Over eight years ago, Dan Napoli met with Bill Hipsher to discuss potentially joining forces. Dan was well known for his feature-length documentaries, which Bill was interested in pursuing. Finding a way to bring Dan’s cinematic artwork into the agency would make a deal to acquire Dan’s film production company even better. Working at an agile digital agency known well for its social media work would be a new challenge for Dan.
After nearly a decade of successes together, Bill and Dan made the bittersweet decision to part ways when it comes to film production. For Bill, the decision allows time and resources to be focused on a narrower scope of work and projects. For Dan, it is a time to take what he’s learned in the last two decades and pursue the types of projects he could be most passionate about. It is the freedom to invest his time and craft into projects without having to fit into the larger organization’s business plans.
Dan Napoli took a few moments to reflect on the time at Hurrdat and discuss what he is excited about as this next chapter unfolds:
“Hey, things change in entertainment and media, so eight years is forever. Honestly, the only thing I’m feeling right now is overwhelming gratitude. I am an immeasurably better filmmaker than in 2014, solely due to the opportunities Hurrdat presented me. We made a baseball movie with George Brett, Warren Buffet & Rob Riggle. We got a paintball documentary distributed by Amazon and iTunes. Just wow.
I appreciate Bill Hipsher & Chris Gorman for believing in me enough to take a chance and start all this eight years ago. I loved my time at Hurrdat, so I’m always open to doing good projects with good people.
Iroas Cinema is my new film production venture. Iroas will behave like a boutique record label, focusing on specific types of projects. long-form documentary content for streaming, television, or limited theatrical release. Finishing the Ironkids doc, the Raufeon Stots film, and finishing development on the Record Store documentary are the only three things on the radar right now.”
I will also work as an independent producer and director outside of Iroas Cinema, mainly in the documentary & entertainment space.
In addition to starting Iroas, I’m excited to announce that I’ll be partnering with Hormesis Paintball for an ambitious Avant Garde documentary project in 2023. I’m insanely excited about the people I’m going to work with on that film. I don’t think I’m allowed to say more than that about it.
Honestly, I can’t wait to see what Hurrdat is going to be able to do with the ability to focus on a few things like Hurrdat Sports. I think it’s going to be a ton of fun to watch what they achieve in the next few years. I’ll be 100 percent rooting for them.”
–Dan Napoli
Hurrdat will be rooting just as hard for Dan’s success as well. We want to thank Dan for everything he’s done to help our clients and us over the years and for his heavy contributions to who Hurrdat is today.
