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LMGI COMPASS
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Fall 2023
2006
Orin's TV Academy
Campaign
Board Members:
Orin Kennedy – Chairman of the Board
Kayla Thames-Berge – President
Dave Berthiaume – 1st VP
Pamella D'Pella – 2nd VP
Kristi Frankenheimer – Treasurer
Thom Anable – Assistant Treasurer
John Grant – Secretary
Peter Gluck – Assistant Secretary
Lori Balton
Bill Bowling
Bruce Chudacoff
Bob Craft
Kathy McCurdy
JP O'Connor
Debbie Page
Carole Segal
Scott Trimble
Beth Tate – Director of Special Projects
with Lori Balton
Kathy McCurdy – Director of
Membership with Lori Baton
2006 January
• Beth offers to help with website and
create a virtual gallery
• Orin collecting resumes and letters
for the TV Academy
February
• Almost 100 resumes and letters of
support are submitted to the TV
Academy
• Equipment Drive for Jefferson HS
and Graffiti Tour with Jefferson High
School students and location people
conducted by Bill Bowling
April
• LMGA booth at the AFCI Locations
Expo
• LMGA booth at Set Decorators event
JANUARY
TO APRIL
Orin Kennedy: In 2005, I had already been passed off
to three different people at the TV Academy and was getting
a little frustrated. We were then asked to submit resumes and
references to present to a peer group in the Academy who
might consider accepting us into its sub-group.
Lisa Blok-Linson: We did intensive phone banking to
round up resumes and letters of support. We called location
managers, and also directors and production designers be-
cause we had close working relationships with them.
Kristi Frankenheimer: Location managers and scouts
were very much for it but were also skeptical that we could
make it happen.
Stevie Nelson: Orin pulled me in. He needed help getting
LM letters and resumes to present to the Academy. I got about
50. I went down the location manager list. It gave me a reason
to call the top location managers in television.
Orin Kennedy: We received a rejection letter at the end
of the year. The art directors and set decorators were not will-
ing to accept us a sub-group. We decided to re-submit all the
signatures and request new peer group membership.
Marylin Bitner: I cannot give Orin enough credit for the
energy and focus he had for this mission. He was the spirit
behind it and cheered us on. He kept thinking of new ways to
approach the Academy and was determined not to give up.
Orin Kennedy:
It was my passion to
get equal recognition for
us in the Television Academy. I did
not understand how our artistic
collaboration in television production
was not being recognized and we were
not being accepted as voting members.
We needed representation equal to all
the other writers, casting directors, art
directors. We put locations in front of
the director from which he chose what
everyone would see on the screen. I
made this my mission.
