Kickstarter

The United States was once the world leader in manufacturing television sets. But by 1980 the industry had completely disappeared. Why? Four independent television set dealers in the Midwest, the former heartland of the industry, recount the saga through their personal stories of the good and bad times in television. Demo Reel/Existing Footage: In Ukiah, California, Poma TV ‘s second-generation brother-owners, Bruce and Dave Poma, recall a couple involved with a shooting, not once, but twice, of their television set. The couple demanded that the Pomas guarantee the bullet-ridden set’s performance. The local judicial system agreed and the Pomas had to make a free $800 repair. The Pomas are second-generation store owners. There are even third and fourth generation dealers such as Joanna Williams and her son, Robby, whose father and grandfather Greg owns Williams TV in Oroville, California. Robby now has to be content with sweeping the floor. There aren’t any television sets to sell, in part, because Oroville developed in a different direction than what his great grandfather predicted when he opened the store in the early 1950s. Greg Williams also repairs sets less often than he used to—and by appointment only—often traveling sixty miles. Will Greg be forced to close Williams TV before Robby becomes the last TV man in Oroville?

Feature Treatment: The dream of self-fulfillment and realization is universal. People around the world hope to achieve this in part through their jobs. The role of governments (or least it should be) is to create environments that protect them. Since 1989, the heads of 21 Pacific Rim countries who attend the yearly APEC summit attempt to do this in cooperation with each other. President Obama was a participant this past November, but his concerns representing the United States fell on deaf ears. Why did the other attendees not respond favorably?

It may have been that President Obama was thirty years too late.

The United States was once the pre-eminent manufacturer of television sets in the world during the 1950s and 1960s, but by the end of the 1970s it all had but disappeared. How did this occur? The answer lies with the last remaining piece of the American television set industry: the independent retail dealer. TV Man will go in search of the last independent television set dealers to answer why the industry disappeared and what might have been done to avert it. Why is it important these dealers, whose dreams of self fulfillment and realization hang by a thread, continue to stay in business?

To place American television set manufacturing in its historical perspective, TV Man will revisit the independent dealers’ heyday during the 1950s and 60s. It will enlighten those too young to remember and those too old to forget television’s explosive decades of growth and the magic that was once television. From the post war black and white years through the saturation of color television sets in the 1970s, the film, with the help of archival film and photographs, will look at how the giant and seemingly invincible American television set industry (with over 100 manufacturers in the 1950s) provided the platform for thousands of independent dealers to sell millions of sets to an insatiable public.

The film will detail the end of television set manufacturing in the United States as Japanese and other Asian imported television sets invaded the country without legal protection. With the loss of television set manufacturing, independent dealers were forced to face a reality: without free trade protection, they either had to sell foreign product or close their doors. Many shuttered their stores, but the few remaining managed—and still manage—to deal with the loss of American manufactured sets in creative ways, as only the human spirit can when it is challenged.

TV MAN will be an inspiring story of universal triumph in the face of surmountable odds and a moral lesson for what happens when a country does not protect its citizens' livelihoods.

Substantial patrons will garner producer credits and other related perks such as attending theatrical screenings. Smaller donations will receive TV MAN logo t-shirts, copies of the out-of-print book (which the film is partly based on), "Window to the Future", and DVD copies of the movie and be noted in the end credits.

The seven-minute demo reel above is also available for viewing on the project website, http://www.TVMan.tv and YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch... (also using a short search under my name, Steve Kosareff, or the complete title of the film). Viewer comments are available on YouTube. .