U.S. HISPANIC
JK Media Group: With fiction production and new studios in California we’re scaling up our business
Maribel Ramos-Weiner| 17 de noviembre de 2021
Sebastián Jiménez anuncia nuevo emprendimiengto JK Studios en Burbank, CA
Sebastián Jiménez, CEO and Founder of JK Media Group, talked about his new projects and challenges on #PRODUprimetime with Ríchard Izarra. He highlighted the production of scripted fiction, in which they are not usually involved, and the launch of JK Studios, their own recording facilities located in Burbank, California.
CULTURAL MIX AND BEGINNINGS ON TV
RI: Sebastián is British, born in London, son of an English mother and a Colombian father. He moved to Cali, Colombia, a talent’s breeding ground for the audiovisual industry, when he was 18 years old.
SJ: ‟That’s right, I was born in England and then I went to live in Cali, Colombia, with my father when I was 18 years old. That’s where I started on TV. I spent seven years in Caracol, then I moved to Miami to work with Telemundo for seven years, and now I am in Los Angeles, where I started the company 14 years ago.”
UNSCRIPTED PRODUCTION
‟At JK Media Group we have focused and specialized in the production of reality-type content and unscripted formats, we worked with NBCUniversal in the Larrymania show. It was a very fun experience, you probably have seen how funny Larry and his family are. We specialize in unscripted docu-reality. We also are offering production services for scripted fiction to Telemundo, Apple TV+, but we specialize in unscripted original projects.”
MUSIC AND HIS COMPANY
RI: You have been closely linked to music, putting together everything that is music, singers, artists with television. Do you want to make a comment?
SJ: ‟We have worked with Larry, Gloria Trevi, Gerardo Ortiz in the past, and right now we have several projects in development. We have just closed an agreement with Alejandra Guzmán to do a reality-type project, it is a very interesting agreement to show Alejandra in a way that people have never seen, in her family environment, behind the scenes. We have also closed a deal with Edwin Luna and Kim Flores. Flores comes from being a hit in The House of Famous, and Edwin Luna is the main face of the band La Trakalosa de Monterrey. These are two projects that are ready to go into production, which will begin in February 2022.”
FICTION DIVISION
‟We have been working with Andrés Barahona, he is the Head of Production here at JK. He is the one who has led all production services for Telemundo, Bambú Productions in Spain, for Apple TV+, FOXTeleMéxico. So we are very well established with that. And based on those experiences we have started to develop fiction projects. We have one with the writer Sergio Jablón, a six-chapter miniseries. Alexis Serrato, who is managing the development department, also works with us. She has five fiction projects that are in her portfolio, and that we are looking to place by 2022.”
‟We also have a project that we did for Apple TV+ and Bambú Productions, but it has not been released yet and we can’t talk much about it. It is a very high-level project in terms of creativity, production, it squeezed out everything we had for producing in Miami, and I’m sure it’s going to be a tremendous project. Angélica Guerra (Head of Latin America – Apple TV+) has a very well-organized team, and the same goes for Bambú, Ramón and Teresa Gallegos have a great team with whom we were very lucky to work with.”
CHIQUIS: EXCLUSIVE PRODU
RI: Tell us about what you did with Chiquis Rivera for Telemundo and what else is coming.
SJ: ‟We are very happy with what we just did with Chiquis for Telemundo. We have an agreement with Chiquis to develop several more projects. Now, probably at Natpe, we are going to present it, and were are showing exclusively to PRODU everything we are developing with her.”
NEW STUDIOS IN BURBANK
‟I give you another exclusive news, Ríchard, we just opened a studio facility here in Burbank, within a location of more than 10,000 square feet (more than 3,000 square meters). It consists of three recording studios; we have just acquired it. It’s a modern and new facility. Very soon we will be sharing images of it.”
RI: Powerful news. JK has just acquired a three-studio facility in a complex in Burbank, California, where Disney is located. Are they going to compete with them? What are you going to call it?
SJ: “Yes of course. It will continue in the same line as our group JK Media, they will be called JK Studios. There are three studios, one of 5,000 square feet (1,500 square meters), another of 3,000 (900 square meters) and the smallest, of 2,000 (600 square meters).
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