Erin Fredman
LA-native and real-life “Valley Girl”, Erin Fredman got her start at Imagine Entertainment, working her way up from Assistant to Development Executive and collaborating on a variety of films, including Jodie Foster’s Flightplan, Tate Taylor’s Get on Up, Gus van Sant’s Restless, and Malcolm D. Lee’s Lebron James’ Basketball Comedy.
Independently, she Executive Produced Flock of Dudes, starring Kumail Nanjiani, Hannibal Buress, Chris D’Elia, and Skylar Astin and developed Gene, starring Adam Scott, Charlie Day, and Hank Azaria.
In 2012, seeing a future in digital branded content, she joined Tongal, a Santa Monica-based startup, as their first female employee and helped them raise Series B financing and grow the company by 10x.
As their Executive Producer, then Head of Creative Strategy (New York), and ultimately Vice President of Branded and Original Content, she generated partnerships with top media companies and Fortune 500 global brands like: Netflix, Amazon, Sundance Institute and The Gates Foundation, Women In Film and Lionsgate, Disney and Young Storytellers, Wattpad and CW Seed, Riot Games, P&G, AT&T, L’Oreal, MasterCard, Unilever and Mattel.
After a yearlong “Eat, Pray, Love” sabbatical where she traveled the world and rediscovered her passion for writing, Erin reconnected with Philip to launch Grandma Shirley Productions.
In addition to developing their slate, she’s currently a podcast producer at TuneIn, a contributing writer to Green Entrepreneur Magazine, and a Senior Fellow at USC’s Annenberg Innovation Lab steering the Gen Z social campaign for the April 2020 U.S. Census.
Philip Hall
Born on Friday the 13th, via C-section, during a fluke San Diego rainstorm (obvi), Philip Hall is a So Cal native who can’t surf but loves to wear shorts all year round. He has great legs, so why not?
He got his undergraduate degree in Sociology from UCLA and spent the next seven years working in development for some of Hollywood’s biggest producers: Dan Halsted, Karen Rosenfelt, Donald DeLine; on films like: Garden State, The Devil Wears Prada, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Twilight, and S.W.A.T.
Working in “the Biz” filled him with the urge to develop his own stories. So he set out to write his first feature, which began with a 30-minute free-writing exercise and in turn, became his first book (A Little Piece of Poo: Memoirs of a Gaysha Punim). This got him a book agent in NY who utzed him to write a second book, Tightly Knit, which he completed soon after the ‘07 WGA strike around the same time he decided to migrate north and run the marketing department of Borrego Solar, the largest private solar energy EPC in the US.
Albeit meaningful, renewable energy wasn’t feeding the creative beast inside. So he quit in 2017, and has been freelance writing in the food, beverage, and hospitality space since. His works have been published in Echo Magazine, Solar Professional Magazine, Distiller Magazine, 7X7, Spirited Magazine and had a monthly food and travel column for Adelante Magazine (North America’s largest Latino LGBTQ publication).
Today he celebrates the intersection of storytelling and food with his blog (EatsPorkJew.com) but his current priority is the partnership and business venture with Erin Fredman in Grandma Shirley Productions.
