Retired West Meadows resident Gary Brosch understands the power of music. It brings people joy, lifts people’s spirits and, he says, it brings them closer to God.
Which is why Brosch and his wife Barbara work so diligently to spread that joy through their 501(c)(3) nonprofit No Fret Guitar, where underprivileged children are not only taught to play the guitar during a one-week camp, but get to take home that guitar afterwards.
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The motion picture industry in Florida has had its ups and downs.
For example, Florida was a boomtown in 2011 when “Dolphin Tale” was being filmed in Clearwater.
But, more recently? Consider Ben Affleck’s 1920s gangster-era film entitled “Live By Night,” which premieres worldwide on January 13. The movie is set in Ybor City.
There’s only one problem, however — it was shot entirely in Brunswick, GA, which was able to offer the film’s producers as much as 30 percent in tax credits on expenditures.
Cities in Florida couldn’t match that, and therefore lost a golden opportunity to bring revenue to the area and build the filmmaking industry in the region and state.
When state funds for film incentives dried up in 2012, the onus fell to local production companies to pick up the mantle.
Guys like Wesley Chapel’s Todd Yonteck, the CEO of his production company called Digital Caviar.
The Red Carpet
If you happened to have been promenading downtown St. Petersburg on December 7, you might have seen a red carpet rollout at the AMC Theatres Sundial on 2nd Ave.
Decked out on the carpet were acclaimed actors Dahlia Lagault (“The Walking Dead” Seasons 5 and 6) and Patrick Muldoon (“Starship Troopers”) for the premier of their new film, “Bernie the Dolphin.”
Actors, producers and writers huddled together for photos, took interviews and later filed into Theatre 1 for the film’s first theatrical screening, its world premiere.
“Bernie the Dolphin,” which Yonteck helped produce, was shot entirely in Pinellas County and at Marineland Dolphin Adventure in St. Augustine.
Yonteck is a Seven Oaks resident and an emergency room physician at AdventHealth Wesley Chapel. You could call film production his side hustle, although considering the amount of work involved, it’s much more than that.
“I have two jobs that are full time,” Yonteck said, after the premiere of “Bernie the Dolphin.”
In 2010, Yonteck and a friend, Paul Prator, began dabbling in film production. Initially, they took on a lot of commercial work. In 2013, they opened a storefront in Ybor City.
By 2015, a second office had opened and Prator stepped away from the company.
The commercial work was steady, Yonteck says. He booked and produced commercials for Verizon and USF.
But, something was missing.
“You don’t get to have as much creative fun with commercials,” Yonteck says.
His transition to more creative projects began slowly in 2013, when Digital Caviar had begun to produce some short films.
Staffers like partners Michael Brown, Victor Young and Conrad De La Torres came on board. Staffers Josh Long, Brandon Hyde and Brittany Hoppe also joined the company.
Digital Caviar’s first feature film came out in April of 2015, when “Crazy Lake,” a slasher film shot almost entirely in Brooksville, was released.
In December of 2015, the company embarked on a comedy, “Tropical Paradise 2.”
In 2017, Yonteck and Digital Caviar were hired to help on a joint production between Sarasota’s Ringling College of Art & Design and director Kevin Smith — famous for the cult film “Clerks” — called “Killroy Was Here.”
“The project started as a short in order to help the students get hands-on experience, doing the actual jobs in a production and also deliver the film,” Yonteck said. “It went so well and Kevin (Smith) was so excited after the shooting experience that he wanted to turn it into a feature.”
Smith came back in January of 2018, and then again over the summer, to finish principal shooting. The film is currently in post-production under Smith.
Before the chance to work on “Bernie the Dolphin” came along, Yonteck had seven producer credits — six for short films — to his name, as well as others for camera and electrical equipment, editorial, sound and production manager.
The concept for “Bernie the Dolphin” began circulating in 2017 when Yonteck, a longtime attendee of the Cannes Film Festival in France, could not attend.
“We either go or we send someone (to Cannes) every year,” Yonteck says. “It’s a great place to search for source material and to network. People see you, hear your name a few times and they’re more comfortable working with you.”
Yonteck wasn’t in attendance at the 2017 festival, but St. Petersburg Film Commissioner Tony Armer was.
Yonteck says that Armer got into conversation with reps from Grindstone, a branch of Lionsgate. The Lionsgate reps were talking up a concept that involved dolphins and oceanside locations.
Armer worked to convince them that Florida, Pinellas County in particular, had the locations they needed and the production companies to interview to make it happen.
By May of 2017, Grindstone and Digital Caviar were in contact and a local Clearwater-based writer, Teri Emerson, was tapped to write the script.
“The project was pretty much green lit by August of 2017,” Yonteck said. “We started finding the people to put it together and we had most of it solidified by the end of the year.”
Principal shooting began in January of 2018.
Keeping It Local
Yonteck was happy to work on a project filmed in Florida. Many film projects have left the state for better incentives elsewhere, reducing the number of opportunities for local producers.
The 2012 film “Magic Mike” was made in Florida, but the 2015 sequel, which is partially set in Tampa, was shot entirely in South Carolina. And, the 2017 drama “Gifted,” which is set in St. Petersburg, was actually filmed in Savannah, GA.
Georgia, thanks to its 30-percent tax incentive, now ranks third in the nation for film and television production and, according to an April 2017 story in the Atlanta Business Chronicle, had an economic impact of $7 billion in 2016.
“People talk about the Ben Affleck movie a lot, how it was written for Tampa, it was a story about Tampa and Ybor City, but they ended up building Ybor City in Georgia,” Yonteck says. “They just got so much value in incentives.”
The effect a movie can have on local business and a local economy often cannot be understated.
When the first “Dolphin Tale” movie was released in 2011, after having used the Clearwater Marine Aquarium for a major location, it bolstered tourism in Florida by more than $2 billion, according to a March 2015 article in The Hollywood Reporter.
Attendance at the aquarium spiked from 76,000 to 750,000 annually the year after the film’s release. Unfortunately for industry workers in the area, the film’s production company, Warner Brothers, isn’t based in Florida.
“A lot of the money in incentives that we did have went to big projects like ‘Dolphin Tale,’” Yonteck said. “I think it’s better to give the incentives to companies that stay and don’t pack up and leave when they finish shooting.”
The cast and crew for “Bernie the Dolphin” was almost entirely Floridian. The same holds true for the cast and crew of “Bernie the Dolphin 2,” which will be released in 2019.
“A lot of the actors were locally cast and the entire crew was Florida-based,” Yonteck says. “People are going to where the work is. We’ve been able to keep some people here in town but it’s hard to find good talent and when you train people up, they often go elsewhere but we’re going to keep trying to shoot here.”
The production shifted back and forth between St. Petersburg, Clearwater and St. Augustine. What worked for “Bernie the Dolphin” was the production value of the ocean access in Pinellas County, as well as at the ocean park in St. Augustine. The film was shot in January, taking advantage of the mild winter in Florida. However, Yonteck says a couple of cold blasts made for some funny moments in production.
“One day of shooting it was super windy and cold on the beach,” he says. “It was kind of funny because the actors were freezing and we had to make it look like it was warm.”
With “Bernie the Dolphin 2” already in post-production, Yonteck and Digital Caviar continue to support the film industry in the region and state in their efforts to make Florida competitive and more attractive for filmmakers.
Oh, and by the way— Yonteck provides a tip of the cap to his current hometown in “Bernie The Dolphin” as well.
An Easter egg — generally an inside joke hidden in a film or video game — in the film comes in the form of Yonteck’s boat, “Impulse Buy,” which acted as a platform and support boat, and it also was featured as the boat belonging to Kevin Sorbo’s character, Winston Mills.
Only a local might catch “Wesley Chapel, Florida” emblazoned on the boat’s stern, during an aerial drone shot, but we sure did.
Want To See It?
Bernie the Dolphin is currently available in On Demand options for cable/satellite customers that include Frontier and Spectrum. It also is available through iTunes. Yonteck expects an electronic copy or Blu-Ray option to be available for purchase by February.
After years of anticipation, New Tampa is finally getting a green grocer.
Sprouts Farmers Market, a popular Phoenix-based food chain that offers more than 19,000 healthy products, of which 90 percent are natural or organic, is coming to The Villages of Hunter’s Lake project currently beginning construction on Bruce B. Downs Blvd. across the street from the Hunter’s Green community.
The Villages of Hunter’s Lake is being built on roughly 14 acres of
But a new Sprouts store may end up being the jewel of the project, with all the requests over the years by residents for a green or specialty grocer.
Sprouts announced recently it was adding the New Tampa location, as well as others in Seminole and
The nearest Sprouts to New Tampa is the first one ever built in Florida, in Carrollwood. There are five other locations in Florida, located on S. Dale Mabry in South Tampa, Valrico, Sarasota, Palm Harbor
We’ll have more details in our story in the next issue of the New Tampa Neighborhood News, hitting mailboxes Jan. 25.
New Tampa’s new fire station is ready to go.
According to Jason Penny, the public information officer for the Tampa Fire Rescue department, the newly constructed Fire Station No. 23 just south of County Line Rd. should be fully functional and staffed sometime in January, though no official date has been set for the new station’s ribbon cutting.
“For all intent and purposes, it is done,” Penny said. “We’re just putting the finishes touches on it and waiting for the certificate of occupancy.”
Everything assigned to Fire Station 23 has already been hard at work since July. The truck, fire engine, rescue car and crew are currently working at stations in Ybor City (No. 4), on Hillsborough Ave. (No. 12) and off N. 30th St. near Busch Gardens (No. 13).
Station No. 23 will be New Tampa’s fourth fire station, but the first new station in our area since 2012.
It is expected to ease the pressure on Stations No. 21 and No. 22, which are both located on Cross Creek Blvd. Fire Station No. 23 is located right down County Line Rd. from Grand Hampton, which has roughly 900 homes, as well as other still developing communities in the area.
Station 23 also will be home to a new District Fire Chief responsible for coordinating efforts between all of New Tampa’s stations — Nos. 21, 22, 23 and No. 20 in Tampa Palms.
Tampa Now Repaving Parts Of New Tampa Blvd
Work began right before Christmas on smoothing over some of the trouble spots on New Tampa Blvd.’s bike and pedestrian trail that runs through the West Meadows community.
The pathway has faced criticism from local residents for years due to its cracked, bumpy and uneven surface that makes bike riding and even walking potentially dangerous.
District 7 Tampa City Council member Luis Viera was alerted to the poor condition of the path by a Hunter’s Green resident who often biked the path, and Viera says he was shocked when he went to take a look.
“I hadn’t been on it in a long time, to be honest, so I was a little struck by the disrepair,” Viera says. He adds that he called Jean Duncan at the City of Tampa Transportation and Stormwater Services Department to see if something could be done.
Originally scheduled for the spring, the project was moved up and began on Dec. 13, and was expected to be completed this month. While it doesn’t appear to be the complete renovation of the path that some had hoped for, the worst parts on the path have now been paved over by asphalt.
The long-simmering debate over whether or not Kinnan St. in New Tampa and Mansfield Blvd. in Wesley Chapel should have the 30-foot gap between the two roads paved over and connected may be on life support.
At least that’s the way it felt on Dec. 13 at the Pasco Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) meeting in Dade City, where there was zero support for connecting the two roads.
It looks like, frankly, it might literally be the end of the road for Kinnan.
With a few dozen Meadow Pointe residents in the audience, the MPO was briefed on the Wesley Chapel Roadways Study — which had been presented to the public in a workshop back in May. The study, while coming to no conclusions, looked at multiple options for connecting Wesley Chapel and New Tampa at the Hillsborough-Pasco county line.
The briefing, delivered by Meghan McKinney of the consulting firm AECOM, was followed by District 2 Pasco County Commissioner Mike Moore delivering what may well be the eulogy for Kinnan-Mansfield.
“Connecting Mansfield and Kinnan makes no sense for Pasco County residents,” Moore said. “It will only help the people in the developments in Hillsborough County just over the border. There are things (Hillsborough County) could have done in the past, like opening up Live Oak (Blvd.), but they got into a battle between Hillsborough and the City of Tampa. They could have opened that up, (but) didn’t do it. Now they want to put the burden on us? Shame on them.”
Moore’s remarks were greeted with loud applause from the residents in attendance, eight of whom signed up to speak to the MPO, which is comprised of the five Pasco commissioners, city council members from Zephyrhills and New Port Richey, and the mayors of Port Richey and Dade City.
Residents told the MPO that opening up Mansfield Blvd. to traffic from New Tampa, namely from new homes in K-Bar Ranch, would be a disaster. The 450-page report, using traffic projections for the year 2040, suggested the connection would add as many as 4,000 cars to Mansfield, a two-lane road — which many in attendance claimed cannot be widened, even though there has never been any proof of that claim presented by county staffers — running north to S.R. 56.
“It would destroy the flavor of the community me and my neighbors bought into…and it would lower property values,” said Michael Kaufman, who also was critical of the City of Tampa’s decision this summer to approve 700 more homes in K-Bar Ranch, which backs up against the southern end of Meadow Pointe.
“They (Tampa) are creating a problem; it’s not up to us to fix it,” he added.
Mansfield Blvd. runs past an elementary, middle and high school, Pasco-Hernando State College and entrances to a handful of Meadow Pointe II communities. The safety of students attending those schools was the concern echoed by most.
“It would be insane,” said Richard Traugt. “I’m against it for safety purposes alone.”
“There is grave concern among Pasco County residents that this would have a severe and negative impact on the quality of life and safety,” said Chris Dillinger. “It is easy to dismiss our fears as whiny and the over-reactive opinion of a small group of residents, but this notion is especially convenient for those would benefit from accessing the short cut through our neighborhood.”
At this point, the debate over Kinnan-Mansfield may no longer raging, but other options to make connections remain viable and even had the lukewarm approval of some of the residents in attendance. Connecting Meadow Pointe Blvd. to K-Bar Ranch Pkwy., as well as Wyndfields Blvd. to K-Bar Ranch Pkwy., or even both, appeared to be palatable choices.
Tampa and Hillsborough County have argued to connect all three.
“I’ve heard nothing positive about Mansfield Blvd. being opened, period,” said Pasco’s Dist. 5 commissioner Jack Mariano. “Connecting to Meadow Pointe Blvd. is the most sensible one. If Hillsborough is blocking that, we’ve got a problem. We need to have a strong discussion with them.”
Mariano joined Moore, Dade City mayor Camille Hernandez and Zephyrhills City council member Lance Smith in siding with the residents in attendance. Pasco commissioners Ron Oakley (District 1) and Kathryn Starkey (District 3) left after the presentation and before public comment, without offering their opinions, and three other MPO members did not attend.
McKinney said Pasco will conduct a public opinion poll in February, with basically yes or no votes on the various connections. A standalone option for making the Kinnan-Mansfield connection will not be on the survey, but it will be included as part of the multiple connections options. Those results will be passed on to the MPO, who will then make a recommendation to Pasco’s commissioners.