One Building, a Dozen Looks
THIS IS RED Offers Artists a Different Kind of Production Day
PITTSBURGH — For bands, artists and music brands, creating content can quickly become a logistical exercise: one location for a music video, another for photography, a studio for interviews, and separate teams for animation, design and post-production.
At THIS IS RED, the idea is to collapse all of that into a single building—and potentially a single day.
Housed inside a 20,000-square-foot, century-old former church outside Pittsburgh, the global creative agency and production company has transformed its headquarters into a creative playground for musicians, filmmakers, photographers and brands. Its unusual architecture, flexible production spaces and in-house creative capabilities allow a project to move through dramatically different visual environments without ever changing locations.
In the course of a day, a band might capture a cinematic performance in the former sanctuary, move into a dramatically lit architectural space for portraits, build a completely different environment for interviews, capture vertical social content and then work with THIS IS RED's artists on animation, graphics and visual treatments.
The idea isn't simply to provide a location.
It's to help artists leave with a library of content.
One Production Day, Multiple Campaigns
The amount of content surrounding a music release has changed dramatically. A music video and a handful of publicity photographs are no longer enough.
Artists need album imagery, press photography, performance footage, interviews, vertical video, behind-the-scenes material, tour visuals, teasers and a steady stream of social content.
Music brands face a similar challenge. A new guitar, amplifier, plugin or piece of technology may need a hero film, product photography, artist demonstrations, interviews, social cutdowns and educational content—all built around the same launch.
THIS IS RED approaches that challenge almost like an album session: get the right artists, creative team, equipment and ideas into one place, then make the most of the time together.
The building itself makes that possible.
Built in 1925, the former church offers soaring ceilings, stone, aged surfaces, ornate architectural details, large open areas and intimate rooms within the same property. Lighting, production design and set dressing can transform those environments even further.
A performance film can feel monumental and cinematic. A portrait session can be intimate and minimal. Another room can become a documentary interview. Another can become a controlled product environment.
Instead of spending the day moving the production, the production moves through the building.
A Different Space With Every Setup
That versatility was recently put to use by renowned photographer Mark Seliger, whose career has included some of the most recognizable portraits in contemporary music, entertainment and culture.
Ghost Hounds shot many setups in one day at THIS IS RED, including the cover for their ‘Justified’ album
Seliger spent two days shooting at THIS IS RED, creating numerous setups throughout the building. Despite being produced under one roof, the resulting environments had completely different visual identities—demonstrating how dramatically the space can change through lighting, composition, production design and the architecture itself.
Famed photographer Eric Ryan Anderson has also shot at THIS IS RED, adding to a growing list of photographers and image-makers drawn to the building as something more than a traditional studio. Its combination of controlled production space and existing architectural character gives photographers the ability to move rapidly between polished studio imagery and images in which the building itself becomes part of the composition.
One area can become dark, cinematic and atmospheric while another can feel clean, controlled and graphic. Move again, and the century-old architecture provides an entirely different backdrop.
For a photographer, director or artist trying to build a diverse body of work during a limited production window, that flexibility can effectively turn one location into many.
From Artists to the Brands Behind the Music
That approach has brought an unusually broad cross-section of the music world through THIS IS RED.
Progressive rock trio Stick Men, featuring Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto and Markus Reuter, has used the space for sessions and content, taking advantage of an environment built to accommodate both high-level music production and filmmaking.
Ghost Hounds and singer-songwriter Forest Blakk are among the other artists who have worked with THIS IS RED, creating projects that move between performance, recording, photography and film.
But the company's connection to music extends well beyond artists themselves.
THIS IS RED has created work with some of the most recognizable names in musical instruments and technology, including Gibson Guitars, Paul Reed Smith Guitars, Nashville's Glaser Instruments, founded by renowned luthier and innovator Joe Glaser, and music-technology company Neural DSP.
For Neural DSP, THIS IS RED's role extends into another major capability housed within the building: animation. Animation created for the company has been developed and produced at THIS IS RED, illustrating how the space functions not only as the backdrop for what happens in front of a camera, but as the production home for work created entirely outside of one.
A project can begin with a musician performing on camera and expand into photography, interviews, product films, animation, motion graphics and social content—all developed as parts of the same visual world.
It is an ecosystem THIS IS RED understands from the inside.
Joey McIntyre (New Kids on the Block) at THIS IS RED
“THIS IS RED is like a fever dream of every film making, music creation and animation dream you could ever hope to produce”
From Chuck D to Shane Gillis
The building's versatility has also attracted productions well beyond traditional music content.
When the BBC came to Pittsburgh for a documentary examining the history and cultural impact of rap, THIS IS RED became a production location for material involving Public Enemy co-founder Chuck D—placing one of hip-hop's most recognizable voices inside a building constructed decades before the genre existed.
The same space has accommodated major commercial productions.
Under Armour utilized THIS IS RED for an advertising production featuring comedian Shane Gillis, demonstrating how quickly the building can shift from intimate artist content and documentary filmmaking to a large-scale commercial set.
Despite their differences, the projects share an important advantage: THIS IS RED doesn't have one predetermined "look."
It can create many of them.
More Than a Location
That distinction comes from the unusual structure of THIS IS RED itself.
It isn't simply a soundstage, recording studio or rentable production location. The building houses a working global creative agency with capabilities spanning creative direction, filmmaking, photography, animation, design, music, immersive audio and post-production.
The same building where Mark Seliger or Eric Ryan Anderson can construct a series of photographic worlds is also where animators can build entirely imaginary ones.
That means an artist's production doesn't necessarily end when the cameras stop.
A live-action performance can become the foundation for animation. Photography can become album artwork, posters or a release campaign. A long-form interview can become a documentary piece alongside dozens of short social edits. Performance footage can become tour visuals. Animation can extend a campaign into places impossible to capture physically.
For artists and music brands, that creates an opportunity to think beyond the traditional shoot.
Instead of commissioning a video, photoshoot, animation and social campaign independently, an entire visual world can be conceived, captured and created under one roof.
“THIS IS RED is one of those rare places where you can walk in with an artist and a creative idea and leave with an incredible amount of content. You can shoot a music video, photography, interviews and social content, all with completely different looks, without ever leaving the building. For a manager, that combination of creative flexibility, production capability and efficiency is incredibly valuable.”
More Looks. Less Logistics.
For touring musicians and busy artists, time may be the most valuable part of that proposition.
Coordinating a band, management, label, photographer, director, production crew and equipment across several days and locations can be complicated and expensive. Creating multiple environments inside one facility changes the equation.
An artist could arrive in the morning and leave having captured a music video, several photography setups, an interview, promotional portraits, social clips and source material for animated content.
A music brand could do the same with a new product—capturing its hero campaign, artist performances, interviews, product imagery and months of supporting content during a tightly coordinated production.
The recent Seliger shoot offers a straightforward example of the idea: many setups, dramatically different looks, one building.
But the larger opportunity goes beyond what can be photographed in a day. With filmmaking, photography, music, design and animation—including work for brands like Neural DSP—operating from the same creative home, a production day can become the starting point for a much larger body of work.
The objective isn't to create 20 pieces of content that all look the same. It's to create enough distinctive material to sustain an album, tour, product launch or campaign—without spending days moving crews, talent and equipment from one location to another.
Inside THIS IS RED, a century of architecture and a modern production infrastructure provide the canvas.
Bring the artist. Bring the instrument. Bring the idea. Change the world around it—not the address.