Plank in the Gazette

“Michael Moore pushes small firm into big leagues
Concordia graduate grateful; Filmmaker sticks with local Web creator Plank Multimedia after making it big

MIKE KING
The Gazette
Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Warren Wilansky started his business with one thing in mind – to work for himself, preferably in music production.

But four years after earning his BA in communication studies at Concordia University, Wilansky found himself starting up Plank Multimedia Inc. with a pair of partners in late 1998.

His fellow co-founders have since left, and 33-year-old Wilansky is now heading a growing Web site and digital creation company boasting such high-profile clients as award-winning documentary filmmaker Michael Moore.”

“For a small company, we’ve pulled off getting some big customers,” Wilansky said from his downtown Ste. Catherine St. office this week.

He recalled visiting Moore’s Web site in February 2002 and not being very impressed.

“I sent him an e-mail about it and he called me that afternoon,” Wilansky said. “He wasn’t where he is now; it was a very low-key operation he had.”

It was before Moore won an Oscar in 2003 for Bowling for Columbine and a Palme d’or at Cannes last year for Fahrenheit 9/11.

Wilansky credits Moore for “sticking with us from that low ebb” before his international success and remaining a client.

Plank has also been good to Moore, taking his site from an average of 6 million hits a day in the beginning to 250 million on U.S. election day in November.

“Moore got us a lot of attention,” Wilansky noted.

Through distributors of Moore’s movies and books, Plank has been introduced to such clients as AOL Time-Warner (books division) and Lions Gate/Miramax.

Plank’s expertise in visual design, motion graphics and interactive content has served other customers, like MGM/United Artists, the CBC, National Film Board of Canada and Montreal’s Airborne Entertainment Inc.”

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