About this project

ABOUT THE FILM:

When Michigan offered a tax incentive for the film industry, I decided to leave my career in Chicago and move back home to Detroit.

Things were moving very fast, and I was making a lot of changes.  I had no time to write in my journal, so I decided to start filming myself.  At first, it was just main events.  After a while it started to turn into an everyday thing.  It was great to capture my life, and knew that I would one day be able to look back and share it with my friends and family.

Turned out, sitting on my desk were three years of my life stored on hard drives.  Everyone kept asking me what I was going to do with all this footage??

In the three years since the tax incentive was established, Michigan was pushed into the forefront of the film industry.  In just three years, over 100 feature films were produced creating thousands of high paying jobs for unemployed Michigan residents.  Moreover, it created six dollars of economic activity for each dollar spent helping local businesses, cities, and individuals who are not directly tied to film.

More importantly, Michigan became a place for creative minds and young talent.  These incentives offered opportunities for many creative careers and provided the antidote to the decades of brain drain Michigan was facing.

In 2011 our Governor proposed reducing the film incentive.  Immediately movies started leaving the state, and this emerging industry stalled. Now unemployed, I decided to start looking at my footage.  I then realized that I have a story. In the past three years, I witnessed first hand how the film incentive brought a positive impact to many Michigan people.  I accidentally captured lives that were looking for a change, an industry that helped them, and now each of them grasping for a dream that almost was.  

Through my footage I would like to bring awareness about the impact of the film industry.  Not the Hollywood glamor that we might think of, but real lives of Americans trying to find a good career in an ever-shrinking job market. This is the story of my life, and the lives of people I have met along the way.

Please support this effort.

The Michigan film incentive is a positive path for a state that has been devastated by  the demise of manufacturing.   It is a critical time to reinvent who we are and what we can offer.  This documentary will show you how this industry can help not only individuals, but maybe save our state.

YOUR INVESTMENT:

My film is a totally independent production and has been self-financed up until this point. But making a documentary film is an expensive endeavor. Your contribution will go directly to funding our film shoot. Passionate people make all the difference with something like this, and every single contribution will make a difference. One of the main reasons I decided to use Kickstarter was because I loved the idea that this campaign, like our film, will be a collaborative effort by people who truly care about this project. Your help and support will be invaluable to us on this journey.

With the bulk of our filming completed, the hardest part of the project is behind us. Now, in the early stages of post-production, we are hard at work in the editing room.

I'm asking for the minimum amount to complete the project, but I really hope to exceed this goal.  Exceeding our goal would help offset our significant post-production expenses, which include the cost of hard drives, festival submissions, archival footage, music, sound mixing, color correction, etc.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!