Today we’d like to introduce you to Peter Frintrup
Hi Peter, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I studied film & TV Production at NYU and started work at USA Films working in business affairs and legal on Traffic (Steven Soderbergh film). I moved to Los Angeles to take a job in the Marketing department when USA Films became Focus Features. Here I supervised hundreds of trailers / tv spots / radio spots / digital spots for great projects like The Pianist, Pride and Prejudice (Keira Knightly), The Constant Gardener, and Brokeback Mountain to name a few. Then I went to work at the Entertainment Creative Advertising agency mOcean, here I supervised over a thousand movie trailer and tv spot finishes a year. I helped to start up their in house finishing team and then went out on my own with Flickering Duck. After 2 years of working on music videos with Kelsie Mathews, promotional pieces for many tech and enterainment clients, and feature films, I went to The Refinery Creative to head up their post-production department. I helped to build up a post / finishing team to handle the volume demands of entertainment clients and became the Head of Operations helping to manage and organize all of the AV and Print production teams. Covid was a big challenge to get people safely at home and working smoothly with heavy industry security protocols in place, but we did it! In this latest phase of my progress I am running Flickering Duck Productions as I have deepened my contacts and am enjoying working on digital streaming shows, feature films, marketing, and promotional work. We worked on the feature films: Ripped, A Moment for Love, Spark and Jingle Bell Love to name a few. We have been cutting and finishing promotional pieces for Dolby Atmos and Dolby Cinema tied to some exciting releases, such as: Wonka, Twisters, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Gladiator 2, Nosferatu, and Black Bag. On my own personal, creative side of Flickering Duck, I am developing 3 feature films that I will direct and produce. I love science fiction from a practical side of looking at the near future of humanity and how things may change for the better / or worse, due to trends in human nature. I also find it fascinating that we love to dream and develop new ideas, concepts, technology while rarely putting any restrictions or plans on its release to the public.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The film and entrainment industry in general is never a smooth road. This road has potholes, spike-strips, animal crossings, roadkill, etc. I do find that whenever a challenge presents itself, it’s usually a good time to (if temporarily) pivot to another strength. When AV work was not flowing as much as I would have liked early in my freelance time, I took to my second love of music writing. A producer friend – Erin Stegeman approached me to write music with her for the musical Shame of Thrones, a parody of the HBO show, which ultimately played in LA, Comicon, and Off-Broadway in NYC! Granted this project was ultra-low-budget, but I got a chance to try actively working by writing music and it was a great chance to exercise a different creative muscle. The recent downturn in production in LA due to COVID and then due to post-covid’s lessening subscribers to streaming services has been hard too. The amount of work coming from LA is just less and less. Hopefully the Governor’s new refresh to bring work back to LA will grab hold, but again we pivot. I have started working more with indie and production work coming out of alternate production hubs like Atlanta and Toronto. In this industry you have to constantly re-invent yourself by learning new things, and not being afraid to embrace other skills you and your team have.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
I started Flickering Duck in Culver City in 2015 with the aim of serving the film and tv business with production and post production support that was done in a new way. At the time all post services were run by large firms with old (amazing) expensive equipment and very experienced senior talent. Through working in the industry and attending CES and NAB I was seeing a coming trend, more a wave of disruption that was approaching… New tech was software based, playing on new powerful computers and available at a lower price point, in addition the learning curve was lessening as the software was being written for folks who were familiar with the basics of the industry (Avid / Adobe, etc). This allowed me to take my film and TV tech knowledge and use that to guide projects being made on $5,000 computers rather than the $100,000 + rooms at places up in Hollywood and Burbank. With the freedom of working at a lower cost point you can take on the work that interests you and that was a great thing for me as an artist. Don’t get me wrong, I love working on big blockbuster projects when they present themselves, but the politics and friendship to get those projects do not make it easy to be a part of… Plus I get to see the really edgy, innovative side of the indie market more often than not, which is wholly inspiring. Makes me think of the great, hard working acceptance speech made by Sean Baker at this years Academy Awards for his Best Picture – Anora.
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
I have learned that you need to really take a long hard look at who you are and what you bring to the table first and foremost. I am a creative person who studied and really understands technology, production & post production and the associated workflows for creative needs. As such, I feel that I am a very capable translator for creatives who I work with or consult with, be it Directors / Producers / Production Companies, etc. These creative powerhouses need expertise to setup a best practices technical pipeline to get their show(s) made. I am able to talk to them in my creative language thinking about the needs from a producer of filmmakers point of view with them, and then I can take that info and translate it to the technical integrator companies that have the equipment and emerging details to make sure the work is one the best, most efficient, way. After you focus on your core-strength, for me being a creative to technical and back again problem solver… you can look at your second and third strongest skills and so forth. For me my next skill is my creative story development and ideation (idea generation).
Pricing:
- We work with all budgets, as we can cater solutions for all teams.
- We have discussed partial equity shares with filmmakers who are tight on budget and open to sharing in the ownership of their IP.
- We can scale-up quickly with additional teams and locations to handle network and studio jobs.
- All of our initial calls to ascertain a clients needs are free as we need to know what you want / need so we can accurately and honestly let you know that we can deliver.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.flickeringduck.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flickeringduck/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FlickeringDuck
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-frintrup-34039b4/
- Twitter: https://x.com/flickeringduck
- Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1834434/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk
Image Credits
Flickering Duck Productions
