The Shooting Gallery offers an array of production options.
By Sandra Garcia
In 1990, Larry Meistrich and Stephen Carlis opened a small independent film company with $7,000 and a big attitude. The company was The Shooting Gallery (TSG), and its mission was not only to give filmmakers a voice, but to deliver that voice on a next-to-nothing budget.
Nine years and 27 films later, the supremely confident Meistrich, TSG chairman/CEO, and Carlis, TSG president/CFO, have diversified the independent studio into what is shaping up to be a small production empire. In ’93, TSG opened a production services company called Gun For Hire (GFH), New York, where TSG could have all the necessary production tools to make a film at its disposal. Next came a series of ancillary businesses that operate under TSG’s corporate umbrella. Those companies included the New York-based entities East Coast Post, Clear Music, Shooting Gallery Studio Resources, and Back East Grip & Electric. Having established itself in the film industry, TSG is expanding once again.
In October, TSG launched Shooting Gallery Productions (SGP), New York, a commercial and music video division, with bicoastal/international Propaganda Films’ former head of production Tim Clawson at the helm. Carlton Chase, formerly of Ritts/Hayden, Los Angeles, and the directing duo Spooner/French (Nick and Andrew, respectively), previously with bicoastal/international Satellite, were signed as SGP’s first directors.
TSG’s plan has been simple from the start: Build a community of artists and then add the necessary tools to make that community successful. TSG’s business model further ensures that all of its divisions are closely integrated so that no one division is needed to support the company as a whole. Instead, the company’s talent is freed up to explore creative options.
Anyone in the company can propose a project and have the support of all of TSG’s resources. "It’s something we created by getting the right people—[for example] Tim Clawson—who can work with people in any one of these divisions where everyone is comfortable with their role and expertise," Meistrich explains.
Clawson, who is now president/executive producer of SGP and executive VP of Gun For Hire, had similar experiences with music video and feature production during his 11 years at Propaganda and five years at the now defunct U.S. arm of (London-based) Limelight as staff producer/head of production. "In my days at Propaganda, I boiled down production to be the common denominator, so that no matter what the company did, it was prepared to produce it. When The Shooting Gallery looks to broaden its ability to produce projects in other areas, not only do I have experience in those areas, but I have a reputation to build its infrastructure properly," Clawson says.
Confident in Clawson’s experience and TSG’s vision, director Chase brings to SGP over 12 years of commercial directing experience, shooting spots for clients such as Diet Coke, Oracle, Levi’s and Merrill Lynch. Chase views his move to SGP as less about directing commercials and more about participating in all the aspects of the TSG community. "What Tim and Larry are doing is the zeitgeist. It is now. This is the ‘New Company.’ First there was Propaganda, then there was the anti-Propaganda with @radical.media, and now there’s The Shooting Gallery. It’s predicated on what the industry needs," claims Chase.
Spooner and French, who met Clawson during their days at Satellite, bring to the table the ability and desire to work in several different mediums. The duo initially got its start shooting promos while on staff at Comedy Central. At Satellite, and later as freelancers, the team worked with clients such as TNT, ESPN, MTV and NBC. Spooner/French have what Clawson characterizes as "the ability to transcend commercials," and Meistrich has already brought Spooner/French into the conceptual phases of an undisclosed film project. "[Spooner and French are] perfect because you can bring them into a room where somebody has a project—whether it be an Internet idea, a commercial or a film series—and they can sit down and brainstorm and come up with ideas in all those forms," relates Meistrich. At press time, Spooner/French was finishing its first package of spots since joining SGP, but wasn’t at liberty to discuss the details.
Clawson is happy with his current roster, but isn’t ruling out future expansion. "We’ll con-tinue to grow as long as we can have the same relationships we have with Spooner and French and Carlton," Clawson says.
Gun For Hire
All of the projects that are developed at TSG go hand in hand with its production/postproduction services company GFH, which offers the New York film community a physical space to shoot as well as production support. This year, GFH opened production facilities in Miami and Toronto—its first outside of New York—under the name Gun For Hire Production Center (GFHPC). A third office in Vancouver is set to open in February. The facilities are situated in key locations and provide production support for anyone who needs it: freelance directors, producers and overseas clients, as well as the TSG staff.
With the new commercial division in place, Clawson predicts that spotwork will comprise a good portion of GFHPCs’ clientele. "Our Miami facility should be an enormous resource for clients in the wintertime," says Clawson, who also anticipates interest from European clients.
The two Canadian offices may raise questions as to whether or not TSG is paving the way for more runaway production—a supposition Meistrich strongly opposes. "We’ve shot one hundred percent of the twenty-plus movies we’ve made in the United States. We have a huge investment here in New York, so we’re not running Shooting Gallery productions up to Canada," he says. "We saw an opportunity [in Canada] on the facility side to better service our clients who are already there."
Interactivity
Besides entering into commercial production and production services, Meistrich feels that the next wave in production will be convergence and broadband. To that end, TSG recently launched a Web design division called Shooting Gallery Interactive (SGI). The interactive arm was launched in hopes of creating a bridge between the Internet and projects in the broadcast world.
While convergence still seems like the great unknown, Meistrich is building for the future. "We’re going to a lot of corporate clients, ad agencies, Internet clients and Web design companies and saying, ‘Let us be your physical production specialists,’" says Meistrich, who hopes to bring in talent from TSG’s various divisions to create content for production on the Web. "We are telling clients we have the film, TV and commercial relationships on the talent side to be able to do that next form of production." Although the SGI division has only been operational since September, he says it has already signed on some clients, although he’s not yet at liberty to disclose their identities. Meistrich views SGI as one of many TSG offerings: "We’re a Chinese restaurant where there are 850 things to order, and you pick and choose what you want—just pick a number."
Review: Writer-Director Adam Elliot’s “Memoir of a Snail”
It's not your typical stop-motion film when characters name pets after Sylvia Plath and read "The Diary of Anne Frank" — or when the story's inspired by a quote from existentialist thinker Søren Kierkegaard. And it's certainly not your typical stop-motion film when you find yourself crying as much as the characters do — in their case, with huge droplets leaking from bulging, egg-shaped eyes so authentic-looking, you expect the screen to get wet. But those are just a few of the unique things about Adam Elliot's "Memoir of a Snail," a film that's as heart-tugging as it is technically impressive, a work of both emotional resonance and great physical detail using only clay, wire, paper and paint. One thing Elliot's film is not, though, is for kids. So please take note before heading to the multiplex with family in tow: this film earns its R rating, as you'll discover as soon as young Grace, voiced by Sarah Snook, tells us she thought masturbation was about chewing your food properly. Sex, nudity, drunk driving, a fat fetish — like we said, it's R-rated for a reason. But let's start at the beginning. In this, his seventh "clayography" (for "clay" and "biography"), the Australian writer-director explores the process of collecting unnecessary objects. Otherwise known as hoarding, it's something that weighs us down in ways we can't see, for all the clutter. Elliot also argues that it helps us build constrictive shells around ourselves — like snail shells, perhaps. Our protagonist is Grace Pudel, voiced with a quirky warmth and plenty of empathy by the wonderfully agile Snook. We first encounter Grace as a grown woman, telling her long, lonely life story to her pet garden snail, Sylvia (named after Plath), at a moment of deep sadness. Then we flash... Read More