An AC/DC Video, Network TV, Movies Among Litewave's Clients

ST. PETERSBURG, FL — A St. Pete film company hasn't slowed down during the coronavirus pandemic, and has instead attracted clients such as the rock group AC/DC, Fortune 500 companies, NBC and other well-known names.

Christian Cashmir, owner of Litewave Media, founded his company in 2006 after working as a portrait photographer in Tampa and a video editor in Bradenton. He moved into a leased space on Roosevelt Boulevard in St. Petersburg about eight years ago, turning it into a studio.

"At that time, it seemed like there weren't a lot of studios, so it seemed like a good idea," Cashmir told Patch. "We wanted a place to offer our clients who we shot for, have fun with films, creating YouTube videos.

No day is the same for Casmir and his crew. A week before the Patch interview, he filmed a music video for a hip-hop artist. They shot some of the scenes with dancers in Ybor City.

Other days might be filled with making corporate training videos for Fortune 500 companies or commercials. Recently, Amazon used his crew and studio to record a commercial. LiteWave also made a music video for St. Pete native and hip-hop artist Rod Wave during the coronavirus pandemic.

"We love having those local relationships, but also being able to service those clients that are bigger," Cashmir said.

Sets are built by his company for clients in their studio, and the green screen room is rented to local actors and filmmakers, or anyone who needs to use it for background purposes. They have camera and other production equipment rentals, too.

Cashmir said that since the pandemic began they weren't able to work in feature films while filmmaking was shutdown, but he is grateful their business clients who usually did live training production turned to his studio to film training courses. Outside the studio, sometimes NBC or National Geographic reaches out to him for their production jobs.

"A National Geographic Show called, 'Drain the Oceans'—I shot two or three episodes of that this year in Jacksonville," he said. "We filmed in their main downtown library and on the beach. They have a really cool library — it reminded me of one in New York. We had all these maps that they needed for the episode, and we were pouring through them under these awesome lights in the library."

They also filmed a submarine expert while there. One of Cashmir's biggest highlights this year was working as director of photography for an episode of the NBC docuseries, "John Wayne Gacy: Devil In Disguise," that was filmed in St. Petersburg. Gacy was a suburban Chicago serial killer and rapist, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Another pandemic bonus was filming a portion of an AC/DC music video, "Realize", since all the band members don't live in the U.S., and global coronavirus travel restrictions prevented them from flying to the same space to record, they hired Litewave. AC/DC members, Brian Johnson and Cliff Williams, who live in Florida, drove to the studio and had their part in the music video recorded, and then LiteWave collaborated with the studios that filmed the ones who live in Europe and they put the video together.

The abundant filming work and growing clientele caused Litewave to outgrow the 3,000 square feet studio at 10901 Roosevelt Blvd., No. 300, St. Petersburg. That location is still open, but the new 11,000 square foot studio at 9850 16th St. North in St. Petersburg opens October.

Some of its features include an airplane set, a hospital set, a living room studio and office studio set. To stay up-to-date on the studio's progress or to learn more about LiteWave's production services, click here.