Spotlight: Reel World

Spotlight: Reel World
Jacksonville Business Journal
“People on the Move”
December 2004

Spotlight

Reel World

Family, film and fun top Pepper Lindsey’s agenda. Lindsey, a Jacksonville native and co-owner of local audiovisual production company Lindsey Films Inc., was recently elected chair of the Mayor’s Film and Television Advisory Board. She’s been a board member since 1993 and is the first female chair since the board’s inception 23 years ago.

“The chair’s key goals are to offer advice and to support the Jacksonville Film and Television Office initiatives,” she said. The office “markets Jacksonville globally to the production industry in an effort to attract new projects to the area, strengthen the industry’s infrastructure, create new jobs and increase the economic impact.”

Lindsey brings more than 25 years’ experience in the production industry, including projects ranging from popular reality programming and cable travel shows to national commercial campaigns, to her new position. She has produced “America’s Most Wanted” crime re-enactment segments for the past 15 years and was a writer, producer and director of 13 episodes of the Travel Channel’s “Great Vacation Homes.” More than 100 regional and national commercials round out her resume.

Lindsey is in the “day to day business” of making films and commercials for a variety of clients. “I think this production experience, and my experience as a business owner, coupled with my love for the city of Jacksonville and my relationship with industry executives throughout the United States, will help me to help the city market Jacksonville to production individuals

looking to shoot in Jacksonville,” she said. “Jacksonville’s assets are the consolidated form of government, excellent hard-working technicians, variety of locations, competitive cost and Southern charm and hospitality.”

As a producer, she oversees the entire process of making a film or commercial, ensuring budget dollars are spent in the right places, crew members are hired and everything happens on time. She says the role of producer is flexible but she relishes “those times when I’m involved in the creative process from the beginning and have creative input in the project.

Lindsey attended Florida Community College at Jacksonville for two years. Growing up, she studied classical dance and had visions of becoming a dancer. Now that she’s found her niche, she couldn’t be happier. She loves what she does and has fun doing it.

“Fun is being the only people on the back lot of Universal Studios in the middle of the night, filming a commercial while watching people practice for the Mardi Gras parade. Fun is standing in the middle of Arlington Expressway watching a helicopter land in the middle of it over and over again while filming a movie. Fun is having the opportunity to do things, go places and have access to and see things that are generally off-limits. Fun is meeting new people, working with talented people, working in new and exciting places, and knowing that at the end of the day the career you’ve chosen, despite its insanity, has given you access to all these things and you haven’t been stuck at a desk, punching a time clock or doing telemarketing. Fun, in the end, is doing something you love.”

Lindsey and her husband, Kent who have been married 19 years live near the Intracoastal Waterway. They have a 22-month-old daughter, Samantha, whom they adopted from Russia. Lindsey’s free time is devoted to her husband and daughter and she’d like more of it, for interior design, going to the gym more, and traveling for pleasure instead of work to various destinations. At the top of her wish list are Martha’s Vineyard and Kauai, Hawaii.

Story by Caron Streibich.