Evening,

On Friday we had our first chance to sit down with people making a living in the film industry.

First we got lunch with Maya Gangadharan who we met at Slipstream when she played Palonia in their gender-bended version of Hamlet. She’s also their Marketing Director, as well as a budding nutritionist.

Maya travels about 6 months out of the year with the auto shows doing automotive sales training. She used to run the presentations; now she trains other people to do it.

Also, she is represented by the i Group Model and Talent Management, one of two talent agencies in the area.

Obviously we asked her the question: “should a young artist move to Detroit as opposed to New York, Chicago or Los Angeles?”

She had this to say: “wherever you go you’ll have difficulties; you just have to decide which set of difficulties you want.”

Totally clear, totally objective and totally true: it’s all relative. There is no Holy Grail of success in this industry, it all depends what you want; it’s all individual.

So the question is do we as individuals want Detroit’s difficulties?

Here’s Maya’s answer: “I think there’s something to be said about being a big fish in a small pond. I can do all the things I’m interested in [since I don’t have to worry so much about paying rent]. I can work in multiple parts of the industry and have a nutritional practice. [Living in Detroit] allows me to be all the people I think I am.”

Ryan and I can relate; we don’t know what we want to be when we grow up. Theatre directors, filmmakers, writers, actors, curators, producers — we don’t want to have to pick.

On our coffeehouse/venue space idea: “Detroiters like events, and they want it all in one place. People need to eat and if you can give them something to do while they’re eating that’s what they want…event-based art is the way to go. Young people don’t want to sit in the dark for 90 minutes and just watch stuff.”

I think there’s traction in this idea of it all happening in one place. It may have to do with comfort, like when you pause the show on Netflix to grab more Cheez Its. That’s what we’re competing against; and we can do much better than overly-salted, overpriced cheese crackers.

It can also build community: “that kind of a space becomes a community hub, people start to take ownership.” This is exactly what A.J. is going for with his Million Dollar March coffee — go ahead and take notes, Mr. O’Neil!

Showbiz…Aaaagent Man

Maya then took us to meet her agent, Tony DiMambro, the youngest yet most experienced agent in the area. He had some very illuminating information to share.

We learned the film industry is commercial and industrial-driven; industrial meaning anything from employee training to manual instruction videos.

He said from the Pure Michigan ads alone “one talent made $100,000 simply on residuals.”

So actors can make a living in Detroit…plugging products on TV. Not very stimulating for the creative juices, but it pays. It definitely pays. “I prefer the corporate environment. It’s stable, the work will always be there.”

So while everyone in LA is trying to make it big you could be living large in the D.

Tony also told us that they’d be interested in young directors coming to work in Detroit’s commercial industry. This could be in association with an established studio, or from a newer company, so long as you can do quality work.

Further, the commercial industry is likely to get a reboot soon when more software companies set up shop in some of the city’s abandoned skyscrapers. Dan Gilbert already houses several software companies in his building

“I would suggest Atlanta because of Georgia’s film incentives. I should’ve moved there eight years ago…want the commercial industry? We’re your town. You want narrative film? Go to Atlanta….We’d be lucky to get half a dozen narrative films this year in Detroit.”

That said, “Detroit is great for price, but hard to get people downtown for events.” We have heard about this: many of the people from the suburbs still think of downtown as the unsafe city it was five years ago, which is quite contrary to what we’ve seen. There are a lot of young people moving to Detroit, “the hipster crowd” as Tony calls them; but they’re likely to move to the suburbs as they start having kids.

So the conundrum continues: do we move downtown and bring in a crowd right now? Or do we move to a place that will be hopping in 5 years time?

Or do we move to a place with better film incentives?

Forget it! It’s time to unwind…

“WE SCORE! WE SHOUT! AND THEN WE SMOKE YOU OUT!!”

….by yelling at a soccer field!

Last week we were contacted by James Davidson who found our blog via Reddit. “Hopefully you are realizing that Detroit really is a unique place, with quite the dynamic backstory…How long are you in town? I would love to treat the three of you (sorry Megan!) to a Detroit City Football Club soccer game. Next game is on 5/29 at 7:30 at Cass Tech HS, Downtown. www.detcityfc.com”

So, without hesitation we responded and met up with him! We had no idea what he looked like or who he was but from the videos we saw online, one thing was very clear: this is one bad ass soccer experience and we had to go.

We waited in the parking lot where James told us to meet. As he walked up he recognized us from our photos and handed us a couple tickets and two crimson and gold scarves with DC FC logos on them. The Detroit City Football Club has never lost in their home stadium and we found out why: they attract the most intense, vulgar and intrusive fans in existence. Over three thousand people showed up, half stood while chanting and talking trash for the complete 90 minute game in the Northern Guard section (obviously where we were) while the other half sat in the family section. The Northern Guard’s chants parallel with many of Detroiters’ attitudes: “De-troit Ci-ty, We a-dore you. De-troit Ci-ty, For you WE SING!” “We’re ruining football and we don’t care” “No one likes us, we don’t care”. More chants here.

We felt the same crazy camaraderie when we were participating in the Slow Roll, albeit much less vulgar. The pride that these people have for their city is immense and when they band together, they’re a force to be reckoned with. If we come here, we hope to harness that energy and contribute to it as well.

DC FC won easily 6-1.

After saying goodbye, we parted ways with our new friend James who went back to his wife and two young kids.

If I (Ryan) come back, I’ll be joining the Northern Guard in many games in the future. I’m not so sure about Rory. He didn’t express very much excitement when we scored a goal.

All the best,

R&R