UM professor’s new movie to air on Oprah Network

Growing up in Missoula, Tobin Addington always had an interest in creating his own movies, but he never imagined where that passion would take him.

When his childhood projects outgrew his family’s cumbersome video camera, he turned to Missoula Community Access Television to borrow their equipment and editing facilities. Now the University of Montana media arts adjunct professor regularly turns in screenplays for Christmas movies brought to life by the Oprah Winfrey Network.

“I would have been thrilled that I was getting to make things at all, coming from a place where, at the time, I didn’t know anybody who wrote movies,” said Addington, reflecting on his younger self. “I would have been surprised, for sure, that it was Christmas movies. I still am a little surprised that I’m making Christmas movies.”

It’s true that holiday movies are a bit of a departure from Addington’s usual screenplays. Typically, he’s written more for the mystery, thriller and horror genres.

“Each of those genres have their own rules, so if you understand the rules of the kind of story that you’re writing, then you can figure out how many you can break,” Addington said. “That puzzle is really interesting to me, with Christmas movies, since they do have a formula that they follow. So figuring out how to play within that and make it different enough that it will be interesting is the trick of those movies.” 

Addington’s third movie for the OWN Network, “24-Karat Christmas,” tells the story of when an unlucky-in-love jewelry designer accidentally sends wedding bands off with the wrong customer, and she joins forces with the charming best man to track them down for a Christmas Eve wedding. The movie is set to debut Saturday, Dec. 21, on the OWN Network and will stream on Max the following day.

The network is known for featuring inclusive stories through its scripted content. From Addington’s perspective, the OWN Network tells holiday stories about well-rounded characters compared to other networks.

“Even though romance is often an element, they’re more interested in things like family and tradition and ambition, balancing people’s career aspirations with the rest of their lives,” he said. “That is something that I think is different about the OWN movies, and it’s certainly something I’m more interested in. I’d rather write from the character more, so they can live outside of the snow globe of Christmas time.”

Although his holiday movies take place in the suburbs, he’s always writing them with Montana on his mind.

“It’s funny, for me the Christmas movies I write, in my mind, they’re all set in Montana,” Addington said. “Even though they are deliberately set in the suburbs of large places, in my mind I’m picturing downtown Missoula.”

Addington is preparing to crank out his fourth Christmas screenplay for next year’s holiday season. He said the timeline for writing a movie for television is very compressed, and within the span of just three months the movie is written and ready for production.

“I do listen to Christmas music all the way through March once my last draft is due,” Addington said with a laugh.

Montana always has been an influential setting for Addington as a screenwriter and filmmaker. While pursuing his graduate degree at Columbia University in New York City, he frequently returned home to make movies and bring those stories back to class.

After 15 years working in the film industry in New York City, he realized much of his screenwriter work could be done remotely and moved his family back to his roots. Now he’s worked as a media arts faculty member at UM for nearly a decade while simultaneously writing screenplays. He teaches courses on screenwriting, directing, history of film, criticism and more. For his TV writing course, Addington’s students write a pilot episode of their own show as their final project and then pitch it to industry experts.

“That’s the reason it’s always been a real joy for me to do this, because I didn’t have that growing up,” he said. “Giving students the chance to meet some people and get feedback from people who are actively doing the thing they want to do is a really rewarding thing – where my two worlds get to cross.”

    Addington’s third holiday movie “24-Karat Christmas” is set to debut on the Oprah Winfrey Network on Saturday, Dec. 21 and will stream on Max the following day. (Photo provided)