From the High Plains to Hollywood

Amarillo entrepreneur Kirk Martin found himself in Beverly Hills, standing in the lavish Beverly Estate, the iconic mansion setting from The Godfather. It was late 2022. Martin wasn’t a guest. He wasn’t a tourist.

He was producing a film with The Godfather’s Al Pacino. Called Billy Knight, the film will soon be seen by audiences around the world.

Martin recalls the intensity of watching Pacino film scenes in a location so critical to the actor’s breakout film. “There was a feeling,” Martin says, “that this is a moment that would be really hard to replicate.”

How does a businessman from Amarillo find himself on set with Al Pacino? It’s been a wild journey from the High Plains to Hollywood.

From the Small Town to the Big Screen

Martin’s Amarillo roots run deep. His father was from Amarillo, having attended the old Amarillo High School at the time it burned down in 1970. Kirk himself was born in Oklahoma while his father was in pharmacy school, and spent much of his childhood in Artesia, New Mexico. The family moved to Amarillo during his eighth-grade year.

“Coming to Amarillo, it felt like New York City to me,” Martin says. “I was thrown into not knowing anybody.” 

But he found his way, attending Bonham Middle School and Amarillo High. One of the first friends he made in Amarillo was Josh Clayton, who would continue to play an important role in Martin’s life. But while Clayton went off to law school, Martin graduated from Amarillo College and worked for a time in nuclear medicine, a branch of radiology.

While working with the Amarillo Heart Group in the early 2000s, he earned business degrees from Wayland Baptist and WTAMU. He then began leading different departments within the practice and eventually served as the chief financial officer. 

In 2017, he set out on his own. “I started a company with a couple other people called SnapNurse,” he says. “It was like an Uber for nurses, just a little startup company that started going.” During the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for the company’s services skyrocketed. “We were the fastest-growing company in the country at one time.”

Martin met a prominent screenwriter during that period. Martin and Clayton—not just a longtime friend at that point but also a business partner—saw an opportunity. “How do you put a movie together as an investor?” they asked. “How does it all fit together?”

Intrigued, they started small. Martin and Clayton dipped their toes in the showbiz waters by financing a sitcom that has yet to see the light of day. But through that project they met Alec Roth, son of Eric Roth, the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of Forrest Gump and other classic films.

Martin, Clayton and Roth formed a production company, Firebrand Media Group, along with veteran producer Peter Morgan and Dr. Tuan Bui, an orthopedic surgeon from Atlanta. 

“Alec had these scripts that he’d been writing his whole life,” Martin says. “We were working with him trying to figure out what to make next, and we really liked one called Billy Knight.”

Al Pacino Enters the Frame

Billy Knight tells the story of two aspiring filmmakers, Alex and Emily. After the loss of his father, Alex uncovers a box of unfinished scripts and a handkerchief embroidered with a name: “Billy Knight.” 

“It’s about Hollywood,” Martin says, “about chasing your dreams. There’s a love story, too.” 

They were excited to sign Charlie Heaton (Stranger Things, As You Are) as Alex, Diana Silvers (Booksmart, Space Force) as Emily—and, of course, Al Pacino (Scarface, Scent of a Woman). Patrick Schwarzenegger, recently of The White Lotus, also appears, along with cameos from many other stars and musicians. 

The film has been hailed as a love letter to cinema. With the recent wildfires in California and other troubles in the world, Martin says, “There’s a need for positive stuff out there. It brings together old Hollywood, new Hollywood.”

They completed principal photography in 2022. They were planning their reshoots just as the Writers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists strikes of 2023 rocked the entertainment world. The demands on the cast following the strikes led to further delays.

But they’ve now completed the film, which is well on its way to reaching the big screen. Billy Knight has begun screening on the festival circuit, and Martin and his partners are being strategic about approaching distributors. “We’re being real careful how we get Billy Knight out there into the world,” Martin says. “We want to place it with the right distributor. It’s all about doing what’s best for the movie.” 

Firebrand Media Group didn’t hang up their hats during the delays with Billy Knight. They never stopped making films and generating new opportunities.

Learning the Ropes 

“Producer” is a broad, ambiguous title, and not always well-understood outside Hollywood. Martin explains that there’s much more to the role than high-level decisions made behind a desk or over the phone. It’s surprisingly hands-on.

“There are so many different types of producers,” Martin says. “On the lead producing team, it’s a little like being a general contractor on a giant project. You’re the problem-solver. You’re organizing everything that has to happen at all times. There’s a lot of fun to it when everything’s going right, but there is always something you have to be working on.”

Small issues can cause big delays if you don’t act fast. “Someone shows up late, the dress doesn’t fit, the microphone’s not working. Dealing with the weather, dealing with holidays, dealing with neighbors who don’t want you shooting in the neighborhood—even though you have a permit.”

During the filming of Billy Knight, Martin and his team often oversaw as many as 120 people on set. “You wouldn’t believe the number of trucks, the amount of scaffolding, the wires everywhere. There’s a lot of moving pieces,” he says. “It’s been a fun little ride learning about all this stuff.”

But there are definitely perks to being on set. “It was really cool driving around Paramount Studios at night on a golf cart. We’re on New York Street [a famous backlot set replicating urban neighborhoods], and you just feel all the stuff that’s happened there. Some of the most amazing moments were just kind of taking it all in.”

Martin especially enjoys working with Clayton, a friend since the eighth grade. “That’s probably one of the coolest parts of it,” Martin says. “And some of the people we’ve met out there, we feel like we’ve known them forever.”

Facing New Challenges

Over the past six years, Martin has had a front-row seat to one of the most tumultuous times in the history of the film industry, including the pandemic

“Post-COVID, everything changed,” he says. “During COVID, everybody streamed everything. It was all you could do. Theaters really suffered and are still suffering. The medium-sized movies either do really well or they really have a struggle making it work.”

When it comes to overcoming these obstacles, Martin draws on his background as a Panhandle businessman. “Every business is about 70, 80 percent the same. But it’s all those little nuances that are the hardest thing to learn.” 

That’s when his entrepreneurial mindset kicks in. “The funny thing is, as an entrepreneur, you see a hurdle as something you can make a win off of. You really have to be nimble, be able to turn on a dime,” he adds. “You say, ‘OK, that’s a big hurdle. How do we get around that? And is there a way to take advantage of it from the business side?’ That’s part of the reason we’re looking into creating our own distribution company.”

What’s the secret? According to Martin, “Getting the right people around you. In any business, make sure everyone you can trust in the room is smarter than you. After going out on my own, that’s really how I’ve lived my entire career. Find the best people, the experts, and bring them into the team.”

The other secret is taking the time to properly lay the groundwork. “The preparation you do before you start shooting is like before an NFL player takes the first snap in the real game. They prep and prep and prep and prep. That way, when it’s time to go, you limit the amount of errors that you make,” he says.

The Best of Both Worlds

He may be spending time in Hollywood, but Amarillo is still Martin’s home. “I’ve never left,” he laughs.

“I’m gone once a month, probably. I go out there for about a week at a time. That way I can pack it full of meetings. And of course we Zoom and do stuff all day long, like any company does.” Once filming gets underway, everything changes. “That’s a four- to six-week period. I’ll blast home on the weekends or whatever days we have off. It’s a lot of air time.”

With six children—five daughters and a son—family remains a focus for him. “Three of the girls are in college now. They come out there as much as they can, and they come to the set. It’s a lot of fun, and they seem to enjoy it along with me. It’s tough being gone from them.” 

Plenty of jobs require travel from Amarillo, but very few of them require you to split time between Amarillo and a film set on the West Coast. With Firebrand Media, Kirk Martin is making it work. His company just signed someone he’ll only identify as “a big name” for a new project that’s still under wraps. But with Billy Knight and a few other projects in the works, Martin is leaving his mark on both the Yellow City and Tinseltown.