Dillard Sholes joins Circle Modern Dance Company in the capacity of Administrative
Director. A native of Johnson City, Tennessee, he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree at East
Tennessee State University in 1984. Dillard has relocated to Knoxville from Los Angeles where
he spent over a decade working in commercial, music video and film production.
In 1993, Dillard was hired on as an office production assistant in the new West
Hollywood offices of Tony Kaye Films, London. Learning film production came naturally and,
as the company quickly grew, Sholes was soon promoted to in-house Production Coordinator and
stayed in this position for the next four years. In addition to balancing the heavy production
schedule, Sholes was also busy writing scripts for Artist/Director Kaye and helping to get his
often controversial conceptual and living art pieces on public display.
A chance to co-write a screenplay with a friend in Frankfurt took Dillard to Germany.
With the screenplay finished, Sholes was invited to Hamburg to work on a new Mercedes Benz
campaign in the capacity of Copywriter at Springer and Jacoby advertising. Six months later he
was back in Los Angeles, producing a short film A Mile In My Shoes, winner of several film
festival awards. As a freelance producer, production manager and coordinator, Dillard worked
for many well-known directors and production companies before joining Superior Assembly
Editing Company as The Director of Sales and Marketing in 2000, bringing in new talent and
securing film projects for the boutique company and its’ award winning editors. When Superior Assembly closed in 2002, a start up company The Grape Group invited Sholes to open a new off-line editorial division named Sliced Grape. Within a week, Sliced
Grape was on the ‘hot list’ after landing it’s first music video, Eminem’s “Lose Yourself”, from
the movie 8 Mile, and the work just kept coming. The Grape Group was open only a year but
edited some of the most memorial videos on MTV.
Now back to his East Tennessee roots, Dillard is happy to be with family and is enjoying
his big vegetable garden and the four seasons way of life. He is currently working on a book
chronicling the recipes and background of Johnson City restauranteur, Billie Galloway.
