Tilt Creative + Production, a content marketing and production agency, has hired Dontrese Brown as executive VP and chief growth officer.
Brown, formerly executive director of the EDGE Center for Career Development at Randolph-Macon College, was previously director of brand creative at Capital One. He was also a creative director for Victorinox Swiss Army, Inc., leading that company’s creative marketing strategy for North America.
“Dontrese is an incredibly talented and authentic person, someone who truly believes in the importance of having a positive impact and leaving things better than he found them,” said Ron Carey, Tilt founder and CEO. “He has taken this approach in his career and the Richmond community. I know Tilt is better because he’s now on our team.”
Brown said of Carey, “I respect his leadership, vision, and drive for impact through purpose, integrity, and empowerment.”
Brown co-founded “Hidden in Plain Site,” a web-based and virtual reality tour through Richmond’s history highlighting untold stories of African Americans in the city. Brown also worked closely with the community and public officials to rename Richmond’s Boulevard after Arthur Ashe in 2019.
“It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you submit yourself to something bigger than you,” Brown said. “That’s what collaboration is all about.”
Brown succeeds Bill Hickman, Tilt’s chief growth officer since the company launched in 2018.
“I’d like to thank Bill for the incredibly positive impact that he has had on Tilt over the last four years,” Carey said. “I’m incredibly excited for the strategic advisory role that he will now play in the areas of new innovation for products/services and strategic investments.”
Brown will seek new business opportunities from current and prospective clients for Tilt, which counts Capital One, Walmart, Audi, and the Wounded Warrior Project among its clients. Tilt provides end-to end marketing capabilities, including creative, production, postproduction, and strategic services.
Independent Cinemas In L.A. Are Finding Their Audience
On a hot summer evening, Miles Villalon lined up outside the New Beverly Cinema, hours before showtime.
The 36-year-old already had tickets to the Watergate-themed double feature of 1976's "All the President's Men" and 1999's "Dick." But Villalon braved Los Angeles' infamous rush-hour traffic to snag front-row seats at Quentin Tarantino's historic theater.
This level of dedication is routine for the Starbucks barista and aspiring filmmaker, who typically sees up to six movies a week in theaters, and almost exclusively in independently owned theaters in and around Los Angeles.
"I always say it feels like church," he said. "When I go to AMC, I just sit there. And I can't really experience that communal thing that we have here, where we're all just worshipping at the altar of celluloid."
Streaming — and a pandemic — have radically transformed cinema consumption, but Villalon is part of a growing number of mostly younger people contributing to a renaissance of LA's independent theater scene. The city's enduring, if diminished, role as a mecca of the film industry still shapes its residents and their entertainment preferences, often with renewed appreciation after the pandemic.
A revival in the City of Angels
Part of what makes the city unique is its abundance of historic theaters, salvaged amid looming closures or resurrected in recent years by those with ties to the film industry. Experts see a pattern of success for a certain kind of theater experience in Los Angeles.
Kate Markham, the managing director at Art House Convergence, a coalition of independent cinema exhibitors, said a key factor is the people who run these theaters.
"They know their audiences or their potential audiences, and... Read More