jay's growing skillset.

Jay has continued to build a large portfolio of blending VFX and Animation techniques into his briefs, always thinking outside the box to create something that grabs audiences attention. In addition to focusing on full-service productions for a range of brands and agencies, the director and ECD will be balancing his time directing and overseeing creative growth and strategy, while also building out the global talent to collaborate on a mixture of film, episodic, and advertising. 

Marcelo Gandola, EVP of the Americas at Edisen, comments, “Jay’s unique ability to understand FutureTech, and craft it into incredible creative content is perfectly suited to Edisen’s next chapter. The merged entity that is Edisen now is new and vibrant and has the opportunity to redefine content production. 

Key hires like Jay show how all our capabilities will be delivered through one offering in a future forward and client centred way. Jay’s appointment will connect the dots from Edisen’s Technology services to its production capabilities and everything in between. We’re building a team of forward thinkers that don’t get caught up in what it was like - but think about what it could be like.”

Jay Harwood, partner and ECD of Creative Productions at Edisen, comments, “Edisen has a fantastic portfolio and has an amazing client list. Actively combining creative and technology will change the industry’s overly fragmented workflow to facilitate great content that then opens the doors to a new way of watching, interacting, and experiencing the work. And once you break through an antiquated system, you realise the potential of where we’re going. This kind of thinking is where I want to be, I’ve always liked challenging the status quo and I believe Edisen is instigating something truly innovative and category defining.”