I Spy a new production company

They haven’t found a home, yet, but that hasn’t stopped L.T.B. Productions’ William Cranor and Carlo Trulli, who moves over from Revolver, from opening their own production house under the name Spy Films.

‘I felt that I had reached a point in my life where I wanted to get into new markets in a new working environment while maintaining my relationship with (ltb president) Wayne Fenske,’ says Cranor, who admits the recently demised trend-setting Spy magazine was on his mind when he was casting about for a company name.

And like the edgy editorial namesake, Spy Films promises to be an ‘innovative and progressive film company where creative types (agency and production) will find an environment of people with fresh ideas.’

Spy will be run as an offshoot, remaining connected to Fenske and ltb for various office and support services.

Cranor doesn’t want to talk about the directors on his roster yet, but he’ll likely end up with about four for starters. David McIlvaney is rumored to be among them. Cranor says he’s already got two projects on the go, one of them a music video for Barenaked Ladies.

Cranor and Trulli will be positioning themselves against the younger set in the agency creative community. Cranor prefers to put it this way: ‘Those agency people who want to get a less traditional view of a board will probably be comfortable at Spy.

‘Like pop culture which looks at its underground to get a look at things to come, Spy will be an advertising underground for both high-profile and low-profile clients.’

The next priority, after taking care of their first two projects, is to find office space. Cranor isn’t sure where he’ll end up or what type of space he even wants right now, except to say, ‘We definitely own our own pool table.

Mystery solved

the mystery production company that former Shooters exec Janice Burstein has teamed up with in Toronto turns out to be Avion Films.

Burstein left Toronto a couple of years ago for Atlanta and has been getting acquainted with the southern u.s. market through First Light Films.

She knew Avion’s Michael Schwartz from her days in Toronto, and after Schwartz had set up his own shop with dops George Morita and Stanley Mestel, they began talking about a reciprocal representation deal.

Schwartz says he will represent Burstein’s directors in Toronto and she will do likewise in the southeastern region that gets serviced out of Atlanta.

Schwartz says he believes the best way to penetrate the u.s. is to hook up with a production company rather than finding a straight representation deal. It means getting less money per project, ‘but you get the proper exposure. I always found that a rep handling a Canadian company never seemed to work out.’

Avion is actively looking for other production partners in Chicago, Minneapolis and Detroit.

Another advantage in picking up directors for representation from the regions outside of the New York or Los Angeles areas is that they tend to be younger and fresher talents, not yet crushed by the Madison Avenue steamroller.