Entry Interviews
The dust begins to settle at the Tennessee Film, Entertainment and Music Commission
by Jim Ridley
So the Scene called and talked to Todd, who sounded, well, exactly like a community liaison—somebody familiar with county-seat mayors across the state, who wouldn’t come off as a Hollywood sharpie calling on the commission’s behalf. Among other duties, the job includes what could be described as glorified location scouting, and as Todd put it, “How many other guys you know who’ve been to every county store in the state?” Cooley, vacationing in Vermont, was unavailable for comment. As for David Bennett, he’ll be at the Belcourt Friday night to introduce The Seven Samurai. (Bet he knows how they feel.)
Meanwhile, a week after the two top people at the commission were asked to leave, a new executive director was named: Perry Gibson, a 14-year Nashvillian with a 1990s background in commercial L.A. real estate. That initially raised some eyebrows, but her work out West is said to have left her with a golden Rolodex of entertainment industry contacts—and her husband is Ken Kraus, a respected entertainment attorney with the high-powered firm of Loeb & Loeb, LLP, whose client list includes Amy Grant, Kid Rock and the estate of Elvis Presley. (That’s Kraus, not Klaus—as in attorney Kurt Klaus, a longtime fixture of the Nashville film industry, whose wife was mistakenly rumored to have the post early on.)
In a polite but terse conversation with the Scene, Gibson asked for a few weeks on the job before discussing the challenges facing the state’s film and TV industry—especially the selection criteria for the $10 million incentives package that helped create such hard feelings toward her predecessor, David Bennett. But the Scene hears she has been quietly reaching out across the state entertainment industry, and that she has a much better relationship with key figures in state government than the former commissioner. Start watching your back, Louisiana.
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