by jon bosworth jaxvillain@yahoo.com
Brenda Egelby grew up a Jersey girl, went to college in North Carolina and then went to work in DC. She didn't decide to come to Jacksonville until Hurricane Floyd, that hurricane that was twice the size of Florida, was swirling off the coast. That's when she packed up and started driving toward the storm.
"I was packing my things to head for Jacksonville while the pier was being torn apart. The joke was that I was moving to a place that wasn't even going to be on the map," Brenda said of the move.
Of course Floyd never hit, but Brenda hit Jacksonville pretty hard.
"I was really surprised when I moved to Jacksonville to find that there was a film community in Florida. When I came here I was really surprised by how much production there was here. I thought I would be here for a year."
But that year stretched out and TigerLily Media is currently celebrating their fifth anniversary.
"We feel like we've established ourselves as the only creative production company in Jacksonville that has three features behind us. We're in a position now where the momentum is here and we can bring new production to Jacksonville. It is happening here."
Brenda met Warren Skeels, a director, producer and writer in 2000. A mutual friend introduced them and they immediately hit it off. Warren had already completed a feature film that he shot in Jacksonville. It was originally titled Surfacing and starred Jay Thomas (Murphy Brown, Cheers) and a woman named Lin Shaye (There's Something about Mary). It is currently called A Letter from My Father. Adding Warren's production experience to Brenda's commercial and casting experience, the two made a good team.
"I went to New York to be a production assistant on a Woody Allen film, because summers are slow. In Jacksonville, I was kind of a big fish in a small pond. I was a production coordinator and I was getting into producing, whereas in New York, I was just a PA asking people not to walk down 23rd street. So I came back to Jacksonville and started TigerLily."
While back in town for the holidays, Brenda and Warren met up again and they decided to join forces and see what they could accomplish from Jacksonville.
"I tossed around the idea of living in New York or LA, but I've never really been a big fan of LA. I like smaller communities. LA is so superficial. I really like New York. To this day Kip and I talk about living in New York, but I can't do that until I can afford the lifestyle up there that I have here. So things just fell into place. When Warren and I met, we both agreed that we liked Jacksonville. It has a lot of growing up to do, it is definitely behind a lot of other cities that we consider our competition, like Atlanta and even Savannah and St. Pete. At the same time, knowing that we can grow with this city is really appealing."
Brenda met her current husband, local musician Kip Kolb, and bought a home in Riverside. TigerLily Media operated out of her and Warren's homes at first, and then they moved into a building downtown to setup an official shop.
"We were fortunate enough to develop some really good commercial clients and promotional projects and that gave us an opportunity to work on some creative projects. We were in our old office on Market Street, which is where Larry's Giant Subs is now (Laughing). We were there for a year and the entire time we were there we did not have a working bathroom, which is unfathomable now. It was like pulling teeth to get the landlord to do anything about it, and it was kind of funny."
Their first project came from a local developer that needed a promotional video to promote properties the community in Springfield. Before long they were producing television commercials for major clients. With paying clients taking full advantage of TigerLily's creative talents and technical abilities they were able to generate revenue for their young company and grow the business into a much nicer facility in San Marco. Their full service film, video, production and post-production company was becoming more and more capable of fulfilling their dreams. They worked hard for their clients to pursue their true passion - feature films.
"Bruce Broder, who I had worked with as a production coordinator at St Johns and Partners, had been referred to us and wanted to make a documentary. Warren and I were totally on board. And that was the beginning of Chops."
Winning the audience favorite at the Jacksonville Film Festival was an outstanding accolade for the creators of this documentary about a group of students from LaVilla and Douglas Anderson whose jazz band made it all the way to the top high school jazz competition in the country and won. But they also enjoyed a standing ovation at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. With an award-winning documentary under their belt, their confidence was bolstered and they knew they could go after a feature film for wide theatrical release.
"We partnered with a company in Los Angeles that brought Throwing Stars to us and to Jacksonville."
If you didn't see it at the Jacksonville Film Festival this past year, Throwing Stars is a film that was shot right here in Jacksonville and co-produced by TigerLily Media. Starring Jason London (Dazed and Confused, Out Cold), Scott Grimes (Band of Brothers, ER), Kevin Durand (Walking Tall, The Butterfly Effect) and David DeLuise (son of Dom Deluise) among others, Throwing Stars plays like a National Lampoons adventure. The stars you may recognize even more will be in the background. Stars like the Acosta bridge, our downtown skyline and the streets of San Marco.
"Last spring we got a call from a guy that was coming to Jacksonville and wanted to do a feature and needed connections to do this low-budget thing and we raised our hands and said absolutely. So we met with Todd Brau. He had $600,000 to shoot this project and he was tossing ideas around, whether he wanted to shoot in Jacksonville or LA. We basically said bring the project here and we will make it happen in association with TigerLily Media. I read the script and it was funny, I liked it. It had a monkey and that was weird, but we had worked with some animal trainers."
They shot for 22 days last summer and there was not one drop of rain the entire time. The entire film was shot at night during the shortest nights of the year.
"It was a lot of fun and it won the audience award at CineVegas and it is in a distribution deal right now with a possible 28 city theatrical release, so we're really proud of that. On the heels of that we have two creative projects we are trying to develop right now. One is a documentary and the other is a creative feature."
EU: How does TigerLily compare to the big dogs from LA?
Brenda Kolb: That's an interesting question. We are in Jacksonville, not in LA or New York. We have a great crew here in Florida. From a talent/actor standpoint, we are very limited. All of our actors come from New York or LA, so that is limiting from a budgetary standpoint because no one is just here. We have to fly talent in, pay them per diem, house them and meet their needs. We can compete with those bigger companies. We are trying to get better representation to help us with packaging and finding the financing for other projects that we want to do.
EU: Is the next step to expand more into feature films? Do you have to grow to be able to maintain the commercial, for-hire aspect of the business while striving to focus more resources on creating feature films?
BK: It's funny, because right now we are going through some growing pains where we have some commercial clients, one is the University of Baltimore, and Warren has been traveling to Baltimore to do this project for them there, which takes up a lot of time. And we are a boutique company. There are only three employees, a couple of interns and a couple of freelancers that we work with on a regular basis. In order to do development on other stuff, we find ourselves bringing in people for a week here or two weeks there to facilitate the other clients that we have. On the heels of Chops and Throwing Stars, we don't want to lose momentum. So we want to continue to say we are on development on other projects. So we have to find the balance between the commercial paying gigs and raising money to get other projects completed. It can be kind of hard and (laughing) defeating to an extent, because you have momentum going and then all of the sudden you have to stop what you're doing because there is a check on the other end of that commercial job that's coming in and clients that you want to have good business with.
EU: What ever made you decide to do this in Jacksonville?
BK: I had family here. When I heard about 5 Points and Springfield and the Brooklyn area (at the time) creating more of an arts community and a creative district here in Jacksonville, I decided it could be worth a shot... Then I started to work for a production company in town and it was great. I had gotten my feet wet in production I had learned a lot and got a really good opportunity to be an in-house production coordinator…
There are new State incentives that Charlie Crist has helped us push through, which has been helpful. John Travolta moving to Ocala doesn't hurt. Now you have films like Elliot Rocket and the HBO film Recount. So as these projects come to town, there isn't any reason why we can't be here and do them here.
EU: What things do you see Jacksonville doing to help that momentum? What positive signs do you see from the community of us becoming more sophisticated?
BK: You have the Jacksonville Film Festival, which is putting us on the map. Personally I would like to see more art houses and movie theatres. The expansion and the arts development downtown. I like the idea of the Mark Rinamans and Paul Shockeys and Tony Allegrettis being the ones that are involved. I like the idea that they are here and they are doing it. It isn't someone at the end of a board room in Dallas saying 'Okay, we're going to develop this section of the Landing.' The key to the growth of the place is the development being done by actual residents that care about the community and the growth of the place… The dedication of Todd Roobin in the film office.
|
EU Critic’s Choice Awards
