Crimson Production Studios in Chatsworth has been up and running since the middle of October and already has proved as popular as its owners hoped. The studio space has hosted production for MTV, Food Network and three music videos, said Ridge Conlan, the general manager of the space located in an industrial building at 9640 Owensmouth Ave. The clients who have come in have started as repeat customers and bookings are already set for January, Conlan said. “What we have done in turning a warehouse in a matter of six or seven months into a full-blown (production) facility is amazing,” he added. “It was tough trying to get everything within a certain period of time. We had a chance to test most of it but some it if was by the seat of our pants.” The investment team in the project, which includes Conlan, Richard Reilly, Gilbert Yousefian and Art Davis, paid $14 million for the 95,000-square-foot building and put an additional $5 million into interior improvements that include five soundstages, control and engineering room, dressing rooms, green rooms, hair and makeup rooms and commissaries. Davis and Reilly also own Valencia Studios in Santa Clarita. The team did some test runs of mock-up game shows and talk shows to make sure the equipment was operating property before cameras started rolling for real. “We did not want to open our doors and have issues,” Conlan said. “In the industry the worst thing you can do is have technical issues because word can travel really quick.” The facility is different in that three of the 10,000-square-foot soundstages can be connected to create a 30,000-square-foot production space, Conlan said. “We are very unique in that area along with the capability of handling multiple shows at the same time due to the control and engineering rooms and the parking,” he added. Post Trade Group The Hollywood Professional Association has relocated it local office from downtown Los Angeles to Burbank to better serve its membership. The association, a trade group for the post production side of the entertainment industry, officially moved to its new space on Burbank Boulevard at the beginning of October. It has three staff members there plus one staffer from the Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers.Barbara Lange, the executive director for both HPA and SMPTE, said that while it had been cool to be in a live/work loft environment downtown, that is not where the membership and the people the association regularly interact with are located. “We could have gone to Hollywood but honestly from a cost-effective point of view and because there is a core group of studios there, we felt Burbank was a great option,” Lange said. Lange primarily works from the White Plains, N.Y. offices of SMPTE, and comes out to Los Angeles about once every six weeks. She has been to the new HPA offices once so far and will be returning before the end of the year. The Burbank office will also be the location for board and committee meetings. Until now, the association had been borrowing space from members companies such as Walt Disney Co. for its meetings. “Starting in the new year when we have our conference table delivered we’ll be able to host all those meetings at our own office,” Lange said. The Hollywood Professional Association (formerly known as the Hollywood Post Alliance) has about 60 corporate members from such well-known companies as Disney, Netflix Inc., Dolby Laboratories Inc. and Technicolor S.A. Special Effects Exec FuseFX has appointed Oscar winner Jim Rygiel as executive visual effects supervisor at the Sherman Oaks effects house. As an independent supervisor, Rygiel had worked on such films as “Godzilla,” the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, the 2011 version of “Spiderman” and “Night at the Museum.” Prior to that he had been with visual effects firm Boss Film Studio, where he helped start the computer animation division. FuseFX Chief Executive David Altenau called Rygiel a legend in the entertainment industry who adds an elite level of expertise and experience to the studio. “His leadership of our supervision team will complement the depth of our existing talent,” Altenau said in a prepared statement. For his part, Rygiel said he was thrilled to join such a dynamic company. ”I have worked with many high-end facilities and the FuseFX team is on par and in some cases exceeds the pipelines and creative environments of the larger post houses,” Rygiel said in a prepared statement. Staff Reporter Mark R. Madler can be reached at (818) 316-3126 or [email protected].