“This used to be the Milwaukee Casket Company, building brand new caskets.”

Ken Schellin, producer and director, and Aaron Johnson, art director and animator, are both members of the team of Milwaukee’s Plum Media production studio. They’ve worked to help the company grow from its infancy to where it is now, moving from an office building in the Third Ward to their new building in the heart of Menomonee Valley.

Jackson Minshall: What can you tell me about Plum Media?

Ken Schellin: We are video production live meetings company. We make all kinds of videos for corporate clients: museums, conferences, kiosk, TV commercials, no weddings though. So, videos and meetings.

Q: What can you tell me about the history of the building?

Aaron Johnson: This building we’re in now was built in 1929. This used to be the Milwaukee Casket Company, building brand new caskets. The owner of Plum Media bought this building over six years ago, and we’ve been in this building for five years. We gutted the building and repurposed it for our needs as a video production company. After it was a casket company, for many years it was a hodge-podge of things, so when we moved in, it was a mess. When we took ownership of the building, we used a lot of the original elements of the building as it was in 1929, just rearranged to now.

Q: What can you tell me about the history of the Plum Media?

A: I’m glad you asked because it’s our 25^th anniversary this year! It was a small business started by two guys in a small office in the Third Ward, to grow and have its own building 25 years later is pretty special. Rich Schmig and Bruce Gibb started Plum in ’97. Not long after Aaron and I joined. We kept growing and growing until we needed to look into moving buildings, which is when we bought this place in 2017. At 10 years we had about 10 employees, at 15 years we had about 15 employees, and now we have about 25 employees. One thing about Plum is that we own a lot of our own a lot of equipment, camera, lights, sound. So, we’re able to shoot a lot of stuff in house in our studio but we also shoot a lot on location, and we have the ability to go and actually do that.

Q: What are some upcoming projects you guys are working on that you are excited for?

A: Well, first one is John McGivern: Main Streets. Who’s also known for his popular PBS show ‘Around the Corner’ that ran for 9 years. After that show had ended, him and his producer came to us to make this TV show, so we hired them. We came up with a new format of a midwest travel show where we visit Wisconsin and the 5 states that surround it. We filmed across the whole summer and have been fiercely editing before the new season premiers in January.