Colorists Steve Rodriguez and Shane Reed have teamed with executive producer/managing director LaRue Anderson to launch Apache Digital, a boutique specializing in color correction. Anderson had most recently been at The Mill Los Angeles where she was an executive producer. Reed too was at The Mill LA while Rodriguez comes over from Cutters’ Tokyo studio where he had served as chief colorist for the past couple of years. At Apache, Rodriguez and Reed are sr. colorists/co-founding partners.
The Apache business model was developed as an alternative to big-box facilities such as post or visual effects houses with color operations. “Color is our focus,” not an added service “that simply gets bundled and lost in a total postproduction package deal,” said Anderson. “The color grading process can be so in depth and so intense, you really have to commit to it–which is what we do at Apache.”
Anderson, who is a VP of the AICE’s West Coast chapter, said Apache’s color-only approach targets stand-alone editorial and VFX houses looking for color grading expertise as well as agencies, clients and filmmakers. Anderson has contributed to spots for Nike, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Toyota and Procter & Gamble, among others, collaborating with such notable directors as Nicolai Fuglsig, Peter Thwaites and Wayne McClammy.
Colorist Rodriguez enjoyed a successful tenure at Company 3 before coming aboard Cinelicious. He then moved to Japan to help Cutters form its operation there. Over the years, Rodriguez has put together a body of work that includes the feature film Little Miss Sunshine directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, and such commercials as Nissan’s “Turbo Z” launch directed by Ridley Scott, Nike’s “No Excuse” directed by Errol Morris and Budweiser’s “Classic Rock” directed by David Fincher.
Reed came up the ranks at R!OT before moving over to Company 3 where he became a full-fledged colorist. Reed then freelanced for a stretch before joining The Mill where he spent the past two years. Among his commercial credits are Infiniti’s “Frozen Moment” directed by Michel Gondry, Tide’s “Miracle Stain” Super Bowl ad helmed by Bryan Buckley, and Mazda’s “CX-9” directed by Janusz Kaminski. Reed is also the creator and co-founder of CineGrain, a film grain program that is used by DPs, editorial and VFX houses.
Apache Digital’s facility currently houses two dedicated color suites, ample client-friendly work space and amenities, and a full support staff including producers and assistants.
“Our plan is to focus on the commercial world, on spots,” related Rodriguez. “Our clients are advertising agencies, production houses and editorial houses. The editorial community will likely provide our largest client base; obviously, I’m talking about the post houses that don’t have top-end, in-house color services. It’s a major investment and more and more post houses are sticking to their core business, editing and effects, and not stretching themselves too thin by investing in costly color grading, especially when these color services are essentially brought in-house to create package deals.”
Already Apache has done a web spot for Toyota out of Saatchi & Saatchi, an Asian market campaign for Godiva, and is working on jobs for Chevy and RumChata. At press time, Reed was handling color grading on a docudrama.
