Douglas Tirola, former head of production and development at Emerging Pictures, has set up Fourth Row Films in Gotham as a film-TV production shingle.

Company is funding operations through production of marketing and branding films for corporations and their ad and marketing agencies. Tirola has already directed and produced more than 150 such films.

Fourth Row plans to shoot "Victor in December" this winter in Connecticut. Bob Balaban's Chicago Films and Daria Jovicic of Wild Bear Films ("Girl With a Pearl Earring") are producing; Philip Erdoes is exec producer. The "Diner"-like contemporary drama, penned and directed by Tirola, focuses on a group of childhood friends, including a narrator obsessed with F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The shingle is also developing family comedy "Funny Peculiar," with Rip Torn and Betty Buckley to star and the team of Liz Foley and Peter Hobbs writing and directing; "Sweet Home Chicago," based on Stuart Dybek's story about Chicago teens who dream of forming a blues band, produced with Dan Halperin and Scott Frank's Epiphany Pictures; and "Crazy White Mother," based on Glenna Whitley's story in the Dallas Observer about teen criminals, with Tirola and Whitley penning the script.

Pilot pair wrapped

Fourth Row's TV department has wrapped two pilots with Montel Williams' Letnom Prods. -- "The Great Date Experiment" and "The Freshman Fifteen." It's also developing "Do I Look Fat in This -- Television for Women Who Hate Television for Women"; "On the Road Again," which traces road trips from famous movies; a music show about the rise of DJs, co-produced with Cornerstone Promotions; and "Half-Nelson," a teen drama.

Tirola, who's repped by WMA, wrote and directed Trimark's "A Reason to Believe" in 1995. He spent four years in partnership with Fine Line founder Ira Deutchman at Studionext and Emerging Pictures, exec producing "Killing Time," "Twelve," "The Lucky Ones" and "The Brothel."