Meet Ryan Griswold of Valley Village

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan Griswold.

Hi Ryan, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My parents were both photographers and had a dark room in the basement. At the age of 3 they gave me my first camera, which was their old Minolta. So I grew up playing in the dark room and seeing the world through a lens. In a way, I feel most comfortable with a camera in my hands. At the age of 14 I started working at a local TV station. At the time it was washing dishes for their fundraising banquets they would hold every other month, but by the time I was 16 I was working there full time as a janitor and then worked my way up to the Events and Facilities Coordinator, which meant I was in charge of the 2 stages, one of them was a filming stage, one was a live event stage. It was there I fell in love with lighting, both for video and theater. I worked there for 9 years, while working my way through undergrad, and then was laid off, as they were shutting down.
At that point I applied to USC to get my Masters in Film and Video Production, specializing as a cinematographer. I always had a passion for gear and started collecting a kit while at USC, that I would frequently rent out to other students and friends. After graduating the camera checkout department asked me to make a flier to put in their for students who needed gear, but didn’t like what they were eligible for. Once ShareGrid hit the scene in 2016 I joined that, and really started to expand my kit. Today Griswold Media is one of the larger ShareGrid only rental companies in Los Angeles. We have currently have multiple prep techs, who run the “shop” M-F 9-5, and I take care of the after hours and weekends, along with the management, This allows me to continue to work as a Cinematographer and Drone Operator which is my real occupation.
I’ve been flying since 2014, a fellow SC alum at the time convinced me to go in together on a DJI Inspire 1, claiming it was going to change cinematography, he convinced me with my shooting skill and passion for technology that it was a perfect fit for me. We stayed drone business partners up until 2020, we shot drone for numerous HGTV shows, feature films, music videos, and short films together. Since then I’ve droned for numerous large shows including the opening sequence of Monday Night Football, Pluribus, The Boroughs, Countdown, and currently I’m flying for Love Comes Softly.
My passion remains my cinematography though, which I think greatly aids my in my drone work, and I was the 2nd Unit DP for A Line of Fire (Netflix) and B cam for the upcoming movie Above the Break.

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?
Owning a “Ghost” Rental House (as I like to call it, since we have no store front, but are the size of a small rental house) was never my intention. Up until Covid ShareGrid for me was never even about making money, it was solely to fund my equipment addiction, and to purchase the kit I wanted to shoot indie projects. I had the pleasure of shooting my first entire feature film in 2017 called Cicada Song (Amazon Prime). That did the festival circuit in 2019 and really did great, we won a couple of best in shows and I won a best cinematography award for it. With that I managed to line up some really great projects for 2020 and my trajectory was really taking off up until March of 2020 as all of my projects that I was hired for starting cancelling, and unfortunately all of them never happened. I ended up losing 6 out of my 8 directors that I was working with to moving and changing occupations, most of them became professors. I had to pivot myself to gear rentals for income and for awhile was heavily living on commercial and industrial real estate photography which was booming during Covid as the stores closed down and they kept building new warehouses for online distribution centers. After several years of work last year I was finally able to make Griswold Media self sufficient enough that I didn’t need to constant monitor it, and really focus on shooting again. And my career and cinematography I feel is getting back to the point of about to really take off again.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m a Cinematographer & Drone Operator, I specialize in camera movement and specialty cinematography, what I mean by that is I operate underwater, in the air, and am an AntiGravity Cam Operator. The Cinema Devices AntiGravity Cam is a stabilization rig that is kind of like a Ready Rig meets steadicam, meets Arri Trinity. It allows for smooth shoots that can range in height from floor to ceiling, all while mobile on me. And when it comes to flying since I’v been flying drones now for 12 years, my level of precision and smoothness beats out most other ops, and my passion for cinematography and camera operating means I operate the drone camera like you’d expect from traditional cinematography, Making my shots feel more cinematic and less like a drone.

What matters most to you? Why?
What matters most to me are the relationships that we build. Whether that is in my personal life or business life. I love the craft, but what makes the tough days bearable are the relationships we make on set. I’ve made many of life long friendships on set, and one of the joys of being a DP is I keep bringing them back, because working with them is such a joy. And even if I’m working with all new people, I find this industry attracts wonderful and interesting people, who are passionate and I want to be around.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.RyanGriswold.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/griswoldmedia
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61584128773960&mibextid=wwXIfr
• LinkedIn: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3854044/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@GriswoldMedia
• Other: https://www.GriswoldMedia.com