Industry vets Rob Baunoch III, Jim Seibel and Danny Tanchauco have teamed to launch RYB, a production company situated on the backlot at RED Studios in Hollywood. Baunoch is managing director/co-founder of the new venture. Seibel and Tanchauco are co-founders.
RYB opens with a directorial roster that includes Aya Tanimura, Corey Wilson, Curry Sicong Tian, The Freise Brothers, Jason Bergh, Mike G, Paul Scheer, and Tim Mattia. Wilson and Sicong Tian had been freelancing, The Freise Brothers had most recently been at Contagious (and earlier RSA Films), Mike G was at Bodega, Scheer at Bullitt, Tanimura at Hound, and Mattia’s former roost is London Alley.
Baunoch describes RYB as “an ego-free production company that produces visual content for brands, artists and clients across all media; a creative playground where all the components of a project can be executed in one place. Given our resources, plus the collective team and skill sets, RYB is able to provide soup-to-nuts service at a superior level.”
Access to those varied resources is facilitated in part by RYB’s strategic relationship with RED Studios.
Leading day-to-day operations at RYB are Baunoch and executive producer Jenn Mickelson. Together, they have supervised and overseen 100+ commercials and 100+ music videos. Mickelson’s background spans being a line producer, agency producer, and years as head of production at London Alley. Baunoch served as CFO at Tomorrow, and his experience includes producing and consulting for film, advertising and theater for the past 15 years.
In addition to Baunoch and Mickelson, RYB is run by a strategic conjunction of talents, including VP of development Jeremie Guiraud, controller April Edwards, co-Founders Seibel and Tanchauco. (Seibel remains co-founder and EP at Lotus Entertainment while Tanchauco continues as head of operations at RED Studios.)
RYB is the brainchild of Seibel, a producer with over 35 feature films to his credit, including Killing Them Softly and The Grey. Recognizing the difficulty of finding fresh voices, Seibel intends via RYB to nurture directorial talents who have the desire to move into features and other long-form content.
Baunoch noted, “Jim’s presence provides a legitimate, organic support system for directors trying to move between short-form content and long-form narrative.”
Guiraud serves as a prime conduit between long-form content and RYB. A feature production executive for the past eight years working directly with Seibel, Guiraud balances creative instincts with the logistical thinking needed to get movies made.
RYB has assembled a sales team consisting of Devine Reps for the East and West Coast territories, and Sharon & Perry for Midwest and Texas/Southeast representation.
DirecTV Buys Dish As Satellite Rivals Hunker Down Against Onslaught Of Streaming Services
DirecTV is buying Dish and Sling, a deal it has sought to complete for years, as the company seeks to better compete against streaming services that have become dominant. DirecTV said Monday that it will acquire Dish TV and Sling TV from its owner EchoStar in a debt exchange transaction that includes a payment of $1, plus the assumption of approximately $9.8 billion in debt. The prospect of a DirecTV-Dish combo has long been rumored, with headlines about reported talks popping up over the years. And the two almost merged more than two decades ago — but the Federal Communications Commission blocked their owners' then-$18.5 billion deal, citing antitrust concerns. The pay-for-TV market has shifted significantly since. As more and more consumers tune into online streaming giants, demand for more traditional satellite continues to shrink. And, although high-profile acquisitions have proven to be particularly tough under the Biden-Harris administration, that may make regulators more inclined to approve DirecTV and Dish's pairing this time around. DirecTV said Monday that the transaction will help it bring smaller content packages to consumer at lower prices and essentially provide a one-stop shopping experience for entertainment programming. It's hoping this will appeal to those who have left satellite video services for streaming. The company said that combined, DirecTV and Dish have collectively lost 63% of their satellite customers since 2016. "DirecTV operates in a highly competitive video distribution industry," DirecTV CEO Bill Morrow said in a statement. "With greater scale, we expect a combined DirecTV and Dish will be better able to work with programmers to realize our vision for the future of tv, which is to aggregate, curate, and distribute... Read More