Keslow Camera has hired a manager for its Chicago rental facility at Cinespace Studios. She is Colette Gabriel, who comes from three-and-a-half years as operations manager and lead photographer at Inter-State Studio & Publishing Co., a full service school portrait provider, located in Lincoln Park.
Gabriel, who was hired from among a number of local candidates interviewed over the past several weeks, is presently in L.A., where for two weeks of orientation at Keslow Camera’s main operation in Culver City, where “she is learning about our company and our company culture,” Keslow’s chief operating officer Dennis McDonald told the Reel.
Her new position will officially start around the middle of August, when the buildout of Keslow’s offices at Cinespace will be completed.
While Keslow has outfitted the two TV series currently filming at Cinespace, McDonald says bulk of Keslow’s inventory of Alexas and Red Epics – and others depending upon the needs of the shows shooting here – will be shipped when office construction is completed.
Gabriel worked in L.A. for six years
Gabriel is the first of Keslow’s upcoming hiring of rental agents and tech support, McDonald says. She is a native of Berkley, Cal., but knows Chicago and Wisconsin very well. “My dad is from Wisconsin and we have a lot of family members who live in Chicago, so we always had ties to the city. I spent summers growing up in Chicago and Wisconsin,” she says.
Gabriel is a 2002 Columbia College graduate who spent A Semester in L.A., the school’s extension program that gives students an opportunity to learn the business of Hollywood first hand and connect with industry professionals. Gabriel says she availed herself of the opportunity because Chicago production at that time had slackened off.
The Semester in L.A. proved beneficial, as she landed an internship and was mentored by the great award-winning cinematographer Dean Cundey.
After six years in L.A., working as a camera assistant on features (“The Holiday,” “Rocky Balboa,” “Fast and Furious”) and on TV’s “Desperate Housewives” Gabriel and her husband Kevin Wright decided to move back to Chicago. Wright is a producer with video production and 3D animation company Solid Line Media.
