A door closes, 2 open

PROVO — Nine months after Brigham Young University hired Tom Holmoe as athletic director, the other finalist in that search is leaving BYU.

Peter Pilling announced Thursday he will run the business operations of Stone Five Studios, the Utah company that owns HaleStorm Entertainment and HaleStorm Distribution, which produced the movies "Singles Ward" and the "Home Teachers" for LDS audiences.

At nearly the same time Thursday, BYU announced a new corporate marketing agreement that will keep Pilling involved with the Cougar athletic program. He will be a minority partner in the university's deal with ISP Sports, completing a soft landing for Pilling after the disappointment of finishing behind his friend Holmoe in the race for his dream job.

ISP will be responsible for boosting sales of corporate sponsorships of BYU sports. It will also sell signage at games, ads in game programs and on byucougars.com, but it won't sell TV or radio rights or advertising. ISP is based in Winston-Salem, N.C., but will maintain an office at BYU. The company is a partner with 25 other college sports programs including Alabama, Cal, Miami (Fla.), UCLA and Washington.

"The company has a well-deserved reputation as the foremost authority on collegiate sports marketing," Holmoe said in a press release. "We feel the addition of ISP Sports will bring BYU athletics one step closer to being the best in the business on and off the playing field."

The job with a film studio turns out to be a dream gig for Pilling, too. He has a part as a basketball coach in Stone Five Studio's next release, "Church Ball," which is scheduled to be in theaters in March. He was the ice cream man in "Home Teachers" and was an extra in M. Night Shyamalan's international hit "Unbreakable." He even wrote a script after seeing Shyamalan at work, but don't expect HaleStorm to film it or to see Pilling on the silver screen again.

Stone Five Studios is launching an ambitious one-stop shop in Provo for filmmakers and wanted Pilling to be its chief operating officer and to court investors for a $20 million fund that will finance five films.

"Each movie will have a budget of $2 million for production and $2 million for marketing," Pilling said. The films will be family-oriented but not specifically directed at LDS audiences. "Instead of aiming for 5 million LDS Church members in the United States, we'll try to capture 50 million people who want to go see a good movie with family values."

Stone Five is building a 42,000-square-foot film studio and sound stage in Provo's Riverwoods area. The new studio will include a recording studio, band accommodations, mixing console and several video-editing suites.