While one artist is a book, a collective of artists is an entire library. At RW2, the arthouse is a carefully curated library of accomplished artists available for commissions. 

A Curated Community of Artists for Hire

RW2 arthouse is a community of elite commissionable artists representing every discipline. You can commission any type of art from a growing catalog of content creators and freelancers, including: 

• directors, 
• photographers, 
• illustrators, 
• muralists, 
• animators,
• motion designers, 
• graphic designers, 
• sculptors, 
• textile and mixed media artists,
• muralists,
• installation artists, 
• and more. 

These creative artists are carefully hand-picked with diversity and exceptional talent in mind.

The production-savvy specialists at RW2 coordinate with the client and recommend the perfect commercial directors team. Although every project requires a different approach, each is handled with care and receives the thorough assessment it deserves.

Unlike a singular artist, the arthouse collective allows RW2 to have a list of artists who can work simultaneously in multiple places at once, worldwide. Also, collectives provide artists the benefit of collaborating and giving feedback to each other. Artist collectives are efficient and reliable.

A Content Agency Connecting Artists with Brands

RW2’s arthouse is also a content agency that connects artists with brands and advertising agencies who need art. The result: Artists get commissioned for their creative work while companies make an impact with their advertising. arthouse is agency production and art-buying, artist resourcing, content production, and media delivery.

How arthouse Approaches Content Production

arthouse efficiently develops a plan that delivers quality content for every project. The arthouse produces, shoots, films, draws, and designs range using a knowledgeable production team. Additionally, they provide valuable content from every discipline. 

The RW2 arthouse team creates this personalized content for every platform; the arthouse has commissioned artists for various local, regional, and international brands. They also work on a per-project basis, which means the entire process is custom-tailored for each project.

The production team maintains a high level of attention from smaller-scale projects that may only require post-production work to an entire campaign planned from beginning to end.

Hire the Best Artists for Your Project

Hiring a commercial artist through arthouse is straightforward.  arthouse works as a partner to agencies, brands, and artists. It stands out as a vital resource not only in the Kansas City community where our studios are located but throughout the Midwest, U.S., and worldwide. 

Grace Chon, Photographer

Grace Chon is a self-taught commercial + editorial photographer specializing in lifestyle pet portraiture, including dogs, cats, and more. Chon has clients such as ad agencies, magazines, publishing companies, celebrities, non-profit organizations, and TV shows, including Purina and Fancy Feast.

Not only that, but she is also the author of 2 dog photography books: Waggish: Dogs Smiling For Dog Reasons and Puppy Styled: Japanese Dog Grooming, Before and After.

Yeye Weller, Illustrator

Yeye Weller is an award-winning illustrator who brings a bold, colorful style to his handmade and digital illustrations. He created a mural for the Las Vegas Warby Parker grand opening where “NICE TO SEE YOU” surrounds an animal-like character clad in a fabulous pair of glasses.

As another example, Dunkin Donuts commissioned Weller to create a colorful cartoon iced coffee in their ad. Other notable names that have worked with Weller include The New York Times and Warner Bros.

Robert Nyerges, Director

Robert Nyerges is a commissionable director based in Los Angeles. Nyerges creates diverse, meaningful, and culturally progressive content for films, commercials, branded content, and music videos. His story-telling involves highlighting the human element by using powerful imagery. Brands he has worked with include Gatorade, Mercedes, and Adidas.

Matt Mooney, Studio Photographer + Director

Matt Mooney is a calm and collected photographer specializing in food, tabletop, and product photography. He has worked with reputable brands such as Dairy Queen, Reese’s, Panera, Sunny D, Applebees, Tropicana, and Wendy’s. Not to mention, he has been a core member of RW2 since 2008.

The Wade Brothers, Director + Photographer

The Wade Brothers are real-life brothers and creative visionaries— a technically flawless team who create original content every time. Lyndon and Lindsey Wade are strong creators individually, but they make an efficient team of directors and photographers with a unified mission. The Wade Brothers clients include Adidas, Garmin, Audi, DirecTV, Intel, and Google.

RealFake, Digital Retouching

RealFake’s founder, Judy Rush, is a leading digital artist in advertising and photography communities.

Trevor Hawkins, Director + Photographer

Trevor Hawkins is an adventure and wildlife still photographer and a cinematographer, editor, screenwriter, colorist, and occasionally on-screen personality. 

Browse more arthouse creatives and their portfolios.

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Commission an artist from a carefully curated collection of top talent creatives powered by a professional production studio.

Why RW2 is in the Heartland

The Midwest is a global hub for commercial video production. Not only is Kansas City the perfect traveling midpoint, but it is also a hub for talented creators, beautiful locations, and affordable products. 

Along with being a traveling headquarters for production, Kansas City is an ideal setting for our studio HQ because of its Midwestern hospitality, affordability, and close-knit community of collaborative creators. There is impressive talent here because we have the infrastructure and capacity to exceed the expectations of any project. For this reason, the founders of RW2 have intentionally chosen to stay local and grow here to share their success with their community. 

“In my career, I would see all these great artists come up and work with us, and then they would move to the coasts,” Judy Rush, founder of RealFake post-production and partner of RW2, said. “Now, I see people intentionally move to Kansas City. They are choosing us.”

A History of Media Production in Kansas City, MO

Kansas City (KCMO) has renowned alumni of content production. For example, Walt Disney opened his first studio in Kansas City in 1921. Besides Disney, many other stars were produced here, such as:

• Paul Rudd, an actor, screenwriter, comedian, and producer best known for his acting in Anchorman, Clueless, Ant-man, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, I Love You, Man, and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. He studied theatre at the University of Kansas.
• Don Cheadle is a KCMO-born academy award-nominated actor best known for his role in the film Hotel Rwanda and as Tony Stark’s right-hand man in Marvel’s Iron Man franchise.
• Jason Sudeikis is an actor, comedian, writer, and producer. He has written for Saturday Night Live and is known for his roles in Horrible Bosses and We’re the Millers. He got his start performing at comedy clubs in Kansas City, Missouri.
• Janelle Monáe is a Kansas City, KS-born, 8-time Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter, rapper, actress, record producer, and model.

Kansas City is home to the first-ever AMC theatre, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in August 2020. AMC celebrated this by offering tickets for 15 cents, the cost per ticket when the single-screen theatre opened its doors in 1920. AMC Theatres is a  pioneer in the industry, building the world’s first multiplex and megaplex and even being the first theatre chain to add cup holder armrests to their chairs. RW2 Photographer, Matt Mooney, has worked with AMC to create mouthwatering commercial video productions. Netflix also filmed the third and fourth seasons of Queer Eye in Kansas City. According to MovieMaker magazine, KCMO sits at number 21 for Best Places to Live and Work in 2021. Kansas City is charming, “But the biggest draw may be the people: The city boasts more than 700 working crew.”

If you're in a big market, you're literally just working to live. I can own a house and take a vacation in the same year. You can bootstrap a business here, and you're seeing that in culinary, in fashion and in art.

Lindsey Wade,
Co-Founder of RW2 Productions and The Wade Brothers

Why Filming in Kansas City Beats L.A., NYC, and Chicago

Kansas City is a prime content production destination. The city’s arts and talent live up to cities like Los Angeles, New York City, and Chicago but retain a humble Midwestern charm. 

KCMO has all the culture, amenities, and sports teams that come with being a regional hub, but it's also connected to its roots as a 4-seasons Midwestern city located right in the rural heart of the country. KC stands out because it’s an affordable place to live that punches above its weight, producing quality arts similar to Chicago and Denver. The city has the infrastructure of casting, crew, services, locations, and other capabilities to make high-quality, efficient productions.

A year after the Covid-19 pandemic began, KCMO’s Crossroads Art District is determined to remain a significant neighborhood for viewing art. Twenty years ago, the district started to host a monthly First Fridays event. The area’s shops, restaurants, bars, streets, and most importantly, galleries host locals and visitors alike wanting to celebrate creators. 

Lyndon and Lindsey Wade, known as The Wade Brothers, along with their mother Judy Rush, founded RW2, a video production company, and are recognized preservationists in Kansas City. The family has been buying buildings that need revitalization in the Crossroads since 1999 to house the large amount of space required for their work.

In my career, I would see all these great artists come up and work with us, and then they would move to the coasts. Now, I see people intentionally move to Kansas City. They are choosing us.

Judy Rush, Founder of Realfake

According to the KCFilm location database, there are over 400 filming locations nearby, many of which don’t require permits. Some of these locations include

• Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art opened in 1933. The free-to-enter museum contains 34.500 pieces of contemporary and historical artworks from around the world, and as such, boasts the most impressive collections in the World. In 2007, Time Magazine named the Bloch building #1 in The 10 Best (New and Upcoming) Architectural Marvels.
• Union Station opened in 1914 as the second union station in the country, after Indianapolis. It has been the filming location of  HBO’s Truman, NBC’s American Ninja Warrior, and Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures. RW2 worked with Union Station to create a living history.
• Powell Gardens is a 970-acre botanical garden in Kingsville, MO, full of lush, rolling hills and windswept meadows. It features 6,000 varieties of plants and 225,000 plants in seasonal displays. Set on 12 acres, the Heartland Harvest Garden is the country’s most extensive edible landscape. 
• Liberty Memorial at National WWI Museum overlooks the city underneath which lies a field of commemorative poppies.
• Country Club Plaza, an open-air mall developed in the 1920s and modeled after Seville, Spain
• The Historic River Market District

All-in-One Content Production Company Catering to Clients Worldwide

In 2020, RW2 added two new divisions, arthouse + Wildchild, offering artist sourcing, motion control, and an international artist collective staffed with producers ready to bring your vision to life. Aside from producing live-action, still photography, and social content, RW2 provides post-production, retouching, CGI/VFX, and other video production services.

Arthouse

The artist collective branch of RW2, arthouse, allows brands to commission artists to develop ideas into images, videos, and social content that tell a story. These artists collaborate and provide expertise in all disciplines while expert producers on staff facilitate every aspect of production. 

Wildchild

Wildchild, RW2’s newest subdivision, focuses on an unparalleled post-production offering. They harness a team of editorial, compositing, and VFX geniuses that work locally and worldwide. Wildchild’s dedication to storytelling has earned it a reputation as one of New York City’s most sought-after sources for high-quality post-production. 

Content Creation for Brands

Creative content production is a critical skill for marketing. It helps to build a brand’s identity, increase sales, and gain recognition with a broad audience.

For example, in 2021, RW2 developed an astronomical advertisement for Wendy’s that involved planning and building a UFO from scratch in one week in the studio. The ad is witty and gravitational. RW2 also produced the Footballers campaign for Adidas. The project, shot by RW2 artists The Wade Brothers, featured prominent soccer stars Luis Suarez, Lionel Messi, and Paul Pogba.

Other notable commissions that RW2 helped create include:

• Several still photography, live-action, and 360° campaigns for Garmin shot by arthouse artists Kevin Schowengerdt, Jesse Whitaker, and The Wade Brothers. 
• Helzberg Diamonds featuring Patrick Mahomes
• AllSaints, directed by Kell Mitchell
• Bacardi Untameable featuring post-production by RealFake
• Adidas featuring live-action and still photography shot by The Wade Brothers

Kansas City is the Underdog for Budget-Friendly Commercial Productions

When it comes to commercial production, Kansas City is underrated. Lindsey Wade, one of the founders of RW2 Productions and The Wade Brothers, says, "If you're in a big market, you're literally just working to live. I can own a house and take a vacation in the same year. You can bootstrap a business here, and you're seeing that in culinary, in fashion and in art." 

Not only is the Midwest a supportive, livable place where production runs peacefully, but Kansas City is the ultimate big city with a small-town feel. Though Kansas City often is overlooked when scouting locations and agencies for global productions, RW2 is a powerhouse of creativity with resources to execute projects from start to finish… all under one roof.

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Why RW2 Utilizes Bolt

While you may not know of the Bolt Cinebot, you’re most likely familiar with its work. 

The Bolt Cinebot is a high-speed robotic camera arm created by Mark Roberts Motion Control (MRMC), a Nikon Group Company. This company has won numerous awards for making groundbreaking camera equipment including several over the past year. Unbelievably precise and meticulously engineered, its robotics were adapted from automotive and biomedical manufacturing. MRMC has been used in hundreds of feature films, television shows, commercials, and high-end tabletop work. This is industry-leading motion control camera technology and RW2 has it, the only Bolt camera located within 500 miles of Kansas City.

How the Bolt Camera Works

You can recognize the Bolt as a seriously fast 12-foot tall robotic arm designed to move a camera or subject around at mind-bending speeds with incredible accuracy and ease. The Bolt isn’t just for speed, it can also do a slow camera pass around a subject with unhuman stability and precision. Plus, Bolt is compact and completely portable. It can be set up and studio ready in under an hour. During Covid-19, this equipment has helped ensure safe social-distancing methods by using remote operation. 

Bolt is unparalleled when combined with other accessories and technologies. MRMC made Bolt, but they also made the industry-standard software, Flair, which can control up to 500 axes of motion, as well as triggering things to happen in a scene, from controlling lighting to firing a pneumatic piston to catapult a liquid across frame. It’s all controllable from the same software making it infinitely adjustable, controllable, and repeatable. 

Additionally, the accuracy is so precise and repeatable allowing perfect multi-pass shots for composting in post-production. This can be perfect for many uses including tabletop work and even timelapse. Flair also pairs seamlessly with other technologies such as CGI integration with Maya. A previs of each motion control shot can be created in Maya, tweaked and approved before ever stepping foot on set. This can be exported to Flair, allowing the bolt to perfectly match the already approved camera moves, greatly increasing productivity, efficiency, and the amount of content that can be captured in a day. 

All of this is impossible without robotics, equipping us with total coordination and control over a shoot. Complex camerawork is no longer an issue. 

The Art of Motion Control with Bolt 

As the world's most advanced state-of-the-art cinema robot, Bolt has proved time and time again to grant endless new possibilities and perspectives for a project. It played an integral part in Kendrick Lamar’s Humble music video as well as CGI-filled Marvel movies like the Avengers and Ant-Man. With its speed and accuracy, we can perfectly track liquids falling or food flying through the air.

From witnessing cars being destroyed in Fast & Furious, to watching a bulldog slide down a funfair slide, the versatility of Bolt is unrivaled. It makes any shot fascinating and extraordinary. The best way to learn more about Bolt is to rent it for your next project.

Renting Bolt

While owning the Bolt is not an opportunity for most people at its price point, RW2 provides the option to rent Bolt. The Bolt motion control camera robot may be perfect for your project if you're looking for shots that are:

• Crisp, clear, and focused
• Steady 
• Ultra-fast and precise

Contact RW2 Productions to power your next campaign with the Bolt camera!