Episode 20: Adam & Monique Madrid - 48 Hours to a Feature Film

Episode 20: Adam & Monique Madrid - 48 Hours to a Feature Film

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2440356/fan_mail/new] What happens when a married couple turns a question asked in the back row of a movie theater into a 10-year film festival — and then one of them ends up running the city's film office? In this episode, Quinn sits down with Adam and Monique Madrid, the creative partnership behind the LOL JAX Film Festival and the Jacksonville 48 Hour Film Project. Adam is the Film Production Coordinator for the City of Jacksonville Film & Television Office and director behind the upcoming feature Let Me Be Corey. Monique is the Festival Director of LOL JAX — now in its 10th year — and the recent Cultural Council Small Business of the Year. Together, they represented Jacksonville on the international stage at Filmapalooza in Lisbon, Portugal. Quinn gets a little selfish in this one. She has spent 25 years producing work for global brands in cities she doesn't live in — and she wants to know how a company like hers finally plugs into its own hometown. What we get into: * How the City of Jacksonville Film Office actually works — incentives, permitting, crew connections, and what makes filming here a genuinely smart business decision * The $50K Jacksonville shoot vs. the $200K quote from LA — and why more brands should be paying attention * Building LOL JAX from a Sun-Ray Cinema back row idea to a 10-installment institution * How Adam and Monique divide creative, logistics, and marriage — and why compartmentalization might be the best relationship advice we've ever accidentally recorded * The 48 Hour Film Project: why you should register a team, and what happens when you put yourself in a bunker for 48 hours with sleep deprivation and a surprise genre * AI in film production: the 48HFP has banned generative AI — and why the global filmmaking community agrees * Why Atlanta credits say "Georgia" and not "Atlanta" — and what that means for Jacksonville's future * Cobra Kai filmed here. Malibu is actually Jacksonville Beach. Travis Hunter is insisting productions stay here. The city is moving. * Adam's dream: bring Hollywood back to Jacksonville, where it started with Norman Studios. Not someday. Now. The quote Adam ends with — borrowed from Jacksonville poet Oddrod — might be the best closer we've had on this show: "Our losses carry wins." Connect with Adam & Monique: * LOL JAX Film Festival: loljax.com * 48 Hour Film Project Jacksonville: 48hourfilm.com/Jacksonville * City of Jacksonville Film & Television Office: coj.net * Let Me Be Corey — coming soon Find Now, Near & the Future: * Website: nownearfuture.com * Spotify · Apple Podcasts · Amazon Music · YouTube * Follow: @nownearfuture TIMESTAMPS (from transcript — confirm against final export) * 00:00 — Welcome & opening * 02:00 — Around the Room: Tiger Lily social, Naila's change management cert, Adam's missing movies, Monique's intentional summer * 07:15 — Guest introductions: Adam Madrid & Monique Madrid * 11:00 — NOW: How the City Film Office actually works — incentives, permitting, crew * 15:00 — Florida vs. Georgia: why the state incentive gap matters * 20:00 — The LOL JAX origin story: one question, one back row, one sold-out screening * 28:00 — How they built the 48 Hour Film Project in Jacksonville * 30:30 — Running it as a married couple: lanes, compartmentalization, and the conflict-of-interest conversation * 35:00 — NEAR: AI in film — what's real, what's noise, and why 48HFP banned generative AI * 39:00 — Quinn's AI video experiment: $10K budget, Nielsen, and the character named Colette * 43:00 — Across the Pond: Why London and Atlanta are winning productions (it's incentives, not glamour) * 45:00 — Cobra Kai filmed Jacksonville Beach as Malibu — and Travis Hunter is demanding productions stay here * 48:00 — FUTURE: Bringing Hollywood back — Jacksonville had it once with Norman Studios * 52:00 — Quinn's EverBank shoot: $50K in Jax vs. $200K quotes from LA * 55:00 — Mayor Donna Deegan and the political will to build a film city * 58:00 — The wrap + Adam's closing quote from Oddrod: "Our losses carry wins"

Episode 19: Jackie Culver — Dignity Over Charity

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2440356/fan_mail/new] What does it actually take to feed 97,000 people a day, every single day? This week, we sit down with Jackie Culver, CFRE, Vice President of Philanthropy at Feeding Northeast Florida — the largest, fastest-growing food bank in the entire Feeding America network — to find out what's really happening behind the warehouse doors. What You'll Discover: * Why Feeding Northeast Florida isn't a place you'd ever go to get food — and what "food rescue" actually means when chicken, damaged packaging, and surplus zucchini are on the line * The ALICE population: who's really walking through the doors of a food pantry, and why it's rarely who you'd expect * How a single Dollar General shooting turned into a masterclass in advocacy, dignity, and listening to a grieving community * Why being poor is expensive — and how a 24-hour rent grace period can cascade into a $500 problem * The Blue Apron-style meal kits, community teaching garden, and disaster-relief kitchen already reshaping what "food bank" means in Northeast Florida The Moment That Hits Different: Just one day before this recording, Feeding Northeast Florida's CEO Susan King announced her retirement after 12 years building the organization from the ground up — including a pandemic-era effort that turned cruise ship donations and a shuttered golf tournament's catering into 650,000 prepared meals for senior housing. Jackie's tribute to her in the Future segment is the kind of moment you don't plan for in a run sheet. Global Perspective: Co-host Naila Mir brings her own fundraising experience across the UK and Pakistan into the conversation, comparing Feeding Northeast Florida's model to the UK's First Love Foundation and unpacking why solving hunger always seems to circle back to housing, healthcare, and the price of being poor. Jackie also gets real about the philanthropy side of the work — how to keep donors engaged when their giving capacity changes year to year, and why "time, talent, and treasure" all carry equal weight when an entire family ends up volunteering for the cause. Connect with Jackie Culver & Feeding Northeast Florida: * Website: feedingnefl.org (donate, volunteer, or find food near you) * LinkedIn: Jackie Culver * Social: @feedingnortheastflorida Find Now, Near, and the Future: * Website: nownearfuture.com * Instagram/LinkedIn: @nownearfuture * Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and YouTube

Episode 18: Tom Shelly - Beyond Survivor

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2440356/fan_mail/new] When Survivor premiered in 2000, Tom Shelly's episodes pulled 30 million viewers. Today, six million would be a hit. In this episode, the Emmy-winning showrunner takes us inside 25 years of building — and watching — the form that taught a generation to perform identity for a camera. Tom Shelly was one of the original, pioneering producers on Survivor. He won a Primetime Emmy, earned five more nominations, and ran the show as EP and showrunner for eight seasons. He launched Dating in the Dark for ABC, Love in the Wild for NBC, Coupled for Fox, and Relationshipped for Facebook Watch. Through his company Steele Mill Productions, he's now developing scripted features with CBS Studios and A24 — including a Brownie Wise biopic starring Sandra Bullock and a Ronnie Spector biopic with Zendaya. Hosts Quinn Harrington and Naila Mir take Tom through the full arc — from his start at America's Most Wanted, through Survivor's no-social-media early seasons, the dating-show era, the AI reckoning sweeping production today, and his pivot to telling scripted stories about women whose brands outlived them. 🎙️ CHAPTERS 00:00  Cold open and welcome 00:43  Around the Room — rainy London, Pride Month in Jacksonville, Encino 03:15  NOW: Why Tom is pivoting from unscripted to scripted features 09:30  The Brownie Wise and Tupperware story 15:50  Cinema verite — letting people create their own drama 21:35  Tom Shelly: the official introduction 22:32  NEAR: Survivor 2000, the iPhone 2007, and how casting had to change 26:42  From reality TV fame to social media fame 31:48  AI in production, voice cloning, and the SAG-AFTRA reckoning 39:41  Editing reality TV down to the frame 42:01  ACROSS THE POND — duty of care and the UK reality TV reckoning 53:02  The A24 model and why small studios are saving the business 59:58  FUTURE: 30 million viewers then, 6 million is a hit now 1:02:13  Where to find Tom's work ✨ ABOUT THE SHOW Now, Near, and the Future is a podcast about brand, business, and culture — exploring what's happening now, what's coming next, and what it all means in the long run. Hosted by Quinn Harrington (CEO, Harrington Design Co.) and Naila Mir (Founder, P3 Connect UK). 🌐 nownearfuture.com 📸 Instagram @nownearfuture 🎧 Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major platforms If today's conversation moved you, share it with someone who needs to hear it — and leave us a rating. It genuinely helps. #TomShelly #Survivor #RealityTV #Showrunner #A24 #PodcastInterview #NowNearAndTheFuture #BeyondSurvivor

Episode 17: How the Sausage Gets Made

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2440356/fan_mail/new] Pull back the curtain. In this special behind-the-scenes episode, Quinn Harrington joins Naila Mir in a London recording studio — for the very first time — to talk about how Now, Near & the Future actually gets made. With Yannis and Naz from P3 Connect UK and Rachel from HDco around the table, this one covers all of it: the origin story (a 2013 Nielsen video shoot and a 2023 LinkedIn DM), how they find and book guests, what episode prep really looks like, the full post-production workflow from Riverside to YouTube, and the surprisingly vulnerable answers to one question — "What's one thing nobody warned you about?" Plus: US vs. UK podcast culture, the future of interactive and immersive audio, and final advice for anyone thinking about starting their own show. Recorded live at Coco Studios, Bermondsey, London. Pepper is in Singapore. She's fine. 🌐 nownearfuture.com | @nownearfuture on Instagram & LinkedIn 🎧 Spotify · Apple Podcasts · Amazon Music · YouTube

Episode 16: Brett House - Building While Everyone Else Talks

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2440356/fan_mail/new] Brett House has spent 25 years watching products fail — not because they were bad, but because the organizations launching them weren't ready. As a VP at Nielsen and product strategist at some of the most important measurement and intelligence companies in the industry, he kept seeing the same gap. So he built something to close it. High Signals is a GTM launch readiness company. Signal & Noise is his new media company. And Brett is currently mid-launch on both — which he openly admits gives his readiness diagnostics a certain poetic credibility. Quinn and Brett go back to the Nielsen days, when HDco helped launch one of the industry's first precision audience platforms. This episode picks up that thread and runs it straight into AI, agentic workflows, quantum computing, and the question every founder eventually has to answer: what are you actually building toward? Genuine, fast, and surprisingly funny. With a cameo from Naila's baby and a detour through London food culture that nobody regretted. Find Brett at hisignals.com and signalandnoise.ai, or connect on LinkedIn. Subscribe, share, and visit nownearfuture.com.