CINCINNATI — From a warehouse in Cincinnati’s Queensgate neighborhood, Chase Crawford makes magic happen. 

The expansive industrial space holds a stage, an editing suite, a coffee bar, a photo studio and a sizable alcove, hosting Crawford’s growing company, Four by Three Productions. 

Founded in 2017, the company makes everything from commercial ad-spots to music videos to documentaries to comedy specials, but Crawford’s heart is in feature film production.

"I’ve always been confident that this part of my calling,” he said.

A self-described businessman with an artist’s heart, Crawford began the company at age 20, shortly after losing his job at a sports media company in Chicago.

“They gave me a severance package and I thought what better time to start my own thing than right now,” he said. “It gave me a little bit of runway really to focus on meeting new people and finding mentors.”

Crawford poses on his studio stage, feet from his office.

Getting started

From there, Crawford enrolled at the University of Cincinnati, married his high school sweetheart and got to work producing his first full-length film. 

“And that led to our second film and then just it started to compound and snowball,” he said. 

Though, he said the success didn’t come easy. It took a combination of persistence, luck and a willingness to bet on himself. 

Crawford said he spent more time than he expected putting that first project together and once complete, he struggled to secure a distribution deal.

“I was on LinkedIn cold emailing, cold messaging any streaming platform that would respond,” he said.

By 2018, Four by Three was already at a crossroads. Crawford got a call from an independent director in need of a producer to bring his project, “Moondance,” to life.

Moondance was Crawford's second feature film

“He said, ‘I want to start shooting in six weeks,’” Crawford recalled. “‘I need an entire cast locations crew, in a town you’ve never been to four hours away,’ and I said, ‘yes.’”

Crawford, in his final year at UC, dropped out, drove out to Kalamazoo, and using the lessons he learned from the previous year’s mistakes, produced his second film. By the time the film was released in 2020, he secured a 25-theater release and two streaming deals, using the contacts he’d made during the last project.

“This was one of the first films that we were able to get out there and it was really the first time I was able to just like, be a producer,” he said. “I’ve had my head down and have been running ever since.”

Finding success

While the pandemic interrupted many of the Moondance premieres, Crawford said momentum was on his side and Four by Three had a steady slate of projects under production or getting ready for distribution.

“I think the hard part is being the point guard of it all, like where am I paying attention to that day,” Crawford said.

Since 2017, Four by Three’s produced more than 12 dozen projects that are streamed by more than 2 million people annually, statistics that earned the company and Crawford a spot on Forbes Next 1000 list. 

The list highlights promising small businesses across the country and Crawford considers the honor a sign of Four by Three’s growth. 

“That’s the fun part. It doesn’t start from five years ago working alone in a basement anymore,” he said.

Working from home

Despite the company’s success, Crawford said he doesn’t consider his life all that different. The Monroe native said he knew since age 17, he’d be working in film, and there’s nowhere he’d rather do it than his hometown. 

Crawford works with editors in his Cincinnati workspace

“Cincinnati is this cool thriving arts town that’s so hard to capture in words what it means to the people who are a part of it but we all know it’s something special,” he said.

That’s why Crawford said he has no interest in leaving for Los Angeles. He’ll travel to shoot on location or meet with partners and other distributors, but he said there is plenty of talent and resources in Cincinnati to keep his home base at home.

“You can make films anywhere, any time,” he said. “Every person that we’ve brought to Cincinnati has loved it and they understand why we’re here.”

During 2022, Crawford plans to do just that. Four by Three has a full slate of releases for the year and Crawford plans to travel to the Sundance Film Festival at the end of the month to forge more connections and find future projects. 

“The only difference between me and a Hollywood producer is living in Hollywood,” he said.