Movies and Shakers
The production companies behind – and ahead of – the boom, and how they might be able to help you
By Marc Savlov, Fri., May 26, 2006
MARMALADE SKY MOTION PICTURES
Let it never be said that high-end burlesque, with a wink and a nod in the direction of the golden era of yesteryear raunch, won't get you anywhere.
In the case of Marmalade Sky Motion Pictures, whose president, Emily Cropper, and vice-president, Eunice Rios Yaklin, met up as members of Austin's celebrated Kitty Kitty Bang Bang, it got them where they are today: on the cusp of realizing their feature film debut, which Yaklin describes as "based on the characters who were created for the burlesque troupe Kitty Kitty Bang Bang – we took those existing characters and gave them even more of a background and then put them together in a narrative situation. It's about seven wayward women from across the world who travel around the globe performing and then get caught up in this huge debacle and then end up with a ranch in Texas."
Marmalade Sky's lengthy credit list encompasses everything from coverage for American Idol's Austin auditions to a 2004 MTV Superbowl spot, and from working as choreographers on Tim McCanlies' 2003 feature Secondhand Lions to Cropper's short documentary Mastodon Phenomenon, which was excerpted for an episode of the Emmy Award-winning, Austin-based PBS series Downtown (courtesy of the fine folks over at Action Figure Inc.).
From their South Austin studio, Cropper and Yaklin operate "a full-service production company providing scriptwriting, producing, editing, directing, and music composition. We also provide dance choreography for film productions, commercials, and music videos. Our productions range from television commercials to feature-length films, [and] we offer a professional yet unique experience to each client."
Cropper, who also has a line producer/production manager credit on Tony Hewitt's 2001 film The Duo, adds that Marmalade Sky is seeking "submissions, ideas, and projects from outside" and a director of photography and assorted crew positions for their Kitty Kitty Bang Bang feature.
"One of the things that's special about our company," she says, "is that it's composed of two women. Unfortunately, there are very few companies, film or otherwise, that are run exclusively by women. There are some women directors and a few more women producers, and so it's nice to be able to sort offset that a little. We're a new company, really, so I think we're still sort of finding our style, but our interests definitely lay with trying to jump on that thing, whatever it may be, that's underground for the moment but is going to shoot up into the mainstream at any second. That's why we like vaudeville, film noir, and the combination of the two that's obviously influenced our script for the Kitty Kitty Bang Bang movie. We're pretty good at homing in on the next cool thing."
