Film buff’s big break

On a dusty hilltop in Simi Valley, David Naylor and a camera crew were zeroing in on Jake Green, the wayward son of the mayor of a small town that has been isolated by a nuclear holocaust.

Naylor, wearing hiking boots and khaki pants, peered into a viewfinder as the hero talked about a fierce battle that had just been waged with rival militias, an Abrams M-1A1 tank parked on a hill in the background.

But this wasn’t a shoot for “Jericho.” Naylor was conducting an interview with actor Skeet Ulrich for a potentially more important project: the DVD of the drama’s first -- and last -- season. When released this fall, the DVD will be loaded with commentaries, deleted scenes and other features, including a documentary about the nuclear arms trade, all of them produced by DVD Group, Naylor’s 3-year-old firm.

All of that for a show that was canceled?

Absolutely.

“Jericho” may be history on network TV because of faltering ratings, but it has die-hard fans (including those who created an online petition at www.jericholives.com to lobby CBS to cancel the cancellation). They’ll be happy to pay $30 or more to relive the episodes and watch all the bonus features.

While major studios are getting squeezed by sluggish DVD movie sales, Naylor’s business is thriving. The shelf life for a sitcom or TV drama, Hollywood has found, can be decades. Retailers that once turned up their noses at TV-show DVDs in favor of movies are now opening their aisles up for television bonus-feature DVDs.

For Naylor, a former radio reporter and documentary producer for BBC, it’s all very satisfying, and not just financially.

“A lot of people see TV as the poor step-relation to feature films,” he said, but that’s not the case with the projects DVD Group is hired to complete. “I’m working with 16.5 hours of materials rather than two hours, so that gives me a lot more opportunities.”

In addition to “Jericho,” Naylor’s company is producing bonus features for eight prime-time series, including CBS dramas “Medium” and “Shark.” The Los Angeles-based company, which has six full-time employees, has produced special-edition DVDs for the television franchises “Lost,” “Alias” and “The X-Files.”

With so much competition for American TV viewers’ time, networks are turning to special-edition DVDs to market and build loyalty among fans of new shows, and to reintroduce audiences to shows that have long been off the air, such as “Remington Steele” and “Moonlighting.” CBS will release 55 DVD box sets of TV shows this year, 22% more than in 2006.

“It’s a very vibrant, growing business,” said Ken Ross, executive vice president and general manager of CBS Home Entertainment.

DVD Group posted a 61% jump in sales last year, Naylor said, hitting $1.57 million. The surge was fueled not only by TV work but also by its special-edition DVDs for “Mission: Impossible III” and other feature films. The company has done such work for dozens of movies.

Director J.J. Abrams tapped Naylor for the project after working with him on DVD box sets for “Felicity,” “Lost” and “Alias.”

The two-disc special collector’s edition DVD for the third “Mission: Impossible” installment was released in both HD-DVD and Blu-ray formats, and was loaded with special features, including documentaries on the stunt scenes and the mask-making machine that was made for the film.

For “Lost,” Abrams had Naylor and his crew film the making of the pilot, including the dismantling in the Mojave Desert of an L-1011 TriStar jet that was shipped to the set in Hawaii.

Naylor is known for the documentaries he makes specifically for bonus-feature DVDs. Some are quirky, such as the one about people who love rats for the DVD of 2003’s “Willard,” the creepy Christian Glover movie about a man’s powerful bond with a rat who lives in his basement.

Other documentaries weave in broader social and cultural themes. The DVD for “The People vs. Larry Flynt” included a documentary titled “Free Speech or Porn.” A DVD of the hit show “Moonlighting” featured fan recollections of the 1980s and of the romantic comedy starring Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd.

“He brings a sense of intellectual curiosity to television shows,” said Glenn Gordon Caron, creator and executive producer of “Moonlighting” and “Medium.”

DVD Group competes against big rivals such as Technicolor, New Wave Entertainment and Cimarron Group. Naylor said his firm’s small size was an asset, allowing it to offer highly tailored personal services and “creativity by the truckload.”

Naylor is “very bright and has keen insights and can boil down the essence of a program,” CBS’ Ross said.

After moving from his native Britain to the U.S. in 1991, Naylor, 41, produced television shows and documentaries, including “U.S. Customs Classified,” a reality show about the service that was one of the highest-rated syndicated shows of 1995.

It was when he directed a Fox TV special with Elizabeth Hurley called “The World of James Bond” that he caught the attention of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., which hired him to co-produce “The James Bond Collection.” The set includes about 20 feature-length commentary tracks and documentaries on the making of 13 Bond films, from “Dr. No” to “License to Kill.” Naylor counts spending the day with Roger Moore in Monte Carlo among the highlights of his career. “He was a great raconteur,” Naylor said.

Although DVD Group’s revenue is growing, profit will be flat this year because of a heavy investment in new equipment, Naylor said. The company recently obtained a $100,000 loan to build a high-definition editing suite.

As with any small company, managing cash flow is a big challenge, especially in a business where clients sometimes don’t pay for 90 days.

Still, for a self-described film buff, the job has more than enough pluses to make up for the hassles. DVD Group has won 11 Telly Awards for its DVD productions. And Naylor has interviewed the likes of Tom Cruise, Burt Reynolds and Al Pacino, the latter when he recently worked with Fox Home Entertainment on an upcoming documentary about Pacino’s career.

“It’s the greatest film school that anyone could ever ask for,” Naylor said.

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