TOYPLANE
INDUSTRIES
TEAM TOYPLANE:
Billy Rainey, Executive Producer:
Billy has been in the reality TV business since 1991. He is a man of many talents, serving as Director, Executive Producer, formatting expert, Multi-cam concert producer, and Graphics visionary. He is a self-taught Editor and is a technical expert with both Final Cut and Avid.
He started his career as a producer and director on the first real reality show, The Real World. He then went on to produce the pilot for the sister, smash series, Road Rules. After a 6 year run with Bunim-Murray Productions (and the above shows), Billy went on to create and Executive Produce his first, breakout format Making the Video (for MTV) which ran for 6 years. During his time at MTV, Billy Executive Produced multiple shows such as , Becoming, My Own, and a slew of Making of spinoffs such as, Making the TV Show, Making the Movie , Making the Video Game , Making the Tour, and Making the Super Bowl Halftime Show . Billy then hooked up with Ashton Kutcher where he formated Punk'd, one of MTVs biggest successes to-date. Billy directed and Executive Produced Punk'd from its inception to the end and it is now having great success in syndication. After Punkd, Billy paired with Kutcher again for another show for MTV called, Room 401 and then another one, for E!, called, Pop Fiction. Outside of Executive Producing various series, people have come to Billy for his expertise and visual talents with graphics and format consulting. He has created packages for projects like: Movie Life: House of Wax, Pimp My Ride, and Date My Mom. He also served as a consultant on the formatting of The Osbournes.
Billy is no stranger to dealing with celebrities. From all his years on Making the Video record labels have sought him out to independently produce music videos and/or specials for their artists such as: Snoop Dogg, No Doubt, NSYNC, Weezer, Peter Gabriel, Nirvana, Nelly Furtado, Nelly/Ja Rule/Sum 41, Aly and AJ, Miley Cyrus, The Jonas Brothers and Hilary Duff.
He has piloted multiple projects for networks such as E! Entertainment, MTV, Style Network, The Weinstein Co., NBC, and CBS.
Billy is a very hands-on, creative and technically knowledgible Executive Producer and Director. He is a very talented formatter and has ranged from docu-soap, sketch comedy to hidden camera (where he redefined the style) to documentaries and multi-cam projects.
He met his wife and business partner, Rene Rainey, while on Making the Video at MTV. They live together in Los Feliz with their two children, Fletcher and Sophia and their three dogs, Otto, Oscar and Felix.
Rene Rainey, Executive Producer:
Rene started her entertainment career in New York where she Line Produced independent feature films. She moved to Los Angeles in 1999 and found a job producing a show for MTV called, Making the Video. She produced, along with Billy, over 250 episodes of the series where, during that time, she rose up the ranks to Supervise Producer. Within this time she ran production for a medley of spin-off documentary specials including , Making the TV Show, Making the Movie, Making the Video Game, Making the Tour, and Making the Super Bowl Halftime Show.
Pregnant with their first child, Rene decided to take some time off to raise her and Billys first child a son. During her time at home with her son, she and Billy produced several specials, documentaries and multi-cam concert specials for various record labels such as Epic Records, Interscope Records and Hollywood Records for such artists like: Snoop Dogg, No Doubt, NSYNC, Weezer, Peter Gabriel, Nirvana, Nelly Furtado, Nelly/Ja Rule/Sum 41, Aly and AJ, Miley Cyrus, The Jonas Brothers, Hilary Duff and Janet Jackson.
After two years of part-time producing Rene decided it was time to go back to work full-time. She produced on The Apprentice (NBC) and Survivor (CBS). Then she had a second child - a daughter. She stayed at home with her kids for another year and decided it was time to go back to work again starting on another season of Survivor. Her most recent credit includes Supervising Shear Genius (season 3) for Bravo.
Rene and Billy now focus on growing their company (headquartered in the bicycle district known as Hel Mel) and have produced numerous projects for The Weinstein Co., E! Entertainment, MTV, and Style Network under their companies banner. She continues to run development for Toy Plane.
