This is a story of a buddy who used to do the high-class Hollywood hustle as a production executive with film industry giants The Samuel Goldwyn Company, Orion and Miramax. He made Julia Roberts a star as the man behind Mystic Pizza and was the executive on film hits like Silence of the Lambs.

Today Larry Jackson, now 59, runs Northern Arts Entertainment with his partner, John Lawrence Ré. Through Northern Arts they have distributed over 70 films and are currently developing i-ArtHouse.com - a specialized online film library – which Jackson runs from a spacious home office in Amherst, Mass. - a town known for colleges not cinema. Ré lives on 400 picturesque acres in Granville, Mass.

Like many of you, Larry left the rat race about 10 years ago. He was fed up with studio politics and the decline in quality productions. He was sick of a place where "you are what you do, what you wear, what you drive and who you sleep with. It's a user environment all about 'what can you do for me?'"

Admittedly, leaving a structured work environment was tough, along with struggling to get meetings with people who used to fight to get to meet him. But he persevered, and in 1997 had a hit at the Sundance Film Festival with an exposé of the B movie industry called “Some Nudity Required.” Over the course of his career, Larry has distributed over 600 films with other companies and produced or overseen production of another 20, though not with Northern Arts Entertainment.

The move east in the summer of 2001 wasn't entirely Jackson's choice. His wife wanted out of Los Angeles. She was concerned about raising their two children in a more wholesome environment. Larry shared her concerns about the kids and knowing they would have to enter "the unsavory elitism" of private school life. Moreover, he and his wife were more than alarmed when their bedroom was invaded one night by armed gunmen looking for a big haul in what had been touted as the safest neighborhood in LA. The couple survived. But they were held at gunpoint for about twenty minutes as the house was stripped of valuables. That long silence sent them an urgent message: relocate, and fast.

Looking around for someplace to live, he and his wife sought a town "with none of the evils of urban living, but all the culture and intellectual sophistication you can find in urban centers." And that place was Amherst - home to several name colleges, Emily Dickinson and lots of cultural activities, and now the epicenter of virtual company research as the home of Hidden-Tech, the network for virtual businesses.

Larry has had his ups and downs in virtual company land, mostly over waiting for technology to catch up to his aspirations. Now it has, and he's hyped again. Larry has learned that life isn't over "because you don't have a parking space with your name on it."

And he's been able to secure an initial round of funding to create i-ArtHouse.com, a very special online film library that contains extraordinary films from around the world, "most of which have escaped distribution in North America and some that haven't been seen outside of their country of origin. Many have won significant prizes in major film festivals," he notes.

The launch is planned for late January. Some of i-ArtHouse.com's films will be available for streaming, some to download to own or rent. Some will be available to burn to an encrypted DVD that the buyer can keep. The combination of those options will vary, says Larry, explaining that the rights "are different from film to film."

Although not everyone has the connections and capabilities to work in a Hollywood-related industry from a home office, Larry says the industry is changing enough for this to be a possibility for those with tech backgrounds, as well as for screenwriters, composers, production designers, costumers, animators and even film editors. "An editor can be cutting a film anywhere in the world and communicating with a director anywhere else in the world, with a production company or studio in a third place - all linked through video conferencing."

He advises others making the transition from corporate jobs to "recognize that the world is changing. You don't need to play by the old rules, and you don't have to be in one place anymore." In fact, Larry is finding it useful to be an out-of-towner in Hollywood. Now that "tinsel town" knows he's still in the game, if operating remotely, people continue to do meetings with him. In fact, he says it's easier to get them booked when he says he's flying in for only a limited number of days.

Mainly, he advises others to "use your imagination. There are things you won't do running a virtual business, like become the head of a studio and tan by spotlight, but you can make money and enjoy yourself. Recognize that being out on your own and elsewhere can be a saner way to live."

Stay tuned for more on i-ArtHouse.com. And share your ideas about working for Hollywood from just about anywhere