Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1959)

OUR RESPECTS TO . Martin Ransohoff Next month marks a new milestone for Martin Ransohoff, president of Filmways Inc., New York and Hollywood. Filmways on Dec. 8 plans to open the biggest studio in the East, a milliondollar plant in New York to rival the sound stages of Hollywood. It has been a year of milestones for the producer. Last February his firm was listed on the American Stock Exchange. A week earlier a facilities exchange deal was announced by Filmways and Warner Bros., creating the biggest commercial-industrial film combination in the world. And it has been a year of continued expansion for a $4 million firm (in annual sales) that Mr. Ransohoff cofounded seven years ago with $200 capital. Filmways, responsible for a lion's share of the blue chips in tv commercials, doubled its sales every year for four years. But on its present scale, "we won't be doubling any more," says Marty Ransohoff. Getting Aloft • From its start in a Manhattan loft ("a real Clownsville, U.S.A.," the president reflects), Filmways has fought its way to the top of the highly competitive commercial-industrial film business. (Co-founder Edwin Kasper left the firm in 1957.) Besides the new studio, Filmways has several other studios and cutting rooms in constant use around New York and in Hollywood. (Executive offices are at 18 E. 50th St., New York.) Besides commercials, the firm has industrial films in regular production and this year went into television programming through its subsidiary Filmways Tv Productions in Hollywood. Its 21 Beacon Street was a top-rated summer replacement show that now is being prepared for further exposure. Martin Ransohoff doesn't have much to say about himself. The subject apparently bores him. But ask someone else in the business and you'll get a voluble reaction. Stock adjectives: dynamic, energetic, quick, ambitious — all the ones brought into play when you're talking about a man who has scrambled to the top of his field in a few years. When Filmways Inc. was listed on the American Stock Exchange last February, Martin Ransohoff was at 31 the youngest president on any exchange. Pressed for facts about himself, Mr. Ransohoff will admit to being born luly 7, 1927, in New Orleans, and going to Wooster School in Danbury, Conn., and BROADCASTING, November 16, 1959 later to Colgate U., Hamilton, NY. He was graduated in 1948 with a B.A., majoring in English and history. He played varsity baseball and was a member of Phi Gamma Delta social fraternity. After school came several jobs, a "'groping" period that turned out to be valuable background. He had found his niche by the time he joined Caravel Films (now Transfilm-Caravel) in New York, where he put in two years as salesman, writer and producer before going into business for himself in 1952. Birth of a Salesman • Martin Ransohoff is a man thoroughly grounded in sales. He served an apprenticeship in the most basic form of the art: door-todoor. Of a period spent peddling housewares he says, "The 2Vz years I spent at that was the greatest experience of my life. All selling is easy after that. . . . Probably it contributed more to my success than any other factor — reading, writing, any of it. ... It's a real tough school of business — any business." He also has sold automobiles and food and worked in an advertising agency. But without reservation he credits the doorto-door period as the most valuable in preparing and selling — "better experience than high school, college and the rest of my education all rolled into one." An advertising film contractor will tell you that Marty Ransohoff is the quickest estimator in the business. He's Filmways' Ransohoff He found the right door been known to look at a storyboard and give an immediate estimate that held up within 1% after bookkeepers spent three days checking it out with adding machines. This is the ability of a man who knows the work inside out. He has worked every step along the film production line from the idea until it's in the can. Until recently he kept his hand in directing and writing. He'd like to continue but says it's impossible when you're working for more than 1,000 stockholders. Stockholders (they include many Filmways employes) can be assured the firm's management is all but a roundthe-clock preoccupation for the president. He puts in a 14-hour day, leaving the house before many executives arise. He comes home at 8 to 9 p.m. About one week out of four is spent at Filmways-Hollywood Inc. Filmways' commercial credits can be seen practically any time a tv set is turned on. Crews, used to location work in any bizarre location an agency producer can conceive, got a real workout last year on a round-the-world job for Ford. They traveled more than a million man-miles in 130 days to turn out 30 commercials and several documentaries. Equipped for Easterns • Back on the New York front, announcement of the giant new studio was greeted enthusiastically by Mayor Robert Wagner and others concerned with keeping the East in the film business. The new building at 127th St. and Second Ave. houses two studios, each 100x100 feet, equipped for both film and tape. An adjoining building is being remodeled for equipment and storage. Home for the Ransohoffs (she was Nancy Hope Lundgren) is Darien, Conn., where they live with their four children, Peter 7, Karen 5, Steven and Kurt, twins going on 2. Golf is the only hobby for which Mr. Ransohoff takes time. He shoots in the high 70s with a six handicap. He is a member of the New York Athletic Club, the Phi Gamma Delta Club of New York and the Temarack Country Club, Greenwich, Conn. Mr. Ransohoff started in business at a time there were a couple of hundred companies slugging it out in commercial production. Today the field is down to 10 that do 60-70% of the total volume in the country. Of these, Filmways is dominant, turning out, in affiliation with Warner Bros., a gross output of more than $6 million a year. What's left for Martin Ransohoff, who in five years went from scratch to the top of his business? Says another film man: "There's no limit to where he can go." 121