Roman Medjanov of RockBridge Productions: Continuing a Path of Exceptionalism
Careers in the entertainment industry are built one project at a time. Longevity requires taking chances and stretching into areas that are unexpected, perhaps even unintuitive in the minds of others. This is as accurate a description of San Francisco based RockBridge Productions as for any actor, director, or other professional in the industry. Started by Mike Kaney, Chris Miller, and Bryan Fong in 2011, RockBridge Productions is currently led by Roman Medjanov whose consistent pursuit of eclectic projects has continually proven the company to be a leader amongst its peers. From groundbreaking documentaries to award-winning period films to educational productions used in Universities across the country, Medjanov’s talent for communicating via the medium of film is an attribute which is maneuvering RockBridge to potentially become THE production company of the current decade, and likely the subsequent ones. Located at the edge of the Silicon Valley tech hub, RockBridge Productions is widely known for their varied commercial work ranging from big to smaller brands. On the side, RockBridge has simultaneously always been investing in narrative work, from short films to documentaries, feature length films, and even a recent Biblical epic helmed by David Helling. Watching any of the company’s productions whether fictional or factual, there’s a clear reason why RockBridge Productions is so successful; the talent behind them consists of exceptional storytellers.
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| Roman Medjanov of RockBride Productions |
One of the newly exciting projects, which Roman Medjanov has been brought on to produce with the full force of RockBridge behind his back, is the upcoming documentary Once Upon a Time in Oakland. Years in the making by Hyun Kim who is also one of the producers, this full-length documentary was originally focused on the Golden State Warriors but has since expanded to the become story of Oakland – to present the challenges the city has experienced in times of social and economic struggle. Hyun Kim states, “I have hired Roman to produce the feature length documentary Once Upon a Time in Oakland because of his past excellence in producing work for respected fortune 500 companies such as Salesforce. Having worked with him on multiple narrative and com-mercial projects, I have learned that he is extremely diligent, detail oriented, and uniquely skilled as a producer.” At the directing helm of Once Upon a Time in Oakland is Al Attles III. If you are not yet familiar with his name, his father, Al Attles, was the coach of the Golden State Warriors and took them to their first NBA championship in the Bay-Area in the 70’s. The injustice the city has experienced is communicated through footage and interviews with individuals such as prolific civil rights attor-ney John Burris who has represented Rodney King, Tupac, and Wanda Johnson (Oscar Grant’s mother), Cephus “Uncle Bobby” Johnson, vari-ous players of the Golden Gate Warriors, and Boots Riley who is most famous for his film Sorry to Bother You (2018), along with many more.
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| Roman in NYC |
RockBridge Productions has continually sought out the stories which have yet to be told and deserve to be heard, whatever that topic might be. Far removed from the social statement of Once Upon a Time in Oakland but serving a differing section of the public is the RockBridge Pro-duction’s The Story of Sales (2018). The film features a wildly diverse array of Sales luminaries including Neil Rackham who pioneered SPIN sell-ing, Walter A. Friedman who is the author of “Birth of a Salesman”, Joe Hart the president/CEO of Dale Carnegie & Associates, and Shari Levitin author of “Heart and Sell”, just to name a few. Roman relates, “I was brought on by Jim Hopkins and Mike Kaney to co-produce this film. […] As you can imagine there were a lot of logistics to take care of, con-tracts, vast schedules to keep both in production and in post. We had so much material by the time we were done filming that it took months to narrow down all these magnificent interviews into a length of a single film, something that took a lot of work to supervise. I’m proud to have contributed to and been part of a film/subject that had never been put on the big screen before and I am humble to know that the film is being used as teaching material in universities across the nation.”
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| Story Of Sales Poster |
All of these very real stories illustrate that there are journeys in the real world which are as riveting and inspiring as any Hollywood blockbuster one might watch. Producer Roman Medjanov confirms that he and RockBridge Productions is committed to bringing these stories to the public while spotlighting the contributions of those among us who will shape the future.
www.gorockbridge.com
Written by Patrick Wilson
