business

Kelly Rodriques initially didn't think too much of the guy from Minnesota who came to manage public relations for his upstart software publishing firm in California.

"I was a young, cocky entrepreneur," Rodriques recalled. "I remember thinking, 'What is this guy from Minnesota going to tell me?' I folded my arms and gave him an evil look."

Fortunately for Rodriques, he quickly developed a rapport with Kim Garretson that then turned into a successful business partnership. Nearly 30 years later, Garretson, an Edina resident, is helping Rodriques with yet another start-up: A Los Angeles-based film company that hopes to change the rules of Hollywood by directly targeting college students with content that can be viewed online, on cell phones and movie screens.

The firm, called Blowtorch Entertainment, has raised $50 million in venture capital money. Fortune magazine recently named Blowtorch one of its "Six Leaps of Innovations" to watch in 2008. Rodriques is chief executive of Blowtorch, and Garretson serves as a special consultant.

"We want to create a brand of a studio that stands for something with allure, like Pixar," said Garretson, referring to the animation studio led by Apple CEO Steve Jobs that created "Toy Story" and "Finding Nemo."

In some ways, Blowtorch recalls the early days of Hollywood, when studios controlled all aspects of filmmaking, including production, marketing and distribution. Blowtorch plans to produce six movies a year that it will distribute to hundreds of movie theaters located near college campuses, then make available later on DVDs and online downloads. The company will also create marketing campaigns to promote its movies, including launch parties, social-networking sites and contests in which students create short films that Blowtorch will screen alongside its feature films.

The key to Blowtorch's strategy is attracting money from big brands like Taco Bell, Dell and Nike that covet the $24 billion annual market for spending by 18- to 24-year-olds.

Getting into the movie business is something advertisers frequently talk about but rarely find any success with, said Marc Graser, a senior writer with Variety, a top Hollywood trade magazine.

The college demographic "is definitely a fickle audience," Graser said. "I don't know if Blowtorch will work. Can they get the money from the advertisers?"

That's where Garretson, 57, comes in. Blowtorch is counting on his eclectic career in advertising, public relations, technology and venture capital to jump-start talks with advertisers.

"He's an invaluable networker," Rodriques said. "He can pretty much open any door that you can think of."

Born in Iowa and educated at the University of Missouri, Garretson started out as technology columnist for Better Homes and Gardens. He later moved to Minneapolis where he published an online magazine for PC users, worked in public relations and founded a software publishing company.

In 1993, Garretson and Rodriques started Nova Media Group, which grew into the fourth-largest Internet services firm in the United States, designing interactive content for Toyota, NBC and Levi's. After an aborted attempt at stock offering, Garretson and Rodriques sold Nova to Bcom3, a global ad agency, in 2001.

Garretson later joined Best Buy as director of emerging media and then was a liaison to the venture capital community. He helped the consumer-electronics giant invest in Silicon Valley start-ups with promising technology that Best Buy hoped to sell in its stores.

With Blowtorch, Garretson hopes to connect advertisers with a demographic often skeptical of marketing but responsive to it nonetheless.

"They consume entertainment but don't want to be advertised to," Garretson said. "What they want is authenticity and transparency. They want advertisers to be straightforward in message. You are the advertiser and they are in control and will allow you in or not."

So instead of sneaking products into movies by placing them in the background of various scenes, Garretson envisions big brands sponsoring a contest in which a blogger spends a week on a Blowtorch movie set and writes about his experiences.

Blowtorch's strategy is not without risk, said Michael Cerenzie, an independent movie producer who worked on "Before the Devil Knows You are Dead."

Blowtorch will find it difficult to not only expand the release of a successful film beyond college campuses but also to keep its movies playing in theaters in the face of competition from major studios, he said.

"It's very hard to hold on to the theaters," Cerenzie said. "Even if a movie studio wants to put out something mediocre, exhibitors will take that movie and bump off Blowtorch. At the end of the day, you need the studios to distribute the movie."

Still, Blowtorch's focus on college campuses and new technologies is smart, Cerenzie said.

Despite record box-office revenue last year, movie attendance has been sluggish; admissions grew 1 percent compared with 2006. In addition, DVD sales fell slightly to $16 billion, according to the Digital Entertainment Group.

"Blowtorch's strategy could, should work because it's where everyone is heading," Cerenzie said.

Thomas Lee • 612-673-7744