West Virginia Film Office Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Native W.Va. Filmmaker Combines Hollywood And Home

Jillian Howell began making movies as a grade schooler. The Putnam County native now works in Hollywood, but her passion is telling stories on film about West Virginians who inspire her.

Randy Yohe talked with the Disney production coordinator and documentary filmmaker about her show business start, her latest project and her drive to support Mountain State arts.

The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity.

Yohe: It seems your passion for filmmaking began in Scott Depot, West Virginia at a young age, with a toy that my sister had as well. Tell me about that.

Howell: When I was seven, Santa Claus brought me a Barbie video camera. I made videos constantly with my dolls, and with my family that recorded straight to VHS. I taught myself stop animation with my brother. I was just constantly making things, and it wasn’t really until YouTube started in 2006, that I really started making things that other people were able to watch. I taught myself how to video edit on my mom’s Windows XP Movie Maker, and was able to start creating things to put on YouTube, and classmates were able to see them. I started entering video contests. In high school, I created Music Video Monday, which was also on our morning announcements that took off on the internet as well. There weren’t a lot of film opportunities for kids my age, there wasn’t a curriculum kind of tailored to it. It started with making my own opportunities.

Yohe: You’re now with Walt Disney Animation Studios in Los Angeles. Tell us about that job.

Howell: I got my first internship through West Virginia connections at Disney Parks internal ad agency, where I interned for a year and a half and then just kept pounding the pavement. I knew I wanted to work in animation production management, and didn’t know when I was in college that was a career path. I’ve been at Disney Animation since 2019. I started as a production assistant on Frozen II, and went on to be a production assistant, or as we call it, a PA, on Raya and the Last Dragon and then a production coordinator on some park attractions, Strange World and I’m now working on Wish.

Yohe: Even though you’re in Los Angeles, it seems your heart remains in West Virginia. You’re ready to debut a three-year-in-the-making documentary on your childhood best friend Zane, and that’s also the title. Tell us about his story.

Howell: I met Zane in fourth grade when he was seated next to me at Scott Teays Elementary School. I had never really had the opportunity to become friends with someone who had special needs and hadn’t really seen anyone fit into the mainstream. I feel like Zane was this bridge that connected what is a self-contained classroom to the mainstream classroom.

Zane is very unabashedly joyful, friendly and hilarious. He can make me laugh. I’ve always enjoyed every moment with him and sharing those stories with my family. I had been thinking about making a character piece on Zane, and decided to kind of just go for it. By the time that we scheduled the first interview, Zane had lost his job that he had for four years at Lowe’s. A very important thing about Zane is that he is one of the hardest workers I’ve ever met. He loves working. He just lost his job to regular layoffs, it wasn’t anything that he did personally, so I think that made it even harder for him.

A key component in Zane’s story, and in Zane’s success, is his mom Anne. Anne was actually studying special needs before she even knew that Zane was going to be diagnosed with an intellectual disability. She has a doctorate in special education. She is his biggest advocate, and also an advocate for so many folks with special needs. Zane has a huge heart, and a lot of faith. I wanted to capture that really charming character, but also show his mom’s tenacity to be able to continue to move forward in a situation that is really frustrating. Eighty percent of folks with special needs are often unemployed, but they offer so much to the workforce. We just have to really give them a chance, and be willing to make some accommodations for that.

I just want people to fall in love with him. The best way I know how to do that is through film and through sharing his story.

Yohe: West Virginia has recently restored its film office and restored its film tax credit to help make the state globally competitive as a production site. What kind of impact do you think that that will have?

Howell: I think the ripple effect of having a film office in West Virginia is big. When you see West Virginia represented in media, in film, and television, you really become the ambassadors for the state. You are able to show off the state in a way that makes people respect our state and see what we have to offer. I think the more that we open the door to those opportunities, we’ll see our state continue to be respected and grow.

Yohe: Tell us about your online social hub, Shine On WV.

Howell: Once I started realizing there were so many West Virginians working in important, artistic fields, and we just weren’t talking about it, it was just kind of like household chatter. I decided we had to create a database of creative West Virginians, and give them a chance to tell their story and share their work. It’s been really tremendous to just kind of start to see the connections that we can make. I just really want to break down the barrier to that. It is great to have a career in the arts. It takes a lot of passion, a lot of patience, and figuring things out. I’m tired of hearing that art is not a career option. It just takes a lot of creativity to figure out how to pay your bills, and to also sustain that lifestyle.

Yohe: You’ve got a lot of irons in the artistic fire. Going forward, your personal career goals, I imagine will springboard from Zane, to what filmmaking end?

Howell: I think that my dream changes a lot, but I know that it involves producing films. I have several ideas of my own films that I want to make. I’m helping produce an indie feature right now. I have so many different passions that it used to feel impossible for them to all kind of align and come together. I’m starting to realize that I can kind of continue to create those opportunities for myself, even though it’s exhausting. I have set boundaries for myself to really kind of stop and self-analyze, rest and take care of myself. My husband will say I’m not great at it, but I have gotten a lot better at it.

State Filmmaking Groups Begin Organizing Statewide Job Workshops

Filmmakers and producers are organizing workshops to support a potential filmmaking workforce statewide.

A grip and lighting workshop is scheduled for late February in Morgantown as part of a partnership between the state’s film office and the West Virginia Filmmakers Guild. It’s the first that the office is organizing, with plans to sponsor similar workforce development workshops in places around the north-central region and the Eastern Panhandle.

“They just passed the tax credit this past July, so there’s a need for more grips and electricians to start working on more independent films that are coming into the state,” said Justin Owcar, West Virginia Filmmakers Guild President. “So we want to be able to help more people that would be interested in the industry and train them and give them the opportunity when these productions do come into the state.”

The film industry in West Virginia generated $120 million in wages and around 5,800 jobs with eight television series like Underground Marvels and Mountain Monsters being produced in-state throughout 2020 and 2021, according to the Motion Picture Association.

West Virginia Development Office Apprenticeship Coordinator Dave Lavender said attracting film crews to West Virginia is great for economic development, supporting local towns’ economies and creating new jobs during the filmmaking process.

“We really believe in trying to create opportunities here, for everyone in West Virginia, so that if somebody wants to work in film, and work in the creative industry, they can do it here, they don’t have to always be traveling to Atlanta to work,” Lavender said. “We want people to be able to be able to work and live and play in West Virginia as much as possible.”

The workshop is scheduled for Feb. 25 and 26. The office is also planning to sponsor a make-up workshop, run by television and film make-up artist John Caglione, at the Berkeley Springs Film Festival in March.

Sign-ups for the Morgantown workshop are currently available on the West Virginia Filmmakers Guild’s website.

After Legislative Action, The State’s Film Industry Is Making Gains

Just five months after a new law revitalized the West Virginia Film Office, the state’s film industry is already seeing a bump.

Earlier this year, the state legislature revitalized the West Virginia Film Office, as well as the state’s film tax credit. The law went into effect in July and in just five months, the state’s film industry is already seeing a bump.

When Jeff Tinnell started in the film industry, you either worked in California or you didn’t work.

“I remember when I first started doing it and not living in [Los Angeles] and people said, ‘Where are you? What are you doing? Where’s the set? Where did you come from? You can’t do that here,’ type of thing,” Tinnell said.

Jeff and his filmmaker brother, Robert Tinnell, grew up in Rivesville in Marion County. They’ve since made their way back to West Virginia with their company Allegheny Image Factory, and things in the industry have changed.

“Now people could care less,” Jeff said. “You compound it with the pandemic where people work at home, they just want you to prove that you can do the work completed, and you have the skill level to be able to do it.”

Over the last 20 years, dozens of places outside of the country’s traditional film epicenters of California and New York have established burgeoning film industries of their own. Georgia, North Carolina and Texas now all boast robust film industries, and West Virginia is working to get in on the action.

In July, the legislature relaunched the state’s film office, moving it from the Department of Tourism to the Department of Economic Development, and restructuring the state’s film tax credit.

“The Film Industry Investment Act puts West Virginia in the national conversation,” Meghan Smith, manager for Business and Industrial Development at the Department of Economic Development, said. “It gives us the opportunity to reap the economic benefits of the film industry by having productions here.”

Smith also said the state’s new tax credit makes it competitive compared to neighboring states like Pennsylvania and Maryland.

“There is no per project cap, no credit cap,” she said. “When other states around us reach their credit cap for projects, they’re going to be looking at us to spend their money in West Virginia, because we don’t have that cap. So that’s one of the biggest and most exciting differences.”

While money is a driving force, the film office isn’t focusing exclusively on finances. Dave Lavender is the Apprenticeship Program Coordinator for the Department of Economic Development, but he also helps productions around the state find what they need. He said productions of any size can seek out help.

“West Virginia, it’s Appalachia. We’re full of storytellers,” Lavender said. “We get a lot of inquiries, and some small budget films who need help. We try to connect them to some of the funding possibilities, and some of the arts grants and things that are out there, even if they don’t qualify for the $50,000 minimum spend.”

In what has suddenly become a crowded market for filmmakers and production companies to choose where to base their productions, West Virginia distinguishes itself with the variety of filming locations packed into a relatively small space.

“We have places where you would really want to make a film,” Lavender said. “We got Civil War battlefields and coal towns and diverse cities and landscapes and places like the Palace of Gold and Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum.”

It’s still early days for the film industry in West Virginia. The office hasn’t compiled data on how many productions have come into the state, or how much revenue they’ve produced. Things are still being built out, and Lavender said the film office is always looking for more locations. One of the pieces still growing to fit the state’s filmmaking puzzle is a skilled workforce. Lavender said the film office is working on that, too.

“We have a service, a professional directory up there for crew members, and also for support services,” he said. “It takes a village, a huge village, to make a film. Support services are really everything.”

That means everything from drivers to painters, hair and makeup specialists and caterers. It also means the core filmmaking skill set of actors and video producers, who Lavender said are here already, but typically go out of state to work.

“We do have a lot of actors here, we do have a lot of tons of video production companies,” he said. “We’re hoping to have enough creative projects here where they can stay home and work in state.”

The Tinnells have been filming commercials, TV and movie projects in West Virginia now for 15 years and have already noticed a difference in the months since the new film office opened.

“We’ve done features here, we’ve done some television work here, we’ve done a lot of commercial work here,” Jeff said. “What was great about the last six months was the excitement that people had to want to get behind it.”

The goal for the Tinnells and their Allegheny Image Factory is to produce six to eight projects each year. In the past six months, they managed three, including two Lifetime movies based on the mystery novels of Ann Rule. Jeff’s brother, Robert, who filmed his 2019 holiday feature “Feast of the Seven Fishes” in Marion County, said seeing film productions is starting to get a little more common in West Virginia.

“When I did ‘Seven Fishes,’ that was really surreal and cool,” he said. “Now I’m getting sort of used to it, to driving through Fairmont going, ‘Oh, look, there’s a whole bunch of big lights and about 70 people standing around making a movie.’ It’s a really good feeling and I’m proud.”

Miniseries Filmed in State to Debut Next Month

A cable TV miniseries predominantly filmed in West Virginia is set to debut next month.

“The American West” is scheduled to premiere at 10 p.m. June 11 on AMC.

The West Virginia Film Office says in a news release that the eight-part series was filmed in Berkeley and Jefferson counties, along with Prickett’s Fort State Park in Marion County.

The series focuses on the years 1865 to 1890. It looks at the transformation of America’s frontier lands following the Civil War, and notables such as Jesse James, Billy the Kid and Wyatt Earp.

The series was produced by Sundance Productions and Stephen David Entertainment.

Steven David has filmed other miniseries in the Eastern Panhandle, including “American Genius,” ”The Men Who Built America” and “The World Wars.”