Growing up in Memphis, Ellen Phillips always knew she wanted a career in a creative field. As the daughter of a doctor and a lawyer, she wanted to take a less-traveled path. A budding interest in photography turned into an interest in cinema, thanks to an extracurricular after-school class she took while in high school. “The first director we focused on was Wes Anderson,” she recalls, “and that sparked the realization in me that movies were more than just entertainment; they were storytelling on a grand scale.”
So Ellen decided to major in digital cinema production at DePaul University in Chicago. After graduation, she landed a job at Zacuto, a major manufacturer of filmmaking gear, where she not only got hands-on experience with the equipment, but also learned valuable lessons with her colleagues who were making short films on nights and weekends. That experience, along with a cinema lighting course at the renowned Maine Media Workshops, gave her the confidence to head to L.A. and work freelance in the lighting departments on a number of small productions.
Once there, Ellen also began to focus on another hobby that soon became a passion—hula hooping. “I wasn’t worried about moving to a brand-new city and not knowing anyone, because I had a stack of hula hoops. It’s like always having a dance partner,” she says with a big smile. Ellen says hooping is not only fun, it builds friendships, confidence and physical fitness. “I can have five hula hoops around my waist, throw one in the air, and hop on one leg—and every trick I learn gives me more confidence. Plus, it’s a workout and you’re burning 420 calories an hour, but you don’t feel like it because you’re having so much fun!” Soon, she landed a job as a photo and video content creator for a major hoop maker. “I would be paid to go out to Venice Beach with their newest hoops, shoot a video, edit it, and then put it on social media. It doesn’t get much better than that!”
Eventually, Ellen decided to return to Memphis. She spent a couple of years creating videos for the University of Mississippi and other clients, and editing videos for the Memphis ABC-affiliated TV station. In 2016, she joined Running Pony to produce the game-day programming seen on the in-house video screens and scoreboards during the University of Memphis Tigers’ football and basketball games.
I love the work, I love the challenges, I love working as a team.
Ellen Phillips, Project Coordinator
“I love the work, I love the challenges, I love working as a team,” she says. Ellen creates many of the sponsor graphics that fans see on the screens, and works with the technical director and athletics department staff to supervise the crew and make sure that the right elements play onscreen at the right time. “I’ve become a huge Tigers’ fan. I just love it!” she says. In addition to her sports duties, Ellen is also Running Pony’s Project Coordinator, tasked with bringing together a variety of elements needed to make a production successful. As Ellen puts it: “You just have to be able to think of everything.”
In 2019, working with a couple of her colleagues and friends, Ellen combined her production coordinating skills and hooping hobby to launch The Grind City Flow Festival. The celebration of “circus arts” like hooping, fire juggling, and aerial arts was a huge success. But the pandemic of 2020 caused the festival’s second year to be put “on hold” for now. In the meantime, she just “goes with the flow” and refuses to be pessimistic. “2020 wasn’t a complete disaster for me,” Ellen says, “because I got to buy a house and I got engaged.” She and her fiancé, Dylan, are planning a beach wedding in California. If Ellen does the planning herself, you can bet that her production experience will make it one of the best-planned weddings of the year.
