Commercial production boutique Shiny Pictures, New York, has merged into New York-based theFIRM, the year-old production company co-founded by executive producer John Grossman and director Manfred Reiff. Former Shiny owner and executive producer Jody Raida will assume the role of co-executive producer/head of marketing while director Salamo Levin, formerly repped by Shiny, will now be on theFIRM roster.
"The current climate in the business made it difficult to keep a small company moving forward so it made sense for me to look for new partners," said Raida whose goal was to join forces with a production company that had similar values to her own.
Raida, a former McCann-Erickson, Budapest producer, opened Shiny Pictures with director David Chartier a year-and-a-half ago, as a small creative boutique to grow new talent (Chartier recently opened Brooklyn-based LOOPfilmworks, SHOOT, 4/2, p. 4). Along with Chartier, the original Shiny roster included directors Midori Ikematsu, Alan Lawrence and later Levin and Alejandro Garcia del Rio. But with the overwhelming number of commercial directors in the market and the departure of Chartier from the venture last summer, Raida decided it was time to link up with another small company.
"Both Jody and I felt that as a unified group, we would be stronger and that two heads are better than one," explained Grossman, who also faced the challenges of nurturing a small start-up shop in New York.
Levin was originally an editor with New York-based Editing Concepts before joining Shiny Pictures. While at Shiny, Levin’s knack for shooting documentary-style pieces became evident with two PSAs he directed for Big Brothers Big Sisters called "Basketball," and "Drawing," and the PSA "Imagine" for the Fire Department of New York. He most recently completed shooting and editing the short film Black People Hate Me and They Hate My Glasses, which was produced by Raida.
Reiff, mainly a fashion and beauty director, has just completed shooting three spots for Macy’s Spring Campaign, and is currently shooting another eight spots for the Macy’s Mother’s Day Sale. Both campaigns were awarded directly by the client.
Like Reiff, director Gregor Torsz has been with theFIRM since its inception. A native of Germany, Torsz has a European sensibility and comedic edge that has been tapped by MTV Europe and Sony PlayStation for the German market. Before joining theFIRM, Torsz wrote, directed and acted in two MTV promos for the European market that resulted in his becoming one of the most popular actors in Germany. He has just returned from Germany where he was acting in the Miramax feature Bob.
As for the fate of the remaining Shiny Pictures directors, SHOOT reached Lawrence in Seattle where he is working as a freelance creative director/director on spots. And according to Raida, Ikematsu has returned to Japan to build her reel, and Argentina-based Garcia del Rio will use theFIRM solely as a production services company when he is shooting in the U.S. Garcia del Rio no longer has stateside representation.
TheFIRM is repped on the East Coast by Stuart Sternbach of New York-based Pangea. Brent Novick of San Francisco-based Novick & Associates represents theFIRM on the West Coast and in the Midwest.
TheFIRM also represents composer Nico Kean.
