Retrofit Films
Encyclopedia
Retrofit Films is a digital production company
located in Hollywood, California that creates, develops and produces branded entertainment.
The company is known for their three companion web series for NBC's Heroes
entitled Going Postal, The Recruit and Nowhere Man and the animated web series for the CW’s Smallville
entitled Kara & The Chronicles of Krypton.
Recent projects include producing thirteen iPhone 'appisodes' for Fox's House
, directing ten on-air/web Sprint New Media Episodes for Heroes
entitled Slow Burn, producing/directing an original webseries for The CW Network's The Vampire Diaries, and a broadcast and web-branded series (also for The CW) entitled Dove Go Fresh Presents GOSSIP GIRL: Real NYC Stories Revealed. The company's client list includes: NBC
/Universal, Sprint
, Mindshare, Ogilvy, Edelman, The CW, Warner Bros, DreamWorks, and AOL, among others.
and the evolution of branded entertainment, Retrofit Films has developed a niche as “turnkey” digital showrunners for these types of projects.
and Paula Wagner
’s C/W Productions
on high-profile films like Mission Impossible II, Vanilla Sky
and The Others
, where they contributed to script and story development, research, production and promotion.
Hanada and Kling formed Retrofit Films in 2004. Since then, they have written, directed and produced a wide array of promotional and marketing campaigns including animated and live-action web series, DVD featurettes, mobisodes and gameisodes.
)
Winner of Two People's Voice Webby Awards
: Best Series, Best Individual Episode
Winner of Silver Telly Award: Online Entertainment
Conspiracy Theory (An original webseries for NBC's My Own Worst Enemy
)
Winner of Bronze Telly Award: Online Entertainment
"Technotainment: Producing and Delivering Digital Content"
Tanner Kling, Panelist
SXSW Interactive (March 15)
"Web Series 2.0: Big Campaigns on Digital Dollars"
Chris Hanada, Panel Creator and Participating Panelist
Moderator: Andrew Hampp, AdAge
, Panelists: Milo Ventimiglia
of Divide Pictures
, Melissa Fallon of Davie Brown Entertainment
and Wilson Cleveland of CJP
“Hollywood Workshop: Storytelling, Marketing, and Entering the U.S. Market"
Chris Hanada presented to network executives from Beijing TV.
UCLA Extension (December)
“Hollywood Workshop: Storytelling, Marketing, and Entering the U.S. Market"
Tanner Kling presented to Korean content creators brought together by KOCCA (The Korea Creative Content Agency).
)
Produced The Vampire Diaries: Season 1 DVD
Produced Smallville: Season 9 DVD
and NBC'sHeroes
)
Produced and Directed The Vampire Diaries - A Darker Truth (An original webseries for The CW's Vampire Diaries)
Produced Dove Go Fresh Presents Gossip Girl: Real NYC Stories Revealed (A broadcast and web-branded series for Unilever
and The CW Network)
Produced and Directed Nowhere Man (An original webseries for NBC's Heroes
)
Produced Smallville: Season 8 DVD
)
Produced and Directed Conspiracy Theory (An original webseries for NBC’s My Own Worst Enemy
)
Produced and Directed Kara & The Chronicles of Krypton for Smallville
Produced Smallville: Season 7 DVD
Produced Heroes: Season 2 DVD (Select featurettes)
and their NBA All-Stars which included an integration of storylines and flash games (gameisodes) for online and mobile phone platforms.
Production company
A production company provides the physical basis for works in the realms of the performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, and video.- Tasks and functions :...
located in Hollywood, California that creates, develops and produces branded entertainment.
The company is known for their three companion web series for NBC's Heroes
Heroes (TV series)
Heroes is an American science fiction television drama series created by Tim Kring that appeared on NBC for four seasons from September 25, 2006 through February 8, 2010. The series tells the stories of ordinary people who discover superhuman abilities, and how these abilities take effect in the...
entitled Going Postal, The Recruit and Nowhere Man and the animated web series for the CW’s Smallville
Smallville
Smallville is the hometown of Superman in comic books published by DC Comics. While growing up in Smallville, the young Clark Kent attended Smallville High with best friends Lana Lang, Chloe Sullivan and Pete Ross...
entitled Kara & The Chronicles of Krypton.
Recent projects include producing thirteen iPhone 'appisodes' for Fox's House
House (TV series)
House is an American television medical drama that debuted on the Fox network on November 16, 2004. The show's central character is Dr. Gregory House , an unconventional and misanthropic medical genius who heads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in...
, directing ten on-air/web Sprint New Media Episodes for Heroes
Heroes (TV series)
Heroes is an American science fiction television drama series created by Tim Kring that appeared on NBC for four seasons from September 25, 2006 through February 8, 2010. The series tells the stories of ordinary people who discover superhuman abilities, and how these abilities take effect in the...
entitled Slow Burn, producing/directing an original webseries for The CW Network's The Vampire Diaries, and a broadcast and web-branded series (also for The CW) entitled Dove Go Fresh Presents GOSSIP GIRL: Real NYC Stories Revealed. The company's client list includes: NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
/Universal, Sprint
Sprint Nextel
Sprint Nextel Corporation is an American telecommunications company based in Overland Park, Kansas. The company owns and operates Sprint, the third largest wireless telecommunications network in the United States, with 53.4 million customers, behind Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility...
, Mindshare, Ogilvy, Edelman, The CW, Warner Bros, DreamWorks, and AOL, among others.
Overview
Retrofit Films is known for its work developing and producing new media projects for television networks, movie studios and advertising brands. With the advent of New MediaNew media
New media is a broad term in media studies that emerged in the latter part of the 20th century. For example, new media holds out a possibility of on-demand access to content any time, anywhere, on any digital device, as well as interactive user feedback, creative participation and community...
and the evolution of branded entertainment, Retrofit Films has developed a niche as “turnkey” digital showrunners for these types of projects.
History
After graduating from Loyola Marymount University’s film school, Chris Hanada and Tanner Kling, the two founders of Retrofit Films, started their careers working together at Tom CruiseTom Cruise
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....
and Paula Wagner
Paula Wagner
Paula Wagner is an American film producer and film executive.-Early career:Wagner began her career at Creative Artists Agency. In 1993 she launched Cruise/Wagner Productions with her former CAA client Tom Cruise. C/W's first film, Mission: Impossible, was an international hit that brought the...
’s C/W Productions
Cruise/Wagner Productions
Cruise/Wagner Productions is an American independent film production company. The company was founded by actor Tom Cruise and former casting agent Paula Wagner....
on high-profile films like Mission Impossible II, Vanilla Sky
Vanilla Sky
Vanilla Sky is a 2001 American psychological thriller film directed, co-produced and co-written by Cameron Crowe. The film is an English-language remake of the 1997 Spanish movie Abre los ojos , the screenplay for which was written by Alejandro Amenábar and Mateo Gil...
and The Others
The Others (2001 film)
The Others is a 2001 psychological horror film by the Spanish-Chilean director Alejandro Amenábar, starring Nicole Kidman. It is inspired partly by the novella The Turn of the Screw....
, where they contributed to script and story development, research, production and promotion.
Hanada and Kling formed Retrofit Films in 2004. Since then, they have written, directed and produced a wide array of promotional and marketing campaigns including animated and live-action web series, DVD featurettes, mobisodes and gameisodes.
Awards
The Recruit (An original webseries for NBC's HeroesHeroes (TV series)
Heroes is an American science fiction television drama series created by Tim Kring that appeared on NBC for four seasons from September 25, 2006 through February 8, 2010. The series tells the stories of ordinary people who discover superhuman abilities, and how these abilities take effect in the...
)
Winner of Two People's Voice Webby Awards
Webby Awards
A Webby Award is an international award presented annually by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences for excellence on the Internet with categories in websites, interactive advertising, online film and video, and mobile....
: Best Series, Best Individual Episode
Winner of Silver Telly Award: Online Entertainment
Conspiracy Theory (An original webseries for NBC's My Own Worst Enemy
My Own Worst Enemy (TV series)
My Own Worst Enemy is an American television drama that aired on NBC in 2008. It premiered on October 13 and ended on December 15 after 9 episodes. The series was produced by Universal Media Studios. Jason Smilovic was the executive producer; David Semel was the director and executive producer...
)
Winner of Bronze Telly Award: Online Entertainment
2010
Produced By Conference (June 6)"Technotainment: Producing and Delivering Digital Content"
Tanner Kling, Panelist
SXSW Interactive (March 15)
"Web Series 2.0: Big Campaigns on Digital Dollars"
Chris Hanada, Panel Creator and Participating Panelist
Moderator: Andrew Hampp, AdAge
Advertising Age
Advertising Age is a magazine, delivering news, analysis and data on marketing and media. The magazine was started as a broadsheet newspaper in Chicago in 1930...
, Panelists: Milo Ventimiglia
Milo Ventimiglia
Milo Anthony Ventimiglia is an American television actor best known for his role of Peter Petrelli on the TV series Heroes...
of Divide Pictures
Divide Pictures
Divide Pictures is an American film and television entertainment production company established in 2003, which is owned and operated by actor Milo Ventimiglia and his best friend Russ Cundiff, who formerly used to work for the William Morris Agency...
, Melissa Fallon of Davie Brown Entertainment
Davie Brown Entertainment
Davie Brown Entertainment was founded in 1980 by Jim Davie, who had created the "Pepsi Challenge" marketing program, and Brad Brown, as the entertainment marketing agency of PepsiCo, which was concerned about how much exposure its primary competitor, The Coca-Cola Company, had in the entertainment...
and Wilson Cleveland of CJP
2009
UCLA Extension (December)“Hollywood Workshop: Storytelling, Marketing, and Entering the U.S. Market"
Chris Hanada presented to network executives from Beijing TV.
UCLA Extension (December)
“Hollywood Workshop: Storytelling, Marketing, and Entering the U.S. Market"
Tanner Kling presented to Korean content creators brought together by KOCCA (The Korea Creative Content Agency).
2010
Produced 13 "Nurse Jeffrey" appisodes (iPhone-specific mobisodes for HouseHouse (TV series)
House is an American television medical drama that debuted on the Fox network on November 16, 2004. The show's central character is Dr. Gregory House , an unconventional and misanthropic medical genius who heads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in...
)
Produced The Vampire Diaries: Season 1 DVD
Produced Smallville: Season 9 DVD
2009
Directed Slow Burn (A broadcast and web-branded series for SprintSprint Nextel
Sprint Nextel Corporation is an American telecommunications company based in Overland Park, Kansas. The company owns and operates Sprint, the third largest wireless telecommunications network in the United States, with 53.4 million customers, behind Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility...
and NBC'sHeroes
Heroes (TV series)
Heroes is an American science fiction television drama series created by Tim Kring that appeared on NBC for four seasons from September 25, 2006 through February 8, 2010. The series tells the stories of ordinary people who discover superhuman abilities, and how these abilities take effect in the...
)
Produced and Directed The Vampire Diaries - A Darker Truth (An original webseries for The CW's Vampire Diaries)
Produced Dove Go Fresh Presents Gossip Girl: Real NYC Stories Revealed (A broadcast and web-branded series for Unilever
Unilever
Unilever is a British-Dutch multinational corporation that owns many of the world's consumer product brands in foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products....
and The CW Network)
Produced and Directed Nowhere Man (An original webseries for NBC's Heroes
Heroes (TV series)
Heroes is an American science fiction television drama series created by Tim Kring that appeared on NBC for four seasons from September 25, 2006 through February 8, 2010. The series tells the stories of ordinary people who discover superhuman abilities, and how these abilities take effect in the...
)
Produced Smallville: Season 8 DVD
2008
Produced The Recruit and Going Postal (Two original webseries for NBC's HeroesHeroes (TV series)
Heroes is an American science fiction television drama series created by Tim Kring that appeared on NBC for four seasons from September 25, 2006 through February 8, 2010. The series tells the stories of ordinary people who discover superhuman abilities, and how these abilities take effect in the...
)
Produced and Directed Conspiracy Theory (An original webseries for NBC’s My Own Worst Enemy
My Own Worst Enemy (TV series)
My Own Worst Enemy is an American television drama that aired on NBC in 2008. It premiered on October 13 and ended on December 15 after 9 episodes. The series was produced by Universal Media Studios. Jason Smilovic was the executive producer; David Semel was the director and executive producer...
)
Produced and Directed Kara & The Chronicles of Krypton for Smallville
Smallville
Smallville is the hometown of Superman in comic books published by DC Comics. While growing up in Smallville, the young Clark Kent attended Smallville High with best friends Lana Lang, Chloe Sullivan and Pete Ross...
Produced Smallville: Season 7 DVD
Produced Heroes: Season 2 DVD (Select featurettes)
2007
Retrofit Films helped create the international advertising campaign for AdidasAdidas
Adidas AG is a German sports apparel manufacturer and parent company of the Adidas Group, which consists of the Reebok sportswear company, TaylorMade-Adidas golf company , and Rockport...
and their NBA All-Stars which included an integration of storylines and flash games (gameisodes) for online and mobile phone platforms.