Ava Seavey knows production. She grew up at her dad's company (Hal Tulchin Productions) and has run prodcos in NY for the last 18 years. Avalanche, her year-old shop in North Chelsea, is the distillation of that experience. She started the company with her own finances and has purposely kept overhead low with a small office and capital costs in tight control.

The prodco retains a staff of three, including an art and production coordinator, and works with both freelance directors and a roster that includes directors Kathy Dasilva, Ben Dolphin (a tabletop specialist), and Tony Lee.

Avalanche, which works in radio, print and Internet as well as television, is a hybrid prodco that generates creative. In a recent campaign for Maaco, directed by Tony Lee, her team pitched Burt Reynolds (of such remarkable auto efforts as Smokey and the Bandit) to replace the sports and TV personalities the company had been using, because Reynolds was ID'd more closely with cars. She suggests the reasoning for them being called in was that "Maaco has an in-house agency, so they didn't want another agency, but they did need creative thinkers that would bring something more to the table than just execution."

Seavey says it was 9/11 that gave her the courage to build her own company. "I was on the fence about it but, after standing on 5th Avenue and watching those towers collapse, I thought: 'What is the worst frigging thing that could happen?' There's nowhere else in the world I can go that has the energy and stimulation of New York City. Yes, the shake-out is going to continue, and there will be fewer players. But those who are resilient and can learn new things will flourish."

WEBFILES:
Avalanche> http://www.avalanchecreative.com