From Real Estate to Reel Awards

Property purchase prompts movie career

A Preston Hollow real estate mogul turned film producer won his first Daytime Emmy by arming young California women with cameras.

“Then, we helped shape what they came back with, edited it properly, put music to it, and presented it in a way that would be appropriate for a first-class television or streaming presentation,” said Stephen Jarchow, chairman of Here Media Inc. and Regent Entertainment Inc.

His Girl’s Voices Now docuseries about the lives and challenges of young women of color in Los Angeles earned his fifth Emmy nomination and first win – this one for “Outstanding Short Form Children’s Program.”

“I think people are very interested right now in how they might tell the stories for people of color, particularly young women of color,” he said.

The project emerged from his work with Women’s Voices Now and the nonprofit’s Girls Voices Now youth development program.

“So, we developed an approach with them where we gave cameras to different teams of young women in the Los Angeles area and worked with them as they shot and told their stories in a series of short films,” Jarchow said.

Much of the work Jarchow had done previously was in the gay and lesbian space.

He and his business partner of 25 years, Paul Coman, started Here TV, a service aimed at the gay and lesbian audience.

“It’s both a cable service and a streaming service,” Jarchow explained. “It’s a subscription video on demand, which means it’s a mini-Netflix type service, and it’s one of the most successful specialty services in the world today. The core of our business right now is streaming. We’ve ended up with a business that’s reasonably valuable.”

But Jarchow didn’t start out to become a filmmaker. The lawyer, a certified public accountant, and long-time veteran of the real estate business was a partner at Lincoln Property Company and head of real estate at Bear Stearns.

For the past three decades, he’s made his real estate investments on his own and been involved in filmmaking for almost that long.

“I got interested in the motion picture business because I bought the studios at Los Colinas many years ago,” Jarchow stated. “People mistakenly thought I was in the movie business, but I was actually in the facilities business.”

He’s in the movie business now. His biography on imdb.com credits Jarchow with involvement in 250 movies and TV series, including Departures, the 2009 Oscar winner as Best Foreign Language Film, and the award-winning 1998 film Gods and Monsters.

Jarchow also taught entertainment law for five years at SMU.

For those looking to get into the film industry, Jarchow recommends reading everything they can and talking to as many people as possible.

“People in the film and television business are incredibly open to talking to people who are considering or involved with the business,” Jarchow said. “You should not feel embarrassed or hesitant to reach out and ask for either a telephone conversation or a meeting because they will meet with you.”