Former Illinois Film Office deputy director Bob Hudgins joined Resolution Digital Studios as facilities manager, reporting to general manager John Kavanagh.
RDS sales director Evie Silvers said Hudgins will be “a tremendous, high caliber asset to our company, given his vast experience and the great respect he commands in the industry.”
With the completion of the NearWest studio and the key hiring of Hudgins, RDS is swinging into action, Silvers said. She is confident the studio will prove to be “a very high-end, production-friendly resource. There won’t be anything like RDS between Coasts.”
Hudgins just wrapped four months as locations manager on the John Malkovich starrer “Drunk Boat,” starting shortly after leaving the film office last March.
“I’m excited to be on the ground floor of a new facility like RDS,” said Hudgins. “It’s a nice place to be right now, and I look forward to the challenge of helping to make a facility that will be integral and important to our community.”
The facilities Hudgins will manage are one of Chicago’s biggest complexes?32,000 sq. ft. overall?that was built from scratch at a cost of $7.5 million over and adjacent to the existing warehouse of RDS owner Show Department and its subsidiary, The Screen Works.
The three-story complex was completed early in 2005 after two years of construction.
RDS boasts five-stages, consisting of a 60x90x32-ft. main stage; a multi-purpose 7,000-sq. ft. studio with a full service kitchen; two 30×30-ft. insert stages?one is green screen; an apartment set with a shootable kitchen and bath; high-end VIP green rooms and producers’ offices.
“The idea was to allow a digital capture that goes directly into digital editing and compositing,” said Silvers.
RDS owns four Sony 900 24P cameras and offers for rent five postproduction suites, equipped with Final Cut Pro, Avid Nitrous and Adrenalin, and ProTools-equipped audio booth.
Hudgins also will be involved in the rental of the Sony 24P cameras, production office space, screening rooms and equipment via Show Department, Inc., said Silvers.
Hudgins originally joined the IFO in 1998, after 15 years as a locations manager. He resigned from the IFO last January, but was persuaded to return by DCEO Jack Lavin’s promises of salary and work improvement, and by industry associates who were concerned about the impact his leaving would have on the film office.
When it was obvious Lavin’s promises would never materialize, Hudgins abruptly resigned a second time in early March. Within a week he was hired by “Drunk Boat.”
Silvers credits Hudgins for being “a helpful force” when Show Department owners Lee and Jeff Facklis launched the new studio earlier this year. “Bob helped by opening doors to markets outside of Chicago that enabled us to introduce the new studio concept to a larger arena,” she said.
Hudgins is also president of IFP/Chicago.
RDS is located at 2226 W. Walnut; phone, 312/846-4226. See www.resolutiondigitalstudios.com
