Something of a wunderkind in the late 1980's, Perry Santos was responsible for producing commercials for some of television’s most memorable advertising campaigns. The companies he worked most notably with were Wendy's and Diet Coke as well as Nancy Regan's "Just Say No" PSA campaign (winner of the IBA and Cleo awards). Perry's producing interests shifted towards the music industry. He produced as well as oversaw production of over 30 music videos. He was responsible for Janet Jackson's break out videos Nasty Boys and What Have You Done For Me Lately.
Later on Perry opened a series of successful restaurants including El Mocambo, Café Mambo, Cha Cha Cha, and Atlas Bar and Grill with partners including Madonna, and Luther Vandross. After a very successful run he sold out his restaurant interests and focused on the entertainment industry once again fulltime.
Perry achieved success in theatre with the hits Griffin Loves Phoenix, and Sunset Normandie. He returned to television as writer on The Late Show with David Letterman 5th Anniversary Special, co-produced the mini series Murder One: Diary of a Serial Killer. He has also worked on such television movies as Stolen Women and The Rockford Files and movies as diverse as Gone Fishin’, Casino, The Postman and was Associate Producer of the movie Kundun. He created the visual effects for the movie Inferno and worked as an art director and visual effects producer on many film and video projects. Perry began a long association with James Cameron as his Executive Assistant on the Academy Award winning movie Titanic. He is later as Special Projects Producer for James Cameron.
In 2003 Perry formed a production company, with Academy Award winning Director, John Avildsen. Their company, Interstate 5 Productions has produced dozens of commercials, music videos, industrial films and is currently developing several television projects including a reality series called Start Your Engines, in partnership with NASCAR Perry is also the creator and executive producer of the upcoming television series Family Trek. John Avildsen directed the pilot and will direct most of the first season episodes.
In 2004 he directed and produced the documentary Leonawood: A Look Behind the Wig and produced the documentary Prophecies of The Pyramids, which is currently in post production. He is also the writer and producer of a feature film currently in development called Aloha Mr. English, which is to star Michael Caine and Justin Timberlake. It begins production in early 2005.
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John G. Avildsen- executive producer
John Avildsen's directorial career excelled after receiving wide acclaim for Save the Tiger. The films star Jack Lemmon, won the Academy Award for his performance as a soul-searching garment manufacturer driven to desperate measures to save him from financial ruin. Avildsen went on to direct the hits W.W. Dixie & The Dance Kings and Inaugural Ball before directing Sylvester Stallone in Rocky. Avildsen won the Academy Award for Best Director and the film Rocky also took home Oscars for Best Picture and Editing.
Next, Avildsen directed and produced Slow Dancing In The Big City and The Formula starring Marlon Brando and George C. Scott. He ventured into comedy with the memorable hit Neighbors starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. Avildsens's diverse career furthered when he directed a documentary on Roger Baldwin, the founder of the ACLU, called Traveling Hopefully, which was nominated by the Academy for Best Documentary Short.
Avildsen had one of his greatest successes directing Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita in The Karate Kid. He later directed Happy New Year, For Keeps, and the Karate Kid II and Part III movies. Next, Avildsen directed, edited, and served as Executive Producer on the hit film Lean On Me, starring Morgan Freeman and Robert Guillaume. His next project was teaming with Sylvester Stallone to direct Rocky V another big hit at the box office. Off to Africa, Avildsen directed and produced the critically acclaimed Power of One starring Morgan Freeman and Stephen Dorff. Later, he directed 8 Seconds starring Luke Perry and based on the life of Lane Frost a World Champion Bull Rider. In addition to his many accomplishments as a director, Avildsen served two years as President of IATSE's New York based Cinematographers Union Local 644. He is also a professor of Graduate Filmmaking at Columbia University. John most recently directed the pilot for the upcoming television series Family Trek.
DAVID TICKLE-Company Principle/Music acquisitions and film development
David Tickle is a 22 year veteran in the industry. This Renaissance man of music has clocked some major miles on the verb "to be". Rarely has a single producer had more musical impact on the seventies, eighties, nineties, and now the new millennium. His credits read like an encyclopedia of rock and roll: PRINCE (co-produced and mixed six albums), U2 (co-produced/mixed Rattle and Hum), STING, POLICE, JOE COCKER, GEORGE MICHAEL, PETER GABRIEL, JACKSON BROWNE, BLONDIE, SPLIT ENZ, 4 NON-BLONDES to name just a few. Tickle’s musical gifts are uncanny — strung out on as they are on a high wire of brilliant couplings of white and black, male and female, flesh and spirit, rock hard earthly rhythms and pure celestial sound. By the late-seventies, there was no denying David Tickle on the English musical scene, no holding him back. The Brit wit was that good, that out there. Tickle was born in Guildford, Surrey, the only son of a university professor father, and an artistic mother. David starting "seeing" music from the time he was 7 years old. By the ripe old age of 14 he had ingratiated himself to many rock regulars by helping out backstage.
It was also at this time that he came upon the London stage with his riveting photographs of the English musical scene. He mailed his photos to MILES COPELAND who, impressed with their quality, asked to be introduced to the photographer. Astounded by Tickle’s young age, he made him house photographer and gave the young boy free passes to concerts and pocket money. By 16, Tickle started mixing live for MAHAVISHNU, amazing himself and everyone else with his instant grasp of all the band’s original instruments. The band became the granddaddy of fusion sound. Next assignment was the famed Zodiac Studio where he mixed three number one hit singles for LIVERPOOL EXPRESS. A fortuitous incident introduced him to Indigo Studios in Manchester where, with educated instinct, he was able to show them how to operate a new and very expensive in-line console.
By now, David was a highly respected sound engineer who was producing music. Going to London to get a deal for the band he was producing, he made an appointment with RINGO STARR’s record company. Though they didn’t like the band itself, they loved the production qualities and engineering. Ringo’s producer TERRY MELCHER recognized Tickle’s talent and offered him a job and salary he couldn’t resist. He worked his way up with relentless energy and by now was the sole living resident of JOHN LENNON’s huge 82 acre home, Tittenhurst Park in Ascott. David discovered SPLIT ENZ and Music Week (Britain’s Billboard) pronounced him the best engineer in the biz. America and BLONDIE beckoned and Tickle came to work Heart of Glass, Parallel Lines and Eat to the Beat. Tickle took the cat-call of DEBORAH HARRY’s voice and made it an anthem for club kittens everywhere. With THE KNACK, and his brilliant recording of My Sharona, David’s savvy sound waves were soon knocking the crew socks off teenagers everywhere.
He returned to tour with BLONDIE and when the tour was over Paul Schindler, rock and roll’s famous entertainment attorney, contacted Tickle and asked him to produce SPLIT ENZ. With their album TRUE COLOURS, a Tickle favorite because of its very visual sound, David made rock and roll history by being the youngest person ever to produce a multi-platinum album.... all before the age of 18. With his magnum opus PETER GABRIEL world tour in 1983, Tickle made a crater deep and wide. PRINCE came to see the show and was conquered. Tickle’s intruder-gated reverb sound inspired Prince to go home that very night and pen his staggeringly beautiful When Doves Cry. His next albums with Prince proved Tickle to be an unharnessed musical visionary. He stayed with Prince for two years, designing the layout for Paisley Park Studios. Next came GENESIS’ HBO Special, an hour of exquisitely tempered white soul. ROD STEWART, ERIC JOHNSON and TONI CHILDS albums soon followed. Now, no longer smitten with Britain, Tickle decided to make America his forever home. Jimmy Iovine, president of Interscope Records, asked Tickle to make U2's RATTLE AND HUM, together the music soon set the scene for the creative irreverence that swept the musical world in the eighties. Next came the DIVINYLS hottest hit I Touch Myself with the challenging yet accessible, rhythmic, yet never predictable sounds. The year 1991 was a creative nirvana for Tickle, producing musical giants like ELTON JOHN’s Two Rooms, JOE COCKER’s Night Calls and 4 NON-BLONDES, establishing yet another musical beachhead for the artist compositions all proved to be a brilliant amalgam of rock, fusion and classic styling.
It’s a long way from producing music to directing movies — or is it? Like Richard Wagner, Tickle envisions cinema as something he calls a Gesamtkunstwerk — an all encompassing work of art that melds cinema, music, poetry, drama, and spirituality into one glorious, unified scenario. Tickle is a man with vision and mission; but what is most striking about him is his willingness to put his money, mouth, time, energy, intelligence and his expertise into the causes he believes in. David lives in Spartan graciousness on an 18-acre ranch on the North Shore of Kauai. Tickle has written a screenplay adapted from the famous Russian fable THE MASTER AND MARGARITA by Mikhail Bulgakov that chronicles the confrontation between Jesus, Pontius Pilate and the devil. John Hurt has been cast as Pontius. His other projects include ADRIFT, again with John Hurt signed, is a parable of a homeless man trapped in a department store. Is he in heaven or hell? And AREA 51 is an acid-based sci-fi action love story that looks at the notorious military base in Nevada that secretly tracks UFO’s. The script details the collusion between the government and the extra-terrestrials... And the devil is in the details.
Over the past two years David has been instrumental in advancing 5.1 Surround mixing and continuing to develop new experiences for the listener.
Clifford C. Coleman-Head of production
Clifford C. Coleman started his career as an assistant director/production manager in the late 50's working on such classics as Some Like It Hot and The Buccaneer. He worked steadily on Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack movies like Oceans Eleven, Robin and the Seven Hoods, and None But the Brave. His film credits also include Hello Dolly, Flight of the Phoenix, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, as well as the Sam Peckinpaw films The Wild Bunch, The Getaway, Convoy, Killer Elite, and Cross of Iron. Clifford continued his career with such memorable films as The Longest Yard, Animal House, Bustin' Loose, Karate Kid (1,2,3), Rocky II and V, 8 Seconds, and The Power of One. He also traveled to Russia and Siberia to direct the film The Ice Runner.
Cliff's television background is extensive as an assistant director and unit production manager. His credits include such television favorites as WiseGuy, Air Wolf, and Magnum PI. Cliff's latest successes have been the television movies Stolen Women and the New Rockford Files television movies and is co-creator of the new television series Family Trek.
Cliff has worked on well over 200 movies and television shows and has filmed on every continent on the planet.
