On a tip, I contacted David Van Der Like, owner and executive producer of Hellcat Productions in Pensacola, to see what they were all about. It turns out that David and his son, Ben, operate a busy production studio and event space, Hellcat Hangar, with their hands on lots of interesting things. The building in which they operate is a quirky old 4,000 SF Quonset hut on U.S. Highway 98, that I’ve passed by many times.

The company is named Hellcat Productions after World War II Grumman F6F Hellcat, the dominant aircraft used in the second half of the Pacific Theater. David spent many hours visiting with WWII veteran, Dick Pace before he passed away at age 102.  A Hellcat pilot himself, he was the inspiration for the company’s name. David is a former Navy aviator and thirty-year career captain with American Airlines. Ben is a co-partner in Hellcat Productions and currently serves in the Merchant Marines. Together, their interests are perfectly suited to producing top-quality videos for a variety of local and regional businesses, non-profits, and educational institutions.

Hellcat Productions has a contract with the Port of Pensacola to produce a series of marketing videos to promote the port. The Port submitted one of the videos they produced to the American Association of Port Authorities and it just won the Lighthouse Award of Distinction.  Hellcat has covered other Port tenants such as  Pensacola Bay Oyster Hatchery in their production work. (You can learn how the hatchery grows oysters here.) The Port of Pensacola is also participating in the Green Marine initiative, and Hellcat Productions has produced a video to support its efforts.

David and Ben have been working closely with the National Naval Aviation Museum and its Foundation to up their game while showcasing all the museum has to offer, including videotaping docents as they describe different aircraft.  All Hellcat Production camera operators are registered as museum volunteers and record Blue Angel practice flights from the museum flight line. They live streamed the Pensacola Beach Air Show in July and keep a running calendar of all events and air shows on its website.

The Museum has been closed to the public since Covid and the videos have helped it to stay relevant in the interim. However, the public can visit, if accompanied by a DoD escort. In the meantime, David has collaborated with local videographer, Chantry Holdman to do drone work within the museum. This is highly skilled and fun work as you can see here.

The day I visited, Hellcat was hosting a video production of several interviews conducted by Kristie Tobias. She has written a book, Fearlessly Made You: Surviving and Thriving in a Perfectly Imperfect Life, about her life and now produces a series of positive segments with different people in the Pensacola community. Kristie also records the Fearlessly Made You podcast episodes featuring some of her favorite friends, mentors, and amazing leaders in the area. Former Top Gun instructor, Dan McCort, is one of the guest hosts for a series currently being produced, Hellcat Hangar Sea Stories.

The day before, Hellcat Productions shot an interview with Dr. Della Scott-Ireton, a professor at the University of West Florida, who is an expert on shipwrecks. Pensacola Bay, one of the few deep-water passes into protected waters along the Gulf of Mexico, attracted many early trading ships. These now-protected waters were used to clean the ships' hulls by tipping them over in shallow water, many of which slipped over to deep water and sank. Many ships met their fate, and the area known as “Deadman’s Island” is replete with over 300 “graveyard” ships from the past, 75 of which have been located and explored. 

Hellcat Productions collaborates with several local production artists that need more extensive state-of-the-art production facilities and equipment to produce top-quality programming. They also have a high-tech podcast studio that clients can rent for production. David and Ben make a lot of public service announcements for use throughout the area.

David serves on the Florida Statewide Guardian ad Litem Foundation Board of the Child Advocacy Group in Florida and has used his expertise to help promote support for the non-profit organization through his production of high-quality videos highlighting the work they do helping kids in need. Hellcat Productions is also involved in the Pensacola Beach Songwriters Festival which will be held October 5 – 9. They are producing a tribute video about Jim Pasquale, who along with Reneda Cross, founded the festival. 

As far as event space is concerned, Hellcat Hangar is a cool place with a large LED video screen for corporate and social gatherings and has a nice outside area that can be configured to accommodate groups of up to 200 guests.

David and Ben are enjoying their new careers in audio and video production. It’s a work in progress they say, but you get the distinct feeling they are attracting the attention of the area's most creative artists and making lots of new friends along the way!