Radio Ridge Productions is gearing up for a year of growth to follow up several major expansions in the past year.
“We’re in the midst of a major drive toward new business development,” said David Gulbransen, producer/director. “We’re focusing on providing HD and film production to businesses that don’t have in-house video, or those looking to outsource higher-end production.”
Gulbransen reported a 15 to 20% rise in sales for 2003, and he expected the trend to continue. “We’ve seen a lot of encouraging signs of people being more open to discuss new production projects, whereas this time last year things were a lot weaker.”
Radio Ridge expanded from its base of corporate clients with the addition of a film and TV production unit. Staff producers Patty West and Louis Provost brought freelance writer/director Phillip Crippen’s “WB-style” TV pilot “The Roaring Twenties” to NATPE, where Gulbransen said the show generated interest from a few cable networks.
West and Provost are also developing an untitled feature from Angie Larimer’s script about racism in 1970’s small-town northern Indiana. They’re raising the $1.5 to $2 million budget, with planned production in 2005. The producers are soliciting more feature scripts for local production.
Radio Ridge merged last year with its neighbor at 401 W. Ontario, post facility HD Haus, to become a full-service production/post/audio company. HD Haus’ Karl Gustave is now a director/editor for Radio Ridge. The company boasts its own HD suite, a Panasonic HD VariCam and a fully equipped 16mm package. Staff composer Shane Taylor provides original scores “for the same price that most companies will deliver library music.”
“We focus on making video a media component,” Gulbransen said. “A lot of our projects multipurpose the video content for CD-ROM, DVD and web streaming.” A current job for software company SPSS combines integrated motion video, audio and flash for a trade show presentation, streaming video and a CD-ROM.
A former interactive game producer for Dimension X, Gulbransen moved the four-year-old Radio Ridge from Indianapolis to Chicago in 2002. Clients have included Conde Nast, Starcom, Traveler, and the University of Chicago.
Reach Gulbransen at 312/628.0655. See www.radioridge.com. ? by Ed M. Koziarski, edk@homesickblues.com
