Tim Caldwell, who spent the last 28 years with Panavision in L.A. and New York, joined Fletcher Camera and Lenses as technical services manager.
He leads a staff of six technicians in Chicago, two in Detroit and one marketing person, and also manages the company’s prep services.
Coming here after spending six years with Panavision, New York, Caldwell was service manager in charge of Panavision’s 11 technicians, where he simultaneously established its HD department during the explosive growth of New York’s film industry.
A Seattle native, he joined Panavision’s Woodlands Hills operation right out of UCLA’s film school, where he received a BA with honors. Working his way up through the organization as a controller and inventory controller, he worked closely with the manufacturing and design teams and played a key role in the building of Panavision’s Millennium camera and Primo lenses.
Last June, Caldwell exchanged Manhattan for Andersonville when his significant other, Evanston native Teresa Veramendi, a multi-faceted theatrical artist who was living in New York, planned to return to Chicago and invited Caldwell to make the move with her.
Arriving here, he worked as a freelance videographer and did some temp work for Fletcher.
When optical service manager Al Collins left the company after five years to join Fujinon lenses, which is opening a service center here, Fletcher tapped Caldwell as the ideal person to head their technical service department.
Fletcher general manager Zoe Borys, also a Panavision alum from Toronto and Chicago, notes having someone with Caldwell’s Panavision experience will be helpful when big movie projects shoot with Panavision gear in Chicago.
“At the end of the day, we want them to have a good experience in Chicago and know that we have people here supporting them in their craft,” she says.
Caldwell is delighted at having made the move and has discovered that “Chicago is a great city,” he says. “I’m very impressed with it and very bullish about its future,” believing that business will boom here as the city’s visibility and viability grows with exposure from mega films like the forthcoming “Transformer 3.”
Sidebar: Fletcher has two other Panavision alums on staff: rental manager Stan Glapa and rental coordinator Jim Summers. Al Collins also had a stint with the camera manufacturer.
