After a 12-year run with Good Company-KSTP television’s then top-rated afternoon talk show⎯Steve Edelman launched Edelman Productions in 1994 in Minneapolis. A few years later, Edelman Productions moved to San Francisco, eventually expanding to Washington, D.C., and Atlanta. Meanwhile, the Minneapolis office experienced tremendous growth, producing programming for cable networks like HGTV, DIY and the Travel Channel. Edelman Productions was recently acquired by local businessman John Kitchener and is now Magnetic Productions, and their talented team is busier than ever.

SS: You just bought the Minneapolis office of Edelman Productions. Tell me the story.

JK: I met Steve in 2002, when I joined the company as a producer. When he decided to open up another office in San Francisco, I basically ran the office here for seven years. Eventually I put in a bid for the Minneapolis office, and had aspirations to continue to build the business, but under my company’s name, Magnetic Productions. Currently our office is producing a number of series for the Scripps Networks (Food Network, HGTV, Travel Channel).

SS: What was your biggest sacrifice?

JK: I think like a lot of people, being away from family⎯it’s a challenge to find that balance, to run a business, and to carve out quality time with my family. My career has required a lot of travel but I have put a focus on keeping the balance.

SS: What is your biggest business regret?

JK: When I started out, I was a little haphazard. For years, I was a freelance contractor. I would take whatever work came in the door; and I learned that it’s a mistake not to be a little more strategic with the work you take. When you take anything, you have little control, so at a certain point I got wise.

SS: In building your business what obstacle was the most difficult to overcome? How did you overcome it?

JK: It is a balancing act. The tricky thing is as a young company, you don’t want to become dependent on one client, so we are making a concerted effort to reach out to more potential clients. It would be a mistake to get too locked in with just one network and jeopardize the overall picture.

SS: Who has been your inspiration?

JK: Steve Edelman for sure. This business is really built on apprenticeship. You can make big mistakes because the business is complex and creative, yet you can’t ignore the business side because the margins are tight. You have to make the right call, and learn how to be effective when juggling the creative aspects with the business aspects. Steve was extraordinarily good at that and I learned a lot from him. Now that I am in charge, hardly a day goes by that I don’t think about the experiences I got from Steve.

SS: What are some words of advice?

JK: At some point you have to take the risk. Beware of the “shiny object syndrome”, especially in this business. Be careful not to follow that shiny object; stick with what you do best, that expertise that got you where you are in the first place.

SS: What drives you?

JK: When I was younger I thought I would be an artist, a writer or a famous novelist. In this business, it’s the best of both worlds.

SS: What would you recommend for someone who’s trying to pitch you a show?

JK: It’s all about the personality and character. Everyone is looking for the next “Dog, The Bounty Hunter” series. We are looking for the next big personalities. It used to be that we just came up with ideas for shows, but without the central character, it’s going to be difficult. They want to know that you have a personality or character that is going to carry the series.

SS: How does someone find that entrepreneurial passion?

JK: Make sure you put the time in to learn the business that you want to get into. It truly took me about 20 years to learn the business. There’s no shortcut.

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Production crew photographer Christina Hilbid taped Nicole Curtis as they filmed a segment on stripping the paint off a medicine cabinet in a south Minneapolis house.

Rehab Addict, the latest series to join the home-improvement genre, may appear to be built on a shaky foundation: a two-person film crew, a no-name host, a catering budget that barely allows for a case of bottled water and a home base in that anti-Hollywood prairie called Minneapolis. But it’s a blueprint that’s proven sturdy and successful for Magnetic Productions, a year-old company that churns out four cable shows without a yardful of Teamsters, marquee names or backbreaking expenses.

“It’s very tricky to produce TV in our category — home improvement — and they’ve done a great job for us,” said Andy Singer, general manger for the DIY Network, which beams Magnetic’s Rehab Addict, Sweat Equity and Bathtastic! into 54 million homes. Coming soon: I Hate My Kitchen!

Watching a Magnetic team construct a show is like watching a couple of carpenters make a tree-house out of twigs. During a recent set visit at a Minneapolis house being featured this inaugural season, I kept asking when the crew would return from lunch, only to discover that I was already sharing the front porch with the entire team — two producers from New York and host Nicole Curtis.

Curtis, a real estate agent who bought the foreclosed property over a year ago, long before she was anointed a TV personality, believes the house once resembled a Barbie mansion. Not anymore. The 4,000-square-foot monster came without heat and every single wall suffered from water damage.

Curtis’ job is not only to bring back the home’s original beauty, but to explain her every move to a camera that’s almost always inches away from her face as she sprays down the bathtub, reinstalls the marble sink, refinishes the lights, waters the lawn and tries to avoid stepping on her Teacup Yorkie, Paulie, who scampers around the piles of boxes and slides across the sawdust-covered floor.

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Don’t call Nicole Curtis a house flipper. She doesn’t just buy dilapidated old homes to sell them. “ I restore, remodel and rehab them,” said the real estate agent and hose of the DIY show Rehab Addict (9 p.m Thursdays.) “A flipper wouldn’t take the time to do what I do.” She’s so good at it that camera crews shoot her doing everything from reglazing a Victorian sink to sanding and painting brick. Curtis is putting the final touches on a 1916 Arts and Crafts-style home on Minnehaha Creek that’s featured in the show’s premiere season. She took a break from applying a coat of polyurethane to talk about her upcoming Warner’s Stellian appearance, her re-use philosophy and favorite salvage yards.

Q. Why are you so passionate about restoring fixer-uppers?
A. It’s something innate in me. When I was growing up, we were taught that everything is reusable. It’s not really a green thing. I just hate to see anything go in the trash. My philosophy is to restore and salvage everything you can- even the kitchen cabinets. And I love to take a house back to its original period. Sometimes it involves ripping out eight remodeling jobs.

Q. How did you get your own show?
A. I was at the right place at the right time. I guest-starred on another show and I met John Kitchener at Magnetic Productions. They checked out my projects. There’s not too many people out there like me.

Q. How did you get so handy?
A. My parents taught me a lot. When I rehabbed my first house, I paid someone to install the sink and it killed me. I was a poor girl and I wanted a nice house and I’m cheap, so I learned how to fix things myself.

Q. Rehab Addict shows you confronting someone of the hassles of fixing up an old house. What else do you want to teach the viewers?
A. I’d like to show people how to maintain these historic old homes in a couple of episodes. You can keep everything old, but you have to learn about the quirks of the house.

Q. What are some of the favorite salvage spots?
A. The Reuse Center. My entire house in Uptown is from there. I absolutely love it for cabinets, doors, windows and light fixtures. You don’t always find what you’re looking for, but you’ll find something else. Another one is Bauer Brothers in North Minneapolis.

Q. What can homeowners do to increase their resale value?
A. $100 can go a long way. Replace the fluorescent lights with updated pendant fixtures. Spruce up the kitchen with new black or stainless steel cabinet hardware. Stainless steal appliances will be hot for a while. The key is to make sure they match and they’re clean. Commercial grade gas stoves are always a winner, but make sure it fits your budget and the value of your home. I’m not a fan of granite counters because it’s overused. In my old homes, I use butcher block and carrera marble. For a newer designed home, I like soapstone.

Q. What’s your favorite rehab job?
A. I love to do demo and tear our what isn’t natural to the home. Although a sledgehammer looks good on TV, a saw works best.

Q. What’s your least favorite?
A. The final punch list of all the little things that have to be done- like putting on doorknobs. I’ve mentally moved on to the next house.

Q. In the show, you’re drilling, sawing and handling a lot of different tools. Do you ever get hurt?
A. There are always dangers. I stay up-to-date with my tetnus shot. I’m famous for stepping on rusty nails. Sometimes the crew hopes I get lockjaw.

Q. You’re from Detroit. Why did you move to Minneapolis?
A. The great housing stock drew me here and I’m a runner, so the lakes were appealing. And it’s a good place to raise my son.

Steven Edelman and Sharon Anderson are scheduled to visit Minneapolis for Emmy party.

The duo, who married while co-hosting KSTP-TV’s Good Company from 1982-94, are expected to attend a party Wednesday celebrating the Daytime Emmy won by the locally produced The Relic Hunter with Ian Grant, owner of Bjorling & Grant, a global importing business.

Edelman executive-produced the Travel Channel show along with John Kitchener. Supervising producer Patrick Beedle, editor Jeanine Kaufman and series producer Kara Wayne were also recognized at these awards held in L.A.

In 2009, Kitchener bought Edelman Productions, the enormously successful company with offices in Minneapolis, Atlanta, San Francisco and D.C. “This is the first national Emmy that Steve Edelman has ever won,” said Wayne.
That was hard to believe. At any rate, somebody at Hubbard Broadcasting should schedule a training session between Edelman and the producers of Twin Cities Live, which is clearly striving for a not achieving a Good Company level of success.

Edelman was a demanding boss, but that’s why Good Company was strong for so long. And that’s why his successes include Decorating Cents, Color Splash, Curb Appeal, Real Estate Intervention, and shows on HGTV, Food Network and DIY.

C.J cj@startribune.com

MN Dialog: How did you find out about your Emmy nomination?

John Kitchener: I was on vacation on Cape Cod when I got an email from Steve Edelman. He was at a movie theater in San Francisco when he received a text message from our Travel Channel programming executive who was at the Award ceremony in LA.  The Travel person is the one who went up to accept.

MN Dialog: Did you attend the awards ceremony? What was it like?

J.K.: One of our top editors, Janine Kaufman, received an Emmy nomination for Single Camera Editing for her work on the Relic Hunter series and she decided to go. So she represented. She said there were a lot of soap stars there, so it’s too bad we didn’t go.

MN Dialog: What is the current status of The Relic Hunter with Ian Grant?  Where can people watch it?

J.K.: That’s a sore subject. Travel decided not to renew after the initial order, which of course was a huge disappointment because we thought we had created a good show and Ian Grant was just getting warmed up. I know Ian has some clips up on his website: www.bjorlinggrant.com.  People can draw their own conclusions about the show, but for us, the Emmy was a vindication.

MN Dialog: Do you have a favorite production moment or season highlight?

J. K.: I was lucky enough to go on some of the trips–and we went to some really wild places–Togo for a story on Voodoo, Nepal for Himalayan shamans, the Peruvian Amazon. My favorite place though was Suriname, a small country on the north coast of South America. No one goes there–I think they get 60,000 tourists a year. And it’s a shame because the place is fantastic. We ended up deep in the jungle hanging out with the Maroons, descendants of slaves who had escaped the Dutch sugar plantations–and they still live in these extremely remote  villages. Ian got his groove on dancing with the eligible single women of the village.  It was pretty entertaining.

MN Dialog: Why did you decide to acquire Edelman Productions?

J.K.: I had worked for Steve Edelman for seven years, running the Minneapolis office, and while I enjoyed working with him immensely, I was ready to strike out on my own. It just so happened that around that same time–last fall–Steve made his own decision to cut back on his workload and enjoy life a bit more. You have to realize that he had four offices going with over 150 people on staff, so he was going full tilt for years. Steve had a certain affection for the Minneapolis operation since that’s where he started, so it worked out well for both of us. I was able to take over a successful production office with a very talented staff already in place, with series producers like Mary Kay Reistad, Kira Pertzborn, and Kara Wayne, along with top notch editors and support staff. So Steve could walk away knowing we were going to give it our best shot. He sold his San Francisco office to a producer out there, but he’s still doing one popular HGTV series in DC called Real Estate Intervention.

MN Dialog: In October, Magnetic Productions will have completed its first year of business.  Give us a recap of your successes and where you see the business growing in the next year.

J.K.: When I took over we knew for sure that we had one order for 13 episodes of Bathtastic! from the DIY Network. Patrick Beedle, who was instrumental in the startup, is our Director of Production & Business Affairs. He and I calculated how long we could keep the doors open with just 13 episodes. Then, we got lucky (or we’re just that good):  DIY renewed a series with Amy Mathews called Sweat Equity, and we landed a new series with James Young called I Hate My Kitchen, so we were off to a good start. DIY has been a great client for us, obviously, and they are a great network to work with.

MN Dialog: What’s next for Magnetic Productions?  Can you tell us about any upcoming series?

J.K.: We recently launched a new  series for DIY that is just getting up and running. It’s a true reality series featuring a woman named Nicole Curtis who restores old houses in the inner city. It’s the first dramatic reality series to be shot in Minneapolis. We’ve brought in reality producers from LA and New York to work on it, but it will give our Minneapolis producers a chance to learn a new style of production that we haven’t done before.  We also have a number of shows in development. We did a big search for new Food Network talent, so we’ll see how that goes.

MN Dialog: Magnetic receives Snowbate funds for some of your series. How has this affected your business?

J.K.: The Film board Snowbate program has been a tremendous help for us. The funds we receive have given us the confidence to add staff, replace outdated gear, and has really given our development effort a shot in the arm. I think when Magnetic launched in October of last year, we had ten people on staff. Now we’re pushing 30, almost all of whom are from this market. If you look at how vigorous television production has become in the Twin Cities over the last few years, I don’t think you can question whether the Snowbate is working. I can tell you it is.

“Isn’t he one of the hottest men you’ve ever met?” asked Kara Wayne, a producer at Magnetic Productions, formerly Edelman Productions.

Fhima possesses all of the elements that embody an extremely hot man: charisma, a cheeky vocabulary spoken with an accent, exotic good looks (he’s Moroccan-born to Spanish-Sicilian parents), and a wife, Lori, now that David’s mastered that whole monogamy thing.

The Fhima pilot has been shot, and the pitch is being made in a couple of weeks, Magnetic Productions owner John Kitchener told me Friday at a private opening for FACES.

Kitchener is already working on a Minnesota-based reality show for DIY Network featuring Edina Realty’s Nicole Curtis.

“She buys old houses in the inner city and south Minneapolis, fixes them u-p and tries to sell them, and we are documenting her whole process for the DIY Network. We just got an order for 13 episodes,” Kitchener said. “It’s going to be really fun − the first legitimate, home-grown reality show here in the Twin Cities. [Curtis] is a major character. She just did a house at 37th and Lyndale we’ve been shooting the last two and a half months.”

Asked if he was going to be as rich as Steve and Sharon Edelman, who left KSTP-TV when Good Company got canceled and went on to establish an immensely successful production company, Kitchener said, “From your mouth to God’s ears. If I can get a fraction of what he’s made. …”

Kitchener said he thinks he Twin Cities area is ripe for the production of more TV shows based on people here.

This appears to be the perfect time for Fhima to have a successful national TV presence. He has had enough well-publicized business reversals to respect and appreciate nationwide adulation without letting it go to his head (or other body parts).

Although Fhima was minding his words while my camera was around − see him and his “restaurant babies”, as Lori calls their kids at startribune.com/video − he is capable of the kind of profanity-laced kitchen meltdowns that make TV chefs so entertaining.

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