While continuing to expand, Red Car maintains a boutique feel.
Named for the electric trolley system that ran through Los Angeles in the city’s halcyon days, editorial company Red Car is the brainchild of Larry Bridges, who, first as editor and then as director, helped to create a revolution in advertising for hand-held, grainy, textured "anti-commercials," complete with quick cuts, jumps, whip pans, stills and run-outs. Red Car opened its first shop in Hollywood in ’82, the year Bridges cut Michael Jackson’s influential "Beat It" video. As Red Car has moved into new arenas-signing additional editors, acquiring new editorial companies, and expanding its services-the company has worked to deliver, according to Bridges, both creativity and service.
With offices in Santa Monica, New York, Dallas and Chicago, Red Car now has numerous outposts but still considers itself a boutique. Each office is self-sufficient with its own editors, and the branches sometimes trade talent. Red Car recently consolidated its Los Angeles operations into new digs in Santa Monica, and has made forays into other areas of post such as online editing, effects work and audio post.
"The company started in ’80 in a garage and moved to Hollywood Center Studios, where we were for twelve years," Bridges recalls. "I started editing locally in Los Angeles for such agencies as Chiat Day [now TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles] in the pre-1984 Apple Computer days. … At the same time, I was working on music videos. This was [before] MTV; music videos were a hobby of mine.
"Like everybody else, I got into [editing] with a friend, by doing promos for record companies," Bridges continues. "Because I was straddling both the commercial and music video realms, I was offered the opportunity to edit ‘Beat It,’ directed by Bob Giraldi [now of bicoastal Giraldi Suarez Productions]. ‘Beat It’ propelled music videos into the mainstream, and then with MTV, the agencies discovered rock stars as promoters. So I started doing every rock ‘n’ roll commercial that was out there, which launched my career from being locally to nationally known."
In ’84, Bridges edited the Super-8, hand-held "Walk on the Wild Side" for Honda motorcycles (starring Lou Reed), via Wieden & Kennedy, Portland, Ore., and directed by Steve Horn of Steve & Linda Horn Inc., New York. Later, Bridges would establish long-term editorial collaborations with Wieden & Kennedy and director Joe Pytka of Venice, Calif.-based PYTKA, on several ads for Nike.
"What happened with Pytka and other directors I was working with," says Bridges, "was that I was coming to New York a lot for big jobs. It became clear that I needed an office there." Red Car’s New York office, which opened in ’87, began growing even more rapidly than the Los Angeles branch. When Bridges began doing jobs in Chicago, he again decided that Red Car needed another outpost. The most recent addition to Red Car is its Dallas branch, which came about when Red Car purchased Yellow Rose Editorial (SHOOT, 1/8/99, p. 7). "It’s not like we grew overnight," says Bridges. "It was a slow and gradual process."
In ’88, Bridges went from the cutting room to the director’s chair, helming and editing spots such as Veryfine Juice’s "Fill Up" and Gravy Train’s "Woof Woof" out of Red Car Productions, via Chiat Day, New York (now TBWA/Chiat/Day). His directing credits also include spots for American Express, Bugle Boy jeans, Arby’s and AT&T. A recent example of Bridges’ combined directorial and editorial work is "Big Change" for Kraft General Food’s Velveeta Shells ‘n Cheese, via Leo Burnett Co., Chicago.
