Trading Places. Part 1. Tom Fletcher.

A lot of industry luminaries have taken new positions lately. Here’s the first in a series on long overdue announcements about who is where and from whence they traded places.

Tom Fletcher

January 26, 2017 –Tom Fletcher has been appointed Director of Sales at the Optical Devices Division (Fujinon) of FUJIFILM. He will oversee sales and promotion of cinema lenses and broadcast lenses in North America. He reports to division Vice President Gordon Tubbs.

Tom graduated from the University of Illinois in 1985. He majored in Speech Communication with an unofficial  minor in Cinema & Broadcast Journalism. He grew up in Lake Bluff, Illinois. In the first summer out of college, his father, Archie, started a business with San Antonio Texas company Media Specialties.  Tom handled the ENG/Film  part of the business in the Midwest.  Two years later, the owners had a “business divorce”  and Tom was offered the job of running the Fletcher Chicago office.

Tom describes the early days:

“I had the hustle and Archie had the business savvy.  We helped outfit ENG crews as the local stations transitioned to one-man crews. This was one of the first of many trends we spotted and took advantage of.  I called on most call letter broadcasters  in the country selling smaller, lighter gear that allowed the cameraperson to work as efficiently as possible.  A few years later, Sony approached us to sell Sony Betacam camcorders at the suggestion of  Ammon Band.   We quickly became an important Sony representative to the emerging freelance  business as the trend of networks releasing staff cameramen began.

“Digital Betacam began the electronic cinematography era for us in both rental and sales.  We saw that trend early and started selling electronic cinema accessories for traditional broadcast cameras: matteboxes, viewfinder extenders, etc.

“High Definition changed our business.  We were very active in education (Santa Fe Workshops, Varicamps etc.), and advocating the merits of this emerging tool. Then in 2005, we purchased our first film cameras for our rental department, adding Arriflex 535, 435, 235, 416 and ARRICAM  camer

“I met Fred Meyers from ILM at Sundance and he discussed preparations for “Star Wars Episode II” which was one of the first 24p films.  He ended up renting multiple Fujinon C-Series lenses from us for the show.  It was one of the best rentals we ever had and helped grow our inventory of Fujinon cinema glass.  Fujinon was by the most-used zoom lens in the  24p era at  Fletcher Camera.

Why Tom decided to join Fujinon

“I think my skills and background are a good fit for Fujifilm/Fujinon.  They make great cinema zooms. I owned a lot of Fujinon glass over the years. I started by consulting for them in May. It was a good fit and they allowed me to stay in Chicago, which I am grateful for.”

Additional credits

Tom is an Associate Member of the ASC and  sits on the boards of AICP/Midwest and PERG.

He will work from his Lake Forest, Illinois office and can be reached via email at: thomas.fletcher (at) fujifilm.com or by phone: (312) 882-1901.

 

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