Meet Chad Ridgely of Full Auto Films in Studio City

Today we’d like to introduce you to Chad Ridgely.

Chad, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I’d always wanted to be an actor and a filmmaker ever since I was a kid. I remember being an angel in my elementary school play, and singing Christmas carols like “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” and enjoying being on stage. I was enamored of the older kids who had the big parts in the school play, and I really aspired to do that. As I moved up in grades, I went out for bigger parts, and in high school, I played George Gibbs in Our Town. I thought that was the best thing ever.

I was also a big fan of films from a young age. My parents would always take me to see the new James Bond films whenever they came out. It was our family bonding time. I remember watching Sean Connery and Roger Moore and just being wide-eyed with enthusiasm from the moment the movie started. I loved the signature gun barrel sequence and the elaborate opening credits. We would always watch the film through to the end credits to see what the next film was titled because they’d always say “007 will return in…” at the very end. I remember seeing how much my parents enjoyed watching those films and thinking to myself, “I want to do that.”

My grandmother gave me an 8 mm film camera when I was 8 or 9, and I started shooting my own films. I’d recruit my friends to play different parts and we’d film them on this old camera with no sound, so there was a lot of exaggerated pantomiming, and all of us always wanted to die in the movie. I had one friend who survived our movie shoot-out, but he wasn’t happy about that, so we decided he’d die of pneumonia. An Oscar-worthy performance, no doubt, and quite hilarious, although I didn’t intend it to be. It was when I saw all the adults laughing at my very serious movie that I kind of discovered the joy that comes with being able to make people laugh.

I started watching a lot of comedy with my dad. We’d watch The Benny Hill Show, which really inspired me, as did Peter Sellers in all of the original Pink Panther movies. Old 80’s films, with that brash style of comedy, the Zucker Brothers’ films, and stand-up comics like Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Robin Williams, and Rodney Dangerfield really galvanized my desire to pursue comedy, and immensely influenced the style of comedy I write in my films today.

When I finally made it out to Los Angeles, I studied at The Groundlings and began writing a lot of sketch comedy webisodes, which I’d produce myself. They got pretty popular, and that led to Fox producing a sketch-comedy series called The Chad Ridgely Show. From there I started making short films, and now feature films. My last two, Massacre on Aisle 12, and 6:66 PM, are both horror-comedies, and both won Best Comedy Feature at Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival in 2016 and 2017. I essentially taught myself how to be a filmmaker, and I learned by doing. The biggest thing I learned from the start was to create my own content. Write it, produce it, act in it, whatever you have to do. Don’t sit around and wait for an opportunity to come to you. Create your own.

Has it been a smooth road?
It has not been a smooth road, by any means. Chasing your dreams in LA is an incredibly difficult ambition, because, in the film and TV world, there are thousands upon thousands of people just like you, all chasing the same dream. It’s easy to get discouraged. It’s easy to fall victim to whatever vices you may have because, in a city like Los Angeles, everything is available. Depression is a major obstacle for many in this industry. It’s a vulture, and it’s always there. My acting coach, Jack Plotnick, talks about it in his book, though not in terms of depression, but in the sense that all of us have a vulture that’s always trying to convince us we’re not good enough. The same is true for this city. There’s a lot of vultures out there. The important thing is to believe in yourself, to trust that you are good enough and that you do deserve to succeed. Surround yourself with positive people who believe in you. Learn to accept yourself, and more importantly, to trust and believe in yourself, so that when the struggles do come and believe me, they will, that you’ll have enough support and belief in yourself to persevere. You can’t ever quit.

We’d love to hear more about your work.
I’m a producer, writer, actor, director, and stand-up comedian. My company, Full Auto Films, produces film, television, and online content. Recent movies I wrote, produced, and starred in are the comedy-horror films Massacre on Aisle 12, 6:66 PM, and the upcoming horror Murder Van, and the docu-comedy Hollywood Comedian.

As an actor, I’ve recently worked on Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Ice: The Movie, Red Letters, Murder Eleven, and the animated feature film The Trouble with Terkel.

And as a stand-up comic, I’ve recently completed a comedy tour in Hawaii and the Midwest.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
I don’t think you’ll find a much finer city than Los Angeles for film and television. It’s the original Tinseltown! Although I think the Southeast has become a viable contender for runner-up. For someone who’s just starting out, especially as an actor, it might be a wise move in today’s market to start in New Orleans or Atlanta and build up some credits there. Los Angeles is so competitive it’s difficult to stand out from the crowd.

But LA will always be the City of Dreams. My dream brought me here, and through all the ups and downs, I still love it. Los Angeles is full of life and rich with history, with so much more to come, and I’m happy to call it my home.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://chadridgely.com/
• Email: info@fullautofilms.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chadridgely/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialChadRidgely/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/chadridgely
• Other: http://www.fullautofilms.com/

Image Credit:
Joe Rubinstein, Brad Buckman

Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.