Escape from reality: Joe Rando's mechanical devices are the building blocks for the Hollywood special effects business.

To look at Joe Rando's warehouse and workspace, you'd never realize that he has helped create high profile music videos, car commercials and some of the floats that Disney designed to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

Most of the mechanical effects that Rando has stored in his North Hollywood property need a little bit of explanation, but what most people don't realize is that they may be already familiar with the effects.

When a music video features a band standing on the floor and then seeming to defy gravity by walking on the wall, they could have been using a set built on Rando's movable room.

The geyser of water blasting out of the ground in a popular commercial may have been generated by his company as well. A car that seems to be spinning on the ice is likely attached to one of Rando's remote control devices. Theme park-goers on Universal Studios' Back to the Future ride can thank Rando and his employees for the moving chairs that make the ride seem real.

These days, Rando's skills are in demand among Hollywood's top commercial and music video directors and theme park operators, but his career began far removed from Tinseltown.

When he was about 12 years old, Rando started volunteering for C.E. Bent & Son, a company that built Rose Parade floats. He worked on his winter vacations, fascinated by the mechanical operations.

After studying hydraulics at California State University, Los Angeles, he joined Festival Artists in Azusa, which also designed Rose Parade floats, especially large mechanical systems for the oversized floats. Six months later, however, he was convinced that working for himself and looking for contracts was a better way to do business.

On his own

Taking a contract with a company that did parade float construction along with commercial production work put Rando in touch with a number of directors and launched his entertainment business.

"I was brought on to do a remote controlled chair, a California Lottery commercial," said Rando. "I just started working with different art directors ... and once you're in the industry it's just word of mouth. They'd rather go to someone who's done it before so that they're not constantly dealing with the learning curve."

The challenge of finding a way to make a director's vision a corporeal reality is what makes his job interesting, he said.

"That's the fun part, that's absolutely the fun part," Rando said. "If it was just doing the same thing every day, I'd be doing something else."

He's even been able to get involved with Super Bowl commercials.

"There was a pretty memorable Mountain Dew spot for the Super Bowl," Rando said. "There five different turn tables, various sizes, stacked on top of each other, all of them with people on them. Each one was turning in a different direction, so it was like a birthday cake of people."

The demands that Rando is under have changed along with motion picture technology. As computer generated images have become more and more common in commercial productions, he's been asked to handle motion control work, which is designed to make movements precise and repeatable.

The may not sound exciting, but if a director can be sure a camera will approach and film a car the exact same way, the computer-edited footage can be used to show one car morphing into another before a viewer's eyes.

When the director of one of Peter Gabriel's music videos wanted to film the band underwater, he came to Rando.

Growing business

Rando opened his business in the early 1980s, but it hasn't been until the last few years that his business has started to grow at a high rate. Since 2001, his business has gone from employing eight people full-time and pulling in $1.5 million in revenues in 2001 to employing 26 and generating revenues of $4.3 million last year.

"Since our company wasn't as big back then, we weren't doing as much of the large-scale theme park work," Rando said. "Now that we've grown, it's afforded us to get larger contracts."

The expansion has paid off for Rando. When the Walt Disney Co. needed a float designer for two parades as a part of its 50th anniversary celebration at Disneyland, it turned to Rando. His company built 11 floats, from the mechanical operations to the scenic overlay, dressings, paint and fiberglass.

Growing has presented challenges for Rando. With under 10 employees, he was able to direct every detail of each project. Now that he's got more than two dozen employees, and sometimes more on contracts, he's had to learn to give up some control. In the last couple of years he's had had to hire project managers as the company can be working on several jobs at once.

Brian Shipley, owner of the set design company Isolated Ground in Glendale, has known Rando since before he started his own business. When they met in the '80s, Rando was doing float work primarily, looking for ways to break into other production.

"I've used Joe for quite a period of time as one of several but probably my primary mechanical effects company," said Shipley.

Rando built his first rolling room for use on one of Shipley's sets. Since Shipley's specialty is scenic design, he relies on Rando to help him make an effect come to life.

"Joe has always been pretty thoughtful in helping you try to figure out generally what to do," said Shipley. "I generally don't call him and say 'This is what I need,' I call and say 'This is what I want to do, how do I do it?'"

Spotlight

Rando Productions

Year Founded: 1988

Revenues in 2001: $1.5 million

Employees in 2001: 8

Revenues in 2004: $4.3 million

Employees in 2004: 26

Driving Force: Budgets for commercial production and cyclical business at theme parks