Catalyst (formerly ITVFest) is hosting the Catalyst Content festival competition in Duluth Oct. 9-13. At least the top three winners will receive direct offers of agency representation with Abrams Artists Agency. Making a presentation to the public on Tuesday, Aug. 13, at Grand Marais city hall were Katie Strand, producer; Riki McManus, director, upper Minnesota Film Office; and JoAnn Jardine, photographer. Staff photo/Brian Larsen
Cook County could one day become a place where movies and TV programs are filmed, or portions of them, anyway, bringing good-paying jobs with the filmmaking.
And Cook County could also host locations where TV and film writers gather to work on scripts, Riki McManus told a small group of people on Tuesday, August 13, at Grand Marais city hall.
For more than 30 years McManus has been the director of the Upper Minnesota Film Office. She and Katie Strand, a producer, and JoAnn Jardine, a photographer, were in Grand Marais discussing Catalysts recent move to Duluth, and what that move means for the Northland.
Catalyst Stories is a 501c3 nonprofit and global community of creative, TV executives, agents, and enthusiasts. The decision to move to Duluth and work in the Northland was based partly on the geography and beauty of the area, as well as having a labor force that could be trained to work on movie and TV productions.
Catalyst’s move to Duluth was also very much influenced because of a financial commitment to the program from the Iron Range Resource & Rehabilitation Board (IRRRB), said Riki.
While the “Catalyst Content Festival,” formerly called the independent Television Festival – a showcase for writers to present their work to producers, executives, and directors – would be coming to Duluth Oct. 9-13, drawing as many as 1,500 people, Catalyst is much more than just a festival, McManus said.
There is also the Catalyst Story Road Institute, a professional development program that will start in 2020. It will help writers take an idea and then teach them how to sell that idea to entertainment distributors. Second, the program will teach people how to write scripts, and third, there will be an on-set director and producer-training program.
The festival could be called the fourth phase. Creators of shows will be able to air their work and test it before live audiences before trying to sell it to a distributor. This year there were more than 800 submissions from artists hailing from 25 countries who submitted scripts, with the top 100 picked to screen to show producers at the festival.
One of the reasons the Catalyst team was in Grand Marais was to gain support for the program. Earlier in the day the Cook County/ Grand Marais EDA agreed to grant $2,500 to Catalyst.
Another reason for the visit was to add to the Catalyst Production Guide.
The directory guide will be a compilation of the people, places, and resources available to producers of TV or moviemakers so they won’t incur the expense of having to bring trained professionals to the area to make their films.
EDA Director Mary Somnis, who attended the Tuesday evening meeting, agreed to take JoAnn Jardine around the area the next day to find interesting locations to photograph — anything from restaurants, hotels, old fish houses, to gritty areas — places or scenic areas that might be interesting for a TV program producer or movie maker to use in a shoot.
For the record, Somnis and McManus go back a long way. Somnis spent 20 years working for the IRRRB, and she worked on several film projects with McManus over the years.
In the Catalyst brochure, IRRB Commissioner Mark Phillips was quoted as saying; “Northeastern Minnesota has a rich history of investing in creative industries, which has a direct and positive impact on our local economies. The need for such investments is especially true for our Iron Range communities that face unique challenges. Iron Range & Rehabilitation is pleased to support Catalyst Stories as a funding partner and looks forward to the economic development it will foster on the Iron Range.”
While Riki McManus is familiar to many, Katie Strand and JoAnn Jardine may not be so well known.
Katie Strand was born in Duluth. Her parents were schoolteachers, and Katie attended Duluth Central before finishing high school at the Perpich School of Arts, where she concentrated on music.
Katie spent over 15 years in Los Angeles working in film and TV and has worked in more than 20 states and three countries.
Katie did a plethora of jobs in the film industry, working her way up to becoming a producer in LA before returning to Duluth in 2018. She was nominated for an Emmy for research on a documentary about the Nanjing Massacre that occurred when Japan invaded China’s capital in 1937. Katie has been hired as a producer for Catalyst.
JoAnn Jardine is a photographer from Superior, Wisconsin who owns Studio One Photography in Superior. She has taken photos for magazine covers, still pictures for movies, weddings, family photos, real estate, and senior photos. She is the location photographer for Catalyst Stories.
All together there are seven full-time employees at Catalyst in Duluth.
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