The business plan for Corner Booth Productions Inc. was developed ingo figurea corner booth at a North Side diner.


A few years back, Frank Swoboda and Mark Forman met regularly at an out-of-the-way table at Fergusons Caf, in the Garland district, and talked of hopes that they could start their own company. There, the two film and video producers hatched a plan to launch a nimble production company, with few employees and no video-production equipment of its own. Eventually, they commemorated the place of inspiration by naming their enterprise after it.


Now 2 years old, Corner Booth has produced a handful of award-winning commercials and has secured major local and national clients for which it makes commercials and corporate videos.


Swoboda and Forman, both of whom previously worked at the Spokane production house North By Northwest Productions Inc., moved their operations recently from their home-based offices to 1,000 square feet of office space at 122 S. Monroe, in downtown Spokane.


Theyve also brought on as a third partner Larayne Decoeur, a Spokane native who recently returned home after working as a writer and producer for a number of years in San Francisco and Los Angeles.


The three partners decline to disclose the companys annual revenues, but Forman says the venture is on pace this year to double last years billings.


Forman says the move to more conventional offices and the companys increased revenues are signs that Corner Booth is transitioning from a startup into an established production company.


Were entering a new phase, he says.


Not that the startup phase has been all that bad for the company.


Its first job involved creating a commercial for Gonzaga University, for which Swoboda had done work while employed at North By Northwest.


The 60-second spot won a National Advertising Federation Award, or a National Addy, as the industry refers to those awards.


The spot also got a mention in the March 14, 2003, edition of the Wall Street Journal, in an article about advertising time slots given to universities by television networks during NCAA basketball tournaments. The story mentions Gonzagas irreverent commercial, and says the ad appears to be paying dividends, based on a surge in applications for admission at the school.


The humorous commercial shows members of the Kennel Club, a group of boisterous fans who root for Gonzagas basketball team, running around campus and rooting for students in common academic situationsletting out a raucous cheer after a coed answers a biology question correctly and jumping to their feet after another student finishes a flute solo in a rehearsal studio.


Gonzaga spokesman Dale Goodwin says of Corner Booth, Theyve helped us to get beyond our own conservative nuances and see that theres a better, more creative way to show who we are. Theyve helped us come out of our shell.


Corner Booth also has produced commercials for Spokane Teachers Credit Union and Golf Pride, a Laurinburg, N.C.-based golf-club grip manufacturer, as well as water-safety spots for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.


Also, the company has made corporate videos for a number of companies, such as Avista Corp., Sandpoint-based retailer Coldwater Creek Inc., and Spokane-based manufacturer Key Tronic Corp.


L.A.-style shop


Corner Booth is what the trio of partners refers to as an L.A.-style production company. Each of the three partners writes, edits, and produces commercials and videos, but the company doesnt own any of its own video-production equipment or have any employees aside from the partners. Instead, they work with Spokane-area freelancers, from cameramen to three-dimensional graphic artists, who provide technical expertise and gear needed to make film and video projects. Such nontraditional production companies are common in Los Angeles, they say.


Were nimble, and this keeps our overhead really low, says Swoboda, who co-wrote and co-produced the full-length feature film The Basket while at North By Northwest. The last thing this town needs is people with more equipment, because there already are a lot of great people with great equipment.


One of the main reasons Swoboda and Forman decided to start Corner Booth is that they feel the film and video industry is trending toward L.A.-style production shops.


Forman says that in recent years, the base of film- and video-production freelancers in the Spokane area has grown, both as veteran specialists strike out on their own and as others move to the area from elsewhere.


Spokane has really grown into a much more sophisticated market than most people expect it to be, Forman says.


Swoboda says its difficult to describe what all a production company does, but he likens its role to that of a general contractor on a construction project. A general contractor coordinates the work of subcontractors and makes sure everything gets done in a timely and competent manner. Similarly, he says, a producer assembles actors and technical experts and makes sure they are performing as desired.


While Corner Booth has relied heavily on customers that Swoboda and Forman had served at North By Northwest, the young company has been successful in garnering new clients during the past year. Thanks in part to securing a big job for Golf Pride, business from new clients accounted for about half of Corner Booths billings last year.


The companys price for commercial and video production varies widely, from $10,000 for a single TV spot to more than $70,000 for a series of spots.


Were in a regional price range, but our stuff looks national, or thats our goal, Swoboda says.


In addition to its current video-production work, Corner Booth is developing a sitcom pilot with partners on the East Coast, and another project based on a childrens book for which Swoboda and Forman hold the motion-picture rights.


Swoboda says he has been a writer, director, and producer for more than 100 film and video projects, ranging from commercials to feature films.


Before coming to Spokane six years ago, Forman made recruitment videos for colleges and produced childrens videos while operating his own production company in Vermont.


Decoeur worked in production on commercials and motion pictures and in cable television. Her work also includes documentaries, infotainment, and reality television.