Blue Ant grows team for US, Canada

Dan Lubetkin, Julie Chang and Laura Michalchyshyn

Blue Ant Media has made a series of additions to its senior management team to bolster its operations in Canada and the US, and has unveiled plans for an eight-part docudrama about the Salem witch trials.

Julie Chang has been appointed VP of international coproductions and will focus on the identification, structuring and closing of content creation and financing opportunities for Blue Ant Media’s production businesses around the globe.

She was previously senior VP of business and legal affairs at Canada’s Peace Point Rights and Peace Point Entertainment Group, and has also worked at Lionsgate.

She will work with exec VP for global production Sam Sniderman, who is relocating to LA, and Laura Michalchyshyn, who has been appointed as an original programming consultant/producer based in New York.

She will work to grow the company’s production slate in the US and Canada, while also connecting Blue Ant Media’s global producers with talent and buyers worldwide.

Her recent credits include Bobby Kennedy For President on Netflix and she has also worked on The American West for AMC, Ocean Warriors for Animal Planet and PBS show The March.

Elsewhere, Dan Lubetkin has been promoted to senior VP for US production and development and will lead Blue Ant’s Amercian production studio and works with Sniderman. He was most recently chief content officer for Blue Ant Digital Studios, where he worked on YouTube Originals series The Sidemen Show.

Sniderman said: “With a significant and recognisable production business already established internationally, Blue Ant Media is turning its focus to Canada and the US, and these executive appointments are a springboard to our long-term content creation growth strategy in North America.”

He added that working with Michalchyshyn would “help us get new North American projects off the ground, which is critical to our goals of creating and owning more content with global resonance.”

In related news, Blue Ant has linked up with US producer Talos Films on The Witches of Salem (8×60’), a docudrama about America’s infamous 17th Century witch trials.

Talos and Blue Ant Media are launching the eight-hour series to the international market at Mipcom next week.