Founded in 1939
VIDEO PRODUCTION COMPANY IN DALLAS, TX
Founded in 1939
It was in 1939 that our founder, Robert Yarnall Richie (1908–1984), produced the company's first film while on a still photography assignment for Fortune magazine in the remote jungles of Colombia. His film captured the elusive reality of a native people faced with the intrusion of twentieth-century technology. This led him to a dual career of shooting still and motion pictures for business and industry, including photographic covers and stories for Life, Fortune, Scientific American magazines, as well as annual reports for many Fortune 500 companies.
Shortly after World War II, the companies that were to become the Arabian American Oil Company, ARAMCO, sent Richie Productions to document the historic search for oil in the deserts of Saudi Arabia. The oil found there created dramatic changes in the strategic balance of power worldwide. The resulting film, "Desert Venture", premiered at the New York Herald Tribune Forum on October 21, 1947.
Richie worked as a free-lance commercial and industrial photographer for many large corporations including those in the automobile, aviation, chemical, mining, petroleum, railroad, shipping, steel and other industries, both in the U.S. and overseas. His work is significant for its artistic qualities as well as documentary information.
An avid pilot, Richie's work also contains thousands of aerial photographs from many locales, including hundreds of estates and clubs in Palm Beach, FL, Long Island, NY, Newport, RI, and other wealthy suburbs.
As a pioneer in the field, he excelled in making artistic views of corporate industrial subjects in a mid-century modernist style. Richie often took unusual angle shots creating dramatic photographs of what could have been mundane subjects.
Upon returning from his final location filming for Wilbros Energy Services in 1984, Robert Yarnall Richie, having never retired, passed away at age 76.
RYR FILMS
1940’s
1949 Make No Mistake – Produced for Geophysical Services Inc. (Became Texas Instruments in 1950) follows the recruitment and training of a young engineer in seismic discovery of the day.
1950’s
1950 Natural Gas Pioneer – Produced for Panhandle Eastern Pipeline Company showcases their network of pipelines and how they service the heartland of America.
1951 Tribute to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – Produced by the American partners of ARAMCO to honor the relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia and their commitment to provide the world with a new and massive source of petroleum.
1953 The Blue Angels – Produced for Grumman Aviation to showcase the precision aviation techniques of the F 11 Tiger as demonstrated by the Navy Blue Angle flight team.
1954 Neptune’s Oilfields – Produced for Kerr-McGee Oil Industries showcases their development of oil discovery and drilling in an offshore environment.
1955 Offshore – Produced for J. Ray McDermott to showcase the offshore construction capabilities in the quest for oil and gas.
1956 Ace in the Hole – Produced for Dresser Industries to highlight the benefits of using their down-hole mud products for the O & G industries.
1956 The Scenic Inch – Produced for the Pacific Northwest Pipeline Company to showcase the building of the line that brought natural gas from the San Juan basin field in New Mexico to the Pacific Northwest. It traverses some of America’s most scenic landscapes including Arches National Park.
1957 Areas of Promise – Produced for Dresser Industries as a recruitment film for graduate engineers to work with in the family of companies operated by Dresser.
1957 Paths of Progress – Produced for J. Ray. McDermott to tell the story of their work in the newly discovered oilfields of Venezuela.
1958 Seatrain and the Shipper – Produced for Seatrain Lines to showcase the efficacy of their supply chain in getting goods across the nation on time and on budget.
1959 NSCO International Petroleum Exposition – Produced for National Supply to showcase their yearly petroleum exhibits of new innovations in the O & G industry in Tulsa, OK.
1960’s
1964 Packages by Pegasus – Produced for Railway Express Agency to showcase the multi-modal rail and air delivery services for supply chain management. Narrated by Chet Huntley.
1964 Date With Disaster – Produced for the Hospital Council of Southern California to showcase their preparedness in the wake of a natural disaster such as an earthquake. It featured a large reenactment in Los Angeles of triage and evacuation to a network of unaffected hospitals. Narrated by Jack Webb.
1965 The Alchemist Dream – Produced for Superior Oil Company to highlight their far reaching operations in O & G, agriculture and mining worldwide.
1966 Men, Mountains and Mud – Produced for Gulf and Shell Oil Companies, the film showcases the building of the Putumayo Pipeline running from the Putumayo Jungle to the Pacific port of Tumaco in Colombia. The challenges including building riprap airfields for STOL aircraft, clearing rainforests and traversing Andean mountain peaks.
1967 The Next Move is Yours – Produced for IBM Supplies Division to showcase their proprietary microfilm storage and punch data processing cards for processing large amounts of blueprints and information.
1968 The Delicate Balance - Broadcast presentation highlighting the new-found efforts of the O & G industries in operating in a safe and more ecological manner.
1970’s
1977 Challenge by Choice – Produced for ARAMCO Services Company to inform and educate new employees the challenges they face in moving to and living in Saudi Arabia.
1980’s
1980 Gateway to Mecca – Produced for Owens Corning to showcase their manufacturing of components and construction of the Haj Tent Terminal, the worlds largest covered space, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Fiberglas is spun, woven and manufactured in the United States, The pylons produced in Tsu, Japan, the steel cables in Borg en Bresse, France and all assembled onsite.
1982 Cortez CO² Pipeline – Produced for Wilbros Energy to showcase the building of the pipeline bringing CO² gas from Cortez. CO to Denver City, TX for tertiary recovery of the aging oilfields.