Earlier this year, Ryan Cheevers, of St. Joseph, was selected to help create the show “Chef Ballers,” with his California-based company Paper Crane Productions.
Gluten-free food brand ZENB recently premiered the show, which features Alex Caruso of the Chicago Bulls, WNBA star Te’a Cooper, and is hosted by Master Chef Alum Monti Carlo. The show is airing before select Chicago Bulls games this December and was featured on a recent segment of Good Morning America.
Watch the segment below. The “Chef Ballers” mention comes at about the 4 minute mark:
Cheever said received the call in June that Paper Crane Productions, would produce the 4-episode, 24-minute show in Chicago. Cheevers said knew he’d need a team in the windy city to collaborate with, and his first call was to current southwest Michigan residents, John Pinto and Vince Pinto, of Chicago-based JV Studios.
“When I saw their work online, I knew they were the guys for the job,” Cheevers said. “I couldn’t be happier with what they helped produce in collaboration with my team at Paper Crane.”
JV Studios handled the physical production of the show. From camera operating to production sound and lighting, the JV team filled out a crew of more than 35 to bring the project to life.
“When Ryan first reached out to us at JV, we knew this project was going to be a fun challenge,” said John Pinto. “The conversation started by getting to know each other and by the end of the call, we knew we were going to make a great team. … Working on Chef Baller was one of the best experiences in my career thus far.”
Watch Episode 1 of Chef Ballers below:
Aside from operating Paper Crane, Cheevers produces content through his southwest Michigan video marketing company, Little Red Fern. His background is in film production, where he’s worked on several feature films such as The Wolf of Wall Street and Dumb and Dumber To.
“It’s great that I get to produce work around the world with Paper Crane,” Cheevers said. At the same time, work in a community I grew up in, creating content through Little Red Fern. It’s been a really fun journey. And collaborations with people like Johnny and Vince, make my job even more enjoyable.
– Information and photo provided by Ryan Cheevers
