Ryan Crisman

A graduate of the prestigious Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, Ryan Crisman began his film career managing the post-production facilities at NYU's Kanbar Institute of Film and Television, widely regarded as one of the premiere cinema programs in the world. During his six-year tenure at NYU's film school, he supervised a staff of 30 work-study students and served on the school's adjunct faculty, where he helped guide undergraduates through the rapidly-changing landscape of emerging digital technologies. While at NYU, Crisman was a driving force behind the seminal Roots and R&B program, "Shake 'Em on Down" on WNYU-FM (Ranked as the #1 college radio station in America by Rolling Stone magazine in the early 90's). Over nearly eight years, he would host and produce over 350 shows, many of them featuring live interviews and performances with such musical legends as Luther Allison, Charles Brown, Ruth Brown, Robert Cray, Honey Boy Edwards, Gomez, Ben Harper, John Lee Hooker, Madeline Peyroux, and Junior Wells. Crisman also conducted over 100 interviews for several radio programs including Dan Aykroyd's internationally syndicated "House of Blues Radio Hour" and the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame's "I Wanna Take You Higher" shows - including a conversation with George Harrison and Ravi Shankar and rare public interviews with Ray Davies of the Kinks, 80's pop singer Joan Jet, and Dave Mason and Jim Capaldi of Traffic. Notably, the latter inspired an impromptu reunion with Steve Winwood for their first joint performance in 25 years. In 1999, Crisman was asked by Irish filmmaker Brian Tucker to serve as associate producer on the political thriller "Exiled," filmed in New York and starred Paul Ronan (father of "Atonement" Oscar nominee Saoirse Roanan) and Ronan Carr. Tucker invited Crisman to Ireland as associate producer on their next project, the short film "Coolockland." Crisman returned to Oregon in 2002, where he began producing projects for local production companies, and quickly recognized the creative vitality of the region's film industry. During this period, he secured the rights to "The Fix," began his search for a screenwriter to adapt it into a motion picture, and was introduced to writer/director David Poulshock. Crisman joined Poulshock's Red Door Films as senior producer, where he produced many national projects on Red Door's slate, including commercials for Goodwill Industries and two major series for Oregon Public Broadcasting and the Annenberg Foundation: "Mathematics Illuminated" and "America's History in the Making." The latter productions entailed a combined budget of over $1.5 million, nearly twenty hours of finished content, and multiple locations throughout the United States, from Portland and Pasadena to New York and Washington, D.C. In 2008, Crisman left Red Door Films to form his own company, Read Entertainment, and continues his collaboration with David Poulshock on "The Fix" and other projects. He lives in Portland, Oregon and is Co-Vice President of the Oregon Media Production Association.