Roger Hunt, executive producer at Beverly Hills-headquartered The End, has been named to head the production company’s operations, which also include offices in New York and London. He fills the void left by the recent departure of The End’s founders, president Liz Silver and executive producer Luke Thornton (SHOOT’s "Street Talk," 11/26/99, p. 22).
Assisting Hunt in the management transition for a brief interim period will be Steve Wax, who’s best known as president of bicoastal/international Chelsea Pictures. Wax said that it’s in his capacity as an officer of publicly traded iNTELEFILM that he has agreed to help out The End. Chelsea is part of the family of companies under the Minneapolis-headquartered iNTELEFILM umbrella. INTELEFILM is also majority owner of Harmony Holdings Inc. (HHI), the Minneapolis-based public company that is parent to The End.
Christopher Dahl, CEO of iNTELEFILM and HHI, related that bringing a production veteran like Wax into the picture is one of the advantages of having an overall organization that can tap into the resources of different companies. Wax expressed confidence that The End "will continue to thrive under Roger—and I will do whatever I can to help ensure that."
Dahl said he didn’t believe that the exit of Thornton and Silver—who are husband and wife—would have a material impact on HHI’s contractual relationships with The End’s directors and other key staffers. The End’s current roster includes commercial directors Anouk Besson, Jaume Collet Serra, Nick Egan, George Jecel, Peter Martinez, Neil Pollock, the Quay brothers, Nick Rafter, Shaun Sewter, Clay Staub and Chris Strother. The End also maintains associations with three other directors via satellites: Erick Ifergan of West Hollywood-based Serial Dreamer, Steven Ramser of Unscented, Beverly Hills, and Kevin Kerslake of gigantic, Beverly Hills. Among the music video helmers in The End’s lineup are Nick Quested, Tryan George and the recently signed Earle Sebastian who’s also looking to break into commercials (see separate story, p. 7).
According to Dahl, The End has varying lengths of time remaining on its directors’ contracts. He said that to his knowledge, none of these contracts has an imminent expiration date.
Status Report
Yet to be determined is the status of directors who were rumored to be joining The End in the near future, and whether Thornton’s and Silver’s no longer being with the company will affect those plans. Dahl acknowledged that among those directors are David van Eyssen and Ashley Beck, both of whom were slated to help the company further diversify into new media.
As for why Silver and Thornton left, Dahl said that he couldn’t discuss the matter in detail in that legal issues were in the process of being negotiated. Asked if Silver and Thornton had non-compete clauses, Dahl declined to answer. He instead deferred to Thornton and Silver. Thornton told SHOOT: "We believe that we are free to compete with The End in any legal way that we choose, just like anybody else."
Thornton cited "creative differences [with iNTELEFILM]" as the reason behind his and Silver’s resigning. "We wish them the very best," said Thornton of The End and its staffers. "Liz and I built the company over a period of eight years. Although it was owned by a public corporation, Liz and I always felt it was still kind of ours. And towards the end of our term, it was not the same company, philosophically, that we had started as a creative boutique."
Dahl said that possibly contributing to Silver’s and Thornton’s decision to leave was the adjustment they had to make when iNTELEFILM became involved in The End. "They [Silver and Thornton] operated under a different set of parameters prior to our [iNTELEFILM’s] intervention," related Dahl. "We’re more businesslike and less entrepreneurial in terms of setting budgets and requisitions for capital expenditures."
The End has been a profitable operation, according to Dahl. He added that Silver and Thornton "left behind an astounding company with a solid nucleus of talent."
In taking The End’s reins, Hunt provides a measure of continuity. He joined the company in ’95 (SHOOT, 5/5/95, p. 8) as head of commercial production, was shortly thereafter promoted to an executive producer’s post, and has been involved in varied aspects of the operation. Prior to The End, he served as both an executive producer and/or line producer on music videos and spots at director Tony Kaye’s former West Hollywood studio. Hunt cut his filmmaking teeth in London, primarily producing music videos.
Key Players
Hunt plans to add some key players to The End, including a head of production. He noted that he inherits a support and sales team that remains intact, citing New York-based head of production John Abrams, and the head of The End’s London office, executive producer Mark O’Sullivan, among others. The End’s U.S. sales force continues to consist of Deborah Marlowe in the Midwest and indie rep firms Astrow Ziegler on the East Coast and Reber Covington on the West Coast.
Dahl added that Hunt will have "new financial resources" at his disposal. While he described HHI as being "not all that cash rich," Dahl noted that iNTELEFILM does have "a significant amount of cash" and is now in a position to infuse further capital into The End.
Other companies in the iNTELEFILM family are bicoastal Curious Pictures and New York-based Populuxe Pictures.
