Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrew Eldridge.
Andrew, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
My journey in the television and film industry began when I was about 12 years old.
My friends and I had made a short video for a school project, and it was something that I really enjoyed. I was fortunate enough to go to New Bedford High School which had its own television studio. But when I bought my own Hi-8 camera when I was about 15 years old, my passion really picked up. I literally filmed anything and everything. I have boxes of Hi-8 tapes full of short sketches to just everyday life with my friends.
I then when onto school at the University of Maine in Orono, where somehow my friends and I convinced the university to give us funding to start the student television station, The Maine Channel. We filmed sports, news, events, but our most “successful” program was a Mouthguard, a boxing debate program.
When I graduated from UMaine, I started applying to television and film positions in the Boston area and went on an interview from a production assistant position at NewTV, Newton’s community media center in May of 2007. I didn’t hear back from them right away, so I picked up my summer job at a shipyard fueling up boats. And then one day in August I was out fishing, and I got a call from then Executive Paul Berg asking me if I was still interested and started working at NewTV.
For about six years, I balanced my full-time gig at NewTV with editing local commercials at a PR firm based out of Rhode Island called JH Communications. At JH, would often go in for a couple hours early in the morning, and have to pump out 30-second spots at a rapid pace, so I was able to learn how to edit very efficiently and troubleshoot on the fly.
In 2012, NewTV’s Executive Director Bob Kelly launched an Original Programming department with Jesse Kreitzer, who is an amazingly talented filmmaker and friend, running the department. Jesse had met with John Horrigan, who has this natural storytelling charisma mixed with encyclopedic knowledge of history, and the two of them created The Folklorist – a series exploring some of the unique and lesser-known stories throughout history. I was a Production Manager on the first episode, and we were all amazed when Jesse’s promo for the program was the recipient of a Boston/New England Emmy® Award.
When Jesse left to pursue a graduate degree in film, I picked up the producer’s role for the program and John agreed to keep going with The Folklorist. At around the same time, Bob had hired Angela Harrer, who helped out with the second episode. Based on the initial success, we really wanted to push The Folklorist as a flagship-like program for the station, and so he moved Angela over to the Original Programming department, and we were off to the races. Angela and I produced 12 more episodes of The Folklorist together, with the program being recognized with nine Boston/New England Emmy® Awards.
Working with Angela was a fantastic creative relationship. We create several other historical pilots and pitches together and had a nice six-year run before she decided to pursue television development out in Los Angeles earlier this year. Here at NewTV, we switched directions from Original Programming towards more client-based productions and have rebranded us as Another Age Productions.
I never thought I would be working at a NewTV/Another Age Productions for as long as I have (going on 11 years), but I do find that we’re always pushing the boundaries of what a community media station can do. Besides having the really good equipment and facilities, there’s always been this push to do more, which is both challenging and easy to do when it’s something that you’re passionate about. And then when you get the right mix of people, both from the professional side and community side, who are engaged in the medium as you are, you can really hit your stride. It’s been a great experience.
Has it been a smooth road?
It hasn’t always been a smooth road I would say, but when you have a great team supporting you, both professionally and personally, it never really feels like a complete struggle. My wife Liz and I have been married for seven years, together for 16, so I know that she always has my back whenever I’m going through something difficult at work or struggling to keep up the creativity.
There were many times on Folklorist shoots where Angela and I would be panicking over something a day or two before because the both of us were literally the only two paid people on our shoots. One time Ange and I sprayed painting a paper mâché rock wall we had just constructed close to midnight and it needed to be dried completely by the morning, while another time we found out new information about a topic and have to revise our shooting schedule.
There are literally countless of these examples, but again, we had great support from our interns (Katie Rubino, Rachel Brown, Brianna Gershkowitz, and Liz Flemke to name a few), as well as the support from the fantastic acting community here in New England and the staff at NewTV. Are there times that you question if you really want to be doing what your doing? Absolutely, but I always felt like I owed it to everyone, myself included, to give them the best product possible (within our means) and to make it worth their time for helping out.
I like walking away from projects knowing that I gave it my best shot so I don’t have any regrets later on down the line.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
With Another Age Productions, were more of a subdivision of NewTV, focused on corporate videos, commercials, television commercials, and original programs. Over the past five years, we’ve produced content for Fortune 500 companies such as TJX and Biogen, and have produced award-winning original programs such as The Folklorist, American Ruins, and Assassin Nation.
We also have a state-of-the-art production facility, which includes a 1200 sq. ft. soundstage, a fully-equipped HD studio and control room, a 42-seat 4k screening room, as well as edit bays, a podcast suite, and an 11 seat training center, all of which are available to rent out.
For me, having switched over more towards the client based productions as opposed to original programs has been different and a little less narrative driven. As clique as it might sound, whether it’s a segment about Hugh Glass or a town hall video for Citi Bank, the bottom line is it all comes down to telling a good story. It doesn’t matter what you’re selling or promoting if you don’t have that emotional, human connection, your project is going to fall apart.
So if there’s anything that I feel as though I add to these productions, it’s not only having the technical chops but being able to piece together a solid story through the production process and the edit.
Contact Info:
- Address: 23 Needham Street Newton, MA 02461
- Website: anotherageproductions.com
- Phone: 617.965.7200
- Email: andrew@anotherageproductions.com
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