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.
Independent Cinemas In L.A. Are Finding Their Audience
On a hot summer evening, Miles Villalon lined up outside the New Beverly Cinema, hours before showtime.
The 36-year-old already had tickets to the Watergate-themed double feature of 1976's "All the President's Men" and 1999's "Dick." But Villalon braved Los Angeles' infamous rush-hour traffic to snag front-row seats at Quentin Tarantino's historic theater.
This level of dedication is routine for the Starbucks barista and aspiring filmmaker, who typically sees up to six movies a week in theaters, and almost exclusively in independently owned theaters in and around Los Angeles.
"I always say it feels like church," he said. "When I go to AMC, I just sit there. And I can't really experience that communal thing that we have here, where we're all just worshipping at the altar of celluloid."
Streaming — and a pandemic — have radically transformed cinema consumption, but Villalon is part of a growing number of mostly younger people contributing to a renaissance of LA's independent theater scene. The city's enduring, if diminished, role as a mecca of the film industry still shapes its residents and their entertainment preferences, often with renewed appreciation after the pandemic.
A revival in the City of Angels
Part of what makes the city unique is its abundance of historic theaters, salvaged amid looming closures or resurrected in recent years by those with ties to the film industry. Experts see a pattern of success for a certain kind of theater experience in Los Angeles.
Kate Markham, the managing director at Art House Convergence, a coalition of independent cinema exhibitors, said a key factor is the people who run these theaters.
"They know their audiences or their potential audiences, and... Read More