\nT<\/span><\/strong>he tiny towns<\/b> in the shadow of the Grand Coulee Dam are low-slung, big-sky locales \u2014 wide spots in the road where the sage brush often outnumbers the people. Eastern alumnus Jim Orr loved his home turf, and was proud to be a \u201craider\u201d at Roosevelt Lake High School. But that didn\u2019t mean he never dreamt of other places, places buzzing with 24\/7 music, arts and culture. Cities like New York and Los Angeles.<\/span><\/p>\n
Not that there was ever anything wrong with Grand Coulee and its environs. These are tight-knit, friendly communities. The scenery, though austere, is spectacular. But they\u2019re a long way from L.A. O<\/span>rr found himself ruminating<\/span> on that distance earlier this spring as he met with a group of EWU film students. They were chatting in a sunny conference room, its polished table set with fancy finger foods, located just outside Orr\u2019s office in, you got it, Los Angeles. <\/span><\/p>\n As the president of theatrical distribution at NBCUniversal, Orr \u201983 is living proof that it\u2019s possible. In his executive capacity at Universal, he\u2019s responsible for the strategy and management of the studio\u2019s North American film releases. It\u2019s a straightforward description of a job that\u2019s anything but. <\/span><\/p>\n Orr recalls, back in 2020, describing the gig to his newly promoted boss, Peter Levinsohn, NBCUniversal\u2019s vice chairman and chief distribution officer. \u201cI started walking him through what we do \u2014 because he had not been exposed to theatrical before \u2014 and after a while he said something that was perfect, priceless. He said, \u2018On the face of it, your business is as simple as it gets. And, at the same time, it\u2019s the most complicated thing I\u2019ve ever seen.\u2019\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n This \u201ccomplicated thing\u201d is centered around what the film world calls \u201cexhibition:\u201d putting a motion picture in theaters, then working to keep it there, generating licensing revenue, for as long as possible.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the crux of the job, but it\u2019s a more complex and strategic endeavor than it may seem,\u201d Orr says.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cFilm distribution is both an art and a science. It involves selecting the optimal release date, the ideal markets and number of screens, for each film.\u00a0 <\/span>It requires assessing the competition from other studios and creating a competitive advantage to ensure that every film reaches, or exceeds, its potential for success.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Another necessity, Orr adds, is the ability to sell your strategy to filmmakers while setting ambitious but realistic box-office expectations \u2014 both for them and the company\u2019s senior executives. \u201cIt requires constant vigilance, analysis and interpretation of where audiences\u2019 tastes are trending, anticipating how those trends are likely to evolve over time, and then planning accordingly. Data and statistics are invaluable in that process, but you also have to trust your own instincts.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s much more corporate than it was when I started in the business back in the late 1980s, but the core of it is still about relationships,\u201d he says. \u201cI still know, and talk with regularly, people I\u2019ve been dealing with for literally decades.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n All of this is further complicated by a film industry that is in a near-constant state of evolution. At the start of Orr\u2019s career, for example, movies were delivered to theaters on actual film. (At Paramount Pictures earlier in his career, he led the transition from analog to digital projection and filmmaking.)\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThis industry is always changing,\u201d Orr says. One thing that hasn\u2019t changed, he adds, is the people part. And that\u2019s something he was keen to share with his Eastern visitors.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>\u201cIt\u2019s much more corporate than it was when I started in the business back in the late 1980s, but the core of it is still about relationships,\u201d he says. \u201cI still know, and talk with regularly, people I\u2019ve been dealing with for literally decades.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAs I told the students, \u2018Sure, if you end up selling cars in Orange County, networking will be important. But in Hollywood? It\u2019s absolutely everything,\u2019\u201d Orr says. \u201cI don\u2019t mean that in the clich\u00e9 way of, \u2018It\u2019s not what you know but who you know.\u2019 That\u2019s not it at all. It\u2019s developing relationships, working with people and seeing how you can help them. It\u2019s about who you can help, and how can you do great things together.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n And who wouldn\u2019t have been? On Day One they blasted into Burbank on an early flight. Just an hour or so later they found themselves gliding through the fabled gates of Universal Studio\u2019s backlot, the behemoth television and film complex that, since the era of silent film, has been America\u2019s movie-making epicenter.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The trip was the culmination of a process that began five years ago, when Pete Porter, professor and chair of fine and performing arts at Eastern, connected with Orr about opportunities for EWU students to engage with the film and television industry.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cJim really wanted to give back to the university, especially with the film students,\u201d Drew Ayers says. \u201cHe wanted to show them that you don\u2019t have to be from a big city like L.A. to have a career in the film industry.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Porter suggested that perhaps Orr could host a handful of undergraduate seniors \u2014 along with a couple of EWU senior administrators \u2014 at his office at NBCUniversal. Orr could share stories, insights, and help them connect with others in the industry. Orr said yes, and Porter, with Ayers\u2019 help, scheduled an inaugural get-together for the spring of 2020. <\/span><\/p>\n That trip fell victim to Covid-19. The show did go on, via Zoom, and Ayers says those sessions were great. (They included visits by Jason Blum of Blumhouse, Margie Cohn of DreamWorks Animation, Luke Ryan of Chaotic Good, and Rebecca Arzoian from George Clooney\u2019s Smokehouse Pictures.) Still, everyone knew a computer screen couldn\u2019t compare to being there. So when Ayers reached out to Orr earlier this year and asked whether the in-person visit might happen in 2023, Orr didn\u2019t hesitate.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBefore we left campus,\u201d Ayers says, \u201cJim told me: \u2018Tell the students to leave all their shyness in Spokane. Don\u2019t bring it with you. Come here, engage, ask questions: that\u2019s why you\u2019re here.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n And that, after those initial jitters, is exactly what they did. \u201cThe students brought their A Games,\u201d says Ayers. \u201cThey were prepared. They had great questions and some had printed out bios of the guest speakers. I was impressed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n That preparedness and professionalism, on display at the meetings, conversations and tours that filled their itinerary, underscored the point Orr hammered home to his guests repeatedly during their visit: \u201cYou can do this.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOur student body draws regionally, so it can be hard for these kids to see the next step: \u2018How do I go from Cheney to Los Angeles?\u2019\u201d Ayers says. \u201cFor a lot of students that just seems impossible. My goal was to show them that possibility. And Jim is such a great spokesperson for possibilities. He is<\/i> them, 40 years ago.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe speakers he lined up were designed to show a bit of everything,\u201d Ayers continues. \u201cIt\u2019s not just about you becoming Steven Spielberg \u2014 sure, that would be great, we should all strive for that. But Spielberg is one of a handful of big names. Jim showed them how there are lots of ways to make it. He kept saying, \u2018if you want a career in this industry, you will have one.\u2019\u201d \u201cSomehow I just had it in my head that I was going to get into the movie business,\u201d Orr says. \u201cI had no right whatsoever to even think like that. I\u2019m from a very blue-collar family. My first jobs were painting houses, construction, even picking fruit when there were no painting jobs. While at Eastern I worked at Sears Northtown as security. I had no exposure at all to Hollywood, to the film business, or to anything like that.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n On the eve of his EWU graduation, broke but determined to move to California, Orr borrowed his roommate\u2019s suit and drove from Cheney to Seattle to interview for a sales job with fruit and vegetable giant Del Monte. On his application, Orr had indicated that, yes, he would indeed be willing to relocate to the Golden State. \u201cSure enough, they called and said, \u2018We\u2019d like to offer you a job: You said you could move to L.A. Is that still true?\u2019\u201d It was.<\/span><\/p>\n Though only at Del Monte for a year or so, Orr availed himself of what he describes as \u201cincredibly good\u201d sales training. Next, he found work with a technology firm, Harris Lanier, where he continued to prosper.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI realized I was good at sales. I was successful, I was being promoted. In other words,\u201d Orr says with a laugh, \u201cI was good at talking people into doing things they might not otherwise want to do.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Still, Orr says, he never lost focus on his ultimate goal: making it in the film industry.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n In the movie business, \u201csales\u201d translates into theatrical distribution. Orr kept his day job, but mailed dozens of queries to studio heads asking about distribution opportunities. He got plenty of replies, lots of advice, but no offers. Finally, just when he was about to give up, his big break came.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI told myself, \u2018I\u2019m just going to make one more phone call and then I\u2019m done,\u2019\u201d Orr says. \u201cNo joke, that very last phone call was to a guy at Paramount who said, \u2018Yeah, I\u2019ve got your resume right here, and I was just about to call you. Why don\u2019t you come in and we\u2019ll do an interview.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n An offer followed. Saying yes, it turned out, would mean a 50 percent pay cut. Orr said yes.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n On his application, Orr had indicated that, yes, he would indeed be willing to relocate to the Golden State. \u201cSure enough, they called and said, \u2018We\u2019d like to offer you a job: You said you could move to L.A. Is that still true?\u2019\u201d It was.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n That first, low-level job soon yielded a promotion and relocation to Boston. While there, Orr, never short on energy, used his limited spare time to pursue a law degree at Suffolk University. After another promotion and transfer, this time to New York, Orr finished his juris doctorate at New York University. He doesn’t practice law today, but his legal education wasn\u2019t time wasted.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Orr remembers Suffolk\u2019s law school dean conveying a particularly on-target message the very first might of instruction: \u201cIf you go through this process,\u201d the dean said, \u201cyou give it your all and get to the other end of it \u2014 whether you ever practice or not \u2014 you will think differently. You will think better, you\u2019ll think further ahead, you\u2019ll analyze things differently.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAnd he was 100 percent right,\u201d Orr says.<\/span><\/p>\n Like a lot of executives in the film industry \u2014 a business in which reorganizations, mergers and buyouts are commonplace \u2014 Orr\u2019s path from Paramount to NBCUniversal was a winding one. After years of success on the East Coast, Orr, by then a senior vice president at Paramount, was transferred back to Los Angeles in 2004. Two years later Paramount merged with DreamWorks. The DreamWorks crew, Orr learned to his dismay, would be tasked with handling distribution. He was out of a job.<\/span><\/p>\n Unemployment lasted exactly a weekend. Orr joined the executive team at MGM, and, for good measure, started a couple of film-related businesses. After another merger deal left him on the outs at MGM, he cashed out his stake in the businesses and joined the leadership team at FilmDistrict, an independent film company.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI was the head of distribution at FilmDistrict,\u201d Orr says, \u201cand we all ended up coming over to Focus Features, which is the specialty arm of Universal. From Focus I got moved over to Universal and where I am now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Peter Levinsohn says the studio is fortunate to have him. \u201cJim Orr is an outstanding executive and leader and is the driving force behind our success in theatrical distribution,\u201d Levinsohn said in an email. \u201cJim\u2019s dedication to his work is matched only by his commitment to helping students without access to traditional entertainment pipelines find opportunities in the industry. This is a testament to the supportive culture he has cultivated within his own team here at Universal, and it is truly inspiring.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In Orr\u2019s earnest, staccato account of his career you can hear the wonder of it all: the kid from Grand Coulee made good, the small-town striver leaving his mark on Hollywood. It\u2019s a story he seems powerless to contain, hence his desire to share it with a new generation of talented young people. Especially young people from the Inland Northwest, a place, he says, that he is \u201cridiculously proud of being from.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI had a great time, at Eastern,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m very happy, quite frankly, that I went there.\u201d Orr pauses for a beat, then smiles and adds. \u201cI do wish, wholeheartedly, that I had been a better student, a more serious student, and that I had more fully taken advantage of everything the university had to offer. Woulda, coulda, shoulda: What can I tell you?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n When pressed a bit, Orr describes what actually sounds like an admirably high level of engagement with his studies. At one point during his junior year, in fact, he was recognized by the EWU Alumni Association as one of EWU\u2019s \u201cstudents of the year.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMy major at Eastern was in organizational and mass communications \u2014 a Bachelor of Science degree,\u201d Orr says. \u201cThe thing that I liked about it very much was that it was, in essence, skill building. I really enjoyed the fact that you were doing things, not just reading and reciting.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Which bring us back around to today\u2019s aspiring pros, students for whom \u201cdoing things\u201d is also a priority. They just need their own shot at success, and the confidence to pursue opportunity when it presents itself.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n On that score, their trip couldn\u2019t have been more encouraging, says Drew Ayers. \u201cThe students were surprised by how welcoming everyone was. They were just so super-kind, which was great. That just speaks to the kind of people Jim knows.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n At one point, Ayers recalls, a staffer from Orr\u2019s team offered up an unscheduled tour of the working lot. Soon the students were out on foot, peeking into soundstages where an army of Hollywood creatives were working, each in their own special area of expertise, to make the movie magic happen.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe students were just exposed to so much more than any of them were expecting,\u201d Ayers says. \u201cBefore the trip they didn\u2019t know what they didn\u2019t know: that there were so many possibilities, so many career pathways open to them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n That was certainly Orr\u2019s hope.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sure some of it was lost on them. But when you get exposed to these things, you can start to see what\u2019s possible,\u201d Orr says. \u201cWhat I wanted them to understand is that, \u2018Yes, it helps to be smart, to be hardworking, to be a good person. But you can do it.\u2019 And I\u2019m pretty sure they got that.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","pull_quote":"","image":false,"caption":""}],"component_options_toggle":false,"component_options":{"disable_component":false,"nickname":"","identifier":"","navigable":false}}],"featured_image_format":"cover","display_byline":false,"display_date_published":false,"featured_video":"","Links":false,"Resources":false,"page_hide_sidebar":false,"page_enable_page_nav":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/1791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/stories"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/484"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/1791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2032,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/1791\/revisions\/2032"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nIn both miles and mindset,<\/strong> Orr emphasized to his visitors, places like Grand Coulee \u2014 and Cheney \u2014 can seem light years removed from media capitals such as New York and Los Angeles. But you can make it work, he said. It\u2019ll take some effort, but you can do it.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n![\"Jim](\"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2023\/07\/Orr-and-Cruise-1.jpg\")
\n\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
\nT<\/b><\/span>hat bit of wisdom <\/b><\/span>was just one of the insights offered up by Orr and other industry professionals during the whirlwind two-day, one-night visit. Not surprisingly, the students may have been a little too awestruck \u2014 at first anyway \u2014 to take it all in, says Drew Ayers, the EWU associate professor who accompanied them.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n![\"EWU\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2023\/07\/2023-5-15-Film-Field-Trip-Group-Portrait-2-copy.jpg\")
\n<\/span><\/p>\n
\nO<\/b><\/span>rr\u2019s own career<\/b><\/span> got its start with a dream, the kind of thing you see in the movies.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
\nI<\/b><\/span>nspiring and supportive<\/b><\/span>:<\/b> Two attributes anyone would love to own. Orr takes such praise in stride, saying he\u2019s just pleased to be in a good place; a position that allows him to do what he\u2019s good at, what he loves. And to help others, too, such as his work with the Pioneers Assistance Fund of the Will Rogers Foundation \u2014 a financial aid and counseling project assisting exhibition and distribution workers who are struggling with an illness, accident or injury \u2014 and the Lollipop Theater Network, which brings first-run, only-in-theaters movies to hospitalized kids around the nation.<\/span><\/p>\n