LEE BARAN

For the last 19 years, Lee Baran has devoted his life to the business of production. Starting as a voice actor, he quickly learned that the real challenge comes from creating content that keeps people coming back. His first indie short film won awards including audience choice, and he was hooked. He founded a production company and made a living producing music videos for local talent in Vancouver. And then New York called.

His company, Cut Action Media, has produced over 400 hours of content for Redken 5th Avenue, Matrix, L’Oréal Professionnel, Kenra, Shiseido, L’Oréal USA, Reebok, and Style 360. With so many connections in the beauty vertical, he was offered the opportunity to invest in a franchise of beauty schools. Seizing the potential, he helped grow the franchise from 17 to 43 schools in less than 5 years.

As a prolific director, producer, and writer, Baran felt the need for a creative outlet, and Chesterfield Entertainment was born. While working on several short films, he also wrote a feature film script and three TV pilots.

After appearing in a reality show called White Collar Brawlers and learning firsthand the appeal of reality TV, Baran was inspired to create a character-driven show about his favorite new passion: drones. While shopping the idea around with other producers, he came to realize that while everyone was thinking about drones, no one had solved the real problems. Racing drones are tiny. They’re boring to watch. They don’t work in a live scenario. They needed to be bigger. And their stories need to be bigger. For him, that means a real league-based sport: Titan Major League Drone Racing.