The fears expressed by Black Label Detroit arise from analyzing a recent Brookings institute study that describes how the creative, fine arts, and performance industries have, over the course of the Covid pandemic, collectively lost nearly 3 million jobs and absorbed more than $150 billion worth of lost sales last year. What this means for the young creative is this: not only are we gonna be more likely to come across less leads for work and smaller checks for any job done during the pandemic, but, it also implies that we might have some long-lasting issues finding a way in our field even when the lockdowns and curfews are finally over. It's not really all that hyperbolic to suggest that the cooling effects Covid presents on the indie scenes of countless cities represents some sort of existential crisis; where, if you aren't already an established figure in your field, or, literally known nationwide for your work, when it comes to the prospect of getting your name out there, you're more than likely gonna be just shit outta luck.
That's why, in light of this approaching shitshow, Michigan lawmakers are attempting to get proactive in search of solutions, and, they think they've finally found one: relaunching the same tax breaks the state used to give to Hollywood studios after 2008 in the hopes that they'll film movies here again.
Now, some of the older creatives reading/listening to this report might get a bit cross at the idea that the film tax breaks of '08 were a "bad" thing to do. After all, in the years that they existed, they created more than five thousand film crew jobs and employed more than eight thousand extras while helping to circulate much-needed money throughout the local economy. Those are figures that you can't really be mad at. But, in the editorial opinion of this publication, to suggest that this program was perfect really wouldn't be telling the whole story or attempting to do the topic any justice.
For example, when the old film incentives were in place, state law literally required the state of Michigan to refund nearly half of all expenses that a production company spent while they shot on location here (so basically, if a production company spent $1 million making a movie set in Detroit, the state was, by law, required to cut them a check for $420k as a tax break, since the law stipulated a 48% rebate). Not only that, the law enabling this tax break was written in such a way that didn't really discriminate against movie productions that refused to actually hire majority crew members who're from here. So, more often than not, all those film crews running around making big budget films like the Transformers series, or, Grand Tarino were staffed by people flown in from Chicago or L.A. . Any locals found on set, nevermind any creatives at that, were the exceptions to the standard and not the baseline rule.
The point of this criticism isn't to play up the same pedestrian, played out, and tired right-wing talking point of "X thing is a waste of money, so we should be spending that money on Y thing instead". There's already conservative think tanks from this state making that same argument for this specific issue. Plus, anyone with a brain could really doubt that any young creative would really give a fuck about the validity of that argument when faced with the prospect of not being able to follow their passion and either switch careers, giving up on their dreams entirely, or, moving away with the slim hope that they'll be able to achieve their dream somewhere else (which is the very same process that's been going on since the late 1990's).
So, instead, this publication would like to attempt to propose an alternative program that, if implemented correctly, could not only help revive Michigan's movie industry and economy, but, would help to make a place like Detroit a cultural capital for all of the arts; which could potentially be unparalleled by any other place in America outside of the scenes already established on the coasts. First things first, what desperately needs to be understood about the current political setup of the state of Michigan and the city of Detroit is this: unless there is a politician in office or political movement that showed a genuine interest in building up an authentic counter-culture, none of the ideas outlined in this report are likely to pan out. Related to that point, as well-meaning as the proposal to re-implement the movie credits are, because of our current political system, any motion towards getting our cultural sector back off the ground is bound to only satisfy people in the business community or other positions of political power for the legislation to pass. Local creatives and artists, are almost certainly not gonna have any say as to what's present in this new legislation, how it's rolled out and operated, or, even be able to get a slice of the financial pie that's inevitably gonna be eaten up by the bloated big-wigs from Hollywood.
That's exactly why, as a part of a series of stories launched by Black Label Detroit theorizing how drastically different the lives of this region's population would be under a radically different political system; It's hoped that the ideas presented in this report will help creatives better imagine what a truly revolutionary organization, built from the ground up, by creatives, to serve the interests of creatives would actually look like. It's hoped that these connected efforts can disseminate the knowledge necessary to our creative community so that we can prevent ourselves from relying on the visions of those individuals who lack our unique sense of vision and ingenuity.
Concept: The Detroit Creative's Syndicate.
Undoubtedly, if these film incentives got approved again, any confident creative who was lucky enough to find themselves on some sort of tv/movie production would probably be quickly disillusioned in the creative process if they started to experience what it's actually like to be a lower-tier member of a production crew. While they'd definitely find the work a bit more rewarding than an ordinary minimum wage job in the service sector, they'd swiftly learn that working on a set is little more than glorified freelance work. Filled with all the same extra long hours with few guaranteed benefits, extraneously demanding work that rarely gets any recognition, and "work for exposure" bullshit that you're likely to come across in all the less glamorous sectors of the job market.
But, there exists an alternative business model that, in the editorial opinion of Black Label Detroit, if implemented, could lend itself very well to cultivating a more fluid and rewarding creative process that separates the artform of film entirely from the rigid, top-down approach of the current day film making establishment.
So, what's this "mystical" new business model anyways? Well, it's the framework that could be the central backbone of a truly radical counter-cultural movement and, the use of which would definitely need to reach much farther than just being applied to the film industry. That model in question? worker co-ops. Basically, worker co-ops are set up like this: instead of following the current mode of the private sector capital where a business's/enterprise's operations are solely owned and managed by a company's CEO or it's shareholders, co-ops, on the contrary, are organizations that're democratically owned by all of it's members where no one has more say than another. The easiest way to help illustrate how differently things would operate under this radically different system is by seeing how the creative process would unfold through a thought experiment:
Okay, let's say that you're an aspiring screenwriter who wants to get their "foot in the door" into the film industry. So, you spend countless hours and sleepless nights typing, editing, retyping, throwing away, reviving, and finalizing countless scripts until you finally feel like you got one on your hands that's actually tight enough to actually pitch to some studio. Under the current system of movie making, the path that lies ahead just to get the right people to take a look at your script requires a lot of investigation and guess work on your part, which, you might not even know how to start. And, even if your final pitch is as fine-tuned as humanly possible, making sure to cover all your bases, there's no guarantee that you'd actually get any follow ups from those producers you just spent countless weeks trying to impress; since, they're probably more interested in endlessly pumping out remakes, reboots, and movie series that're all guaranteed to print money for the studio instead of taking what they see as a "risk" in financing an experimental project.
However, under the Detroit Creative's Syndicate system, to get your prospective screenwriting career off of the ground, all you'd have to do is just call up their head office since they'd be the umbrella organization that had the ability to connect you with all the artistic co-ops operating in and around the city. Then, you'd briefly explain that you had a script on-hand you wanted someone to take a look at and ask to be transferred to talk to someone (for example) at the "Detroit Filmmaker's Co-op". You'd get transferred to a line where you'd be to able talk to one of of the group's elected board of directors. There, they'd allow you to offer them your elevator pitch (this is the part where you finally get to tell them about your idea for your movie: an Inception meets The Matrix political thriller type situation).. If they thought your idea was trash, they'd turn you down, give you some resources on how to brush up your script, and encourage you to come back later when some revisions were made. If they actually liked your pitch though, they'd schedule you to have a meeting with the co-op's entire board of directors so you could pitch your movie with a little more depth. If you got a greenlight from the board, they'd give you a budget estimate to fully flesh out the vision you outlined, then... congratulations! you're now the newest member of the Detroit Filmmaker's Co-op. And, instead of having to rely on wealthy financers to get your ideas off of the ground (or god forbid, you'd have to take out a loan in order to shoot your movie), you'd have the full resources, backing, and know-how of the co-op's members to rely on in order to see your project through to success.
A movement tailor-made for more than just movies
For today's penniless creative, it's extremely easy to see what utility a structure such as the Detroit Creative's Syndicate presents. Instead of having to sink or swim by yourself, using the resources that you have on-hand in order to try and make something shake out on your own. You'd be able to cooperate and collaborate with people who genuinely have experience in your desired field. They'd help you understand some of the aspects of your craft that you'd maybe wanted/needed to master. Most importantly, the experience you gain from learning the processes of witnessing your movie go through planning & development, come out of pre-production, go on to filming, having the film's rough cuts getting cleaned up in post-production, and finally having eyeballs glued to movie screens watching your own work would, hopefully, help you understand the virtues of spontaneity, improvisation, and artistic deviation even if you feel like you have the "perfect" script or project on your hands. This is exactly the reason why, any move by our local governments to "invest in the arts" (which, is usually nothing more than a vague campaign promise anyways) would have to export this radically egalitarian business model to other sectors of the creative economy.
For example: instead of artists feeling as if they need to "sell out" in order to get paid commissions by the city, who force them into undertaking "art-washing" projects no one in the community wants, would instead, work closely with those communities to paint and sculpt artistic representations of those places for the benefit of the people who really live in the neighborhood, as opposed to catering to the "upper crust" sensibilities of potential gentrifiers. Entertainers, like comedians or musicians, instead of being the textbook definition of starving artists, would be encouraged to perform shows while being able to sustain themselves with a "local performance grant" paid for by the Syndicate's coffers, which, would be stacked on top of the commissions they'd collect from local venues for doing gigs. Rather than dancers being some of the most precarious people in the entire arts sector, they'd find steady, fulfilling work taking part in events like parades, celebrations, half-time performances at games, and even original plays that were funded by the Syndicate, cementing the institution's role as a force for fully dedicating resources and talent towards cultural outputs, which, would be meant to be enjoyed by everyone in the wider region. Finally, instead of journalists having to tone down their editorial opinions in order to find work or avoid pissing off potential advertisers, a dedicated and diligent cooperative made up of the city's finest investigative reporters could collectively ensure that the people of this new combined metro area were well informed and well aware of the world around them. Providing both local and international reports..
There's an inexhaustible list of different creative occupations that would greatly benefit from being transferred to the cooperative model. Though, as positive as these changes could be for the lives of our creative community under a different system, among other issues, it would be nearly impossible to maintain these types of organizations or the Creative's Syndicate concept without having a dedicated infrastructure that helped these new artist-owned organizations advertise themselves.
The possible solution to this problem, in the editorial opinion of Black Label Detroit, would not only cement the city as one of America's newfound cultural capitals after Covid, but, would almost definitely be as humongous of a draw to Detroit and it's metro area just as the private film industry acts as a major magnet to the LA area: a publicly owned tv station.
Okay... well, here's a slight admission: this suggestion isn't really as radical as it might first sound like on paper. Cities have had publicly owned TV for decades now, it's usually just called "public access TV", and you can literally get connected to it for free if you own a non-digital TV and aren't connected to any cable network. So... in light of this, a nagging question remains: "Why isn't public access being utilized in a way that actually benefits creatives?" the answer to which is fortunately pretty easy to find, the technology plays a large part in it. Public access networks are more-so geared towards an audience of retired pensioners instead of younger audiences. Since we're more likely to use streaming apps like Netflix or Hulu anyway instead of watching basic cable. Under the current system of creative expression, the local government doesn't really have an incentive to invest in public access that caters to us cause we're literally not in their target demographic.
For this reason alone, if we ever did manage to get a radical government in power in the city of Detroit or the emerging metro city, when that government eventually endeavors on trying to make the vision of the Detroit Creative's Syndicate a tangible reality, a complete overhaul and revitalization of Detroit's public access infrastructure would absolutely be a crucial cornerstone in cementing our newfound cultural revolution into the institutions of this city and the airwaves of the wider public for years to come. With the proper investment in place, not only would we actually be able to fund more programming that reached a younger audience, but, alongside smart investments/policies such as publicly owned 5G broadband, we could even create a locally owned streaming service that showcased our start-up pilots, shows, and projects. All of which would be easily accessible to every single local with a simple wifi connection.
Investing all this time, effort, and resources into this type of experimental policy would ultimately be pretty pointless if no one bothered to actually watch the programming though. After all, it's only once in a blue moon that for-profit TV networks take the risk of greenlighting content that's genuinely subversive or cater to a niche audience, and most of the time those investments don't pan out too well. With the model that the Detroit Creative's Syndicate affords though, our artists could easily pick through all of those past risky business ventures to find some clues on seeing what would allow this city and it's radical vision to excel where all those for-profit models have struggled and failed in the past. To help any would-be visionaries get an idea for what could lead this city to success, here's some ideas:
How to let people in on the local lingo: more 'Desus and Mero' and less 'Detroiters'.
Whenever it comes to marketing any type of production, producers usually like to worry themselves sick over what type of "reach" any given production might have. Too little reach, and a show/movie is bound to fail since the target audience it's trying to go after is too small to sustain itself. There's also such a thing as having too broad of a audience, which leads a production to become directionless in an effort to keep all of it's wildly different demographics happy. One show, in the editorial opinion of Black Label Detroit, that during it's runtime was absolutely able to find, exist, and thrive in it's own special pocket was Viceland's incarnation of Desus & Mero.
Hosted by Bronx-born comedians Desus Nice and THE KID MERO. The duo originally came up doing a similar program on Complex News' youtube channel, where they perfected their art of quick comedic timing and off-color commentary (such as suggesting that the entirety of New York City "Hasn't lost this bad since 9/11", in response to witnessing a video of a native New Yorker getting his ass kicked in an Arizonan parking lot). With their set on the Complex show consisting of nothing more than a couple stools, plastic crates combined with a piece of cardboard acting as a table, and a gigantic green screen that helped layer on visual effects and gags, the pair was able to carve a name for themselves despite their show appearing as low-budget & low effort as possible. The unfiltered essence of the Complex show would be carried over to the fledgling Viceland network when Desus & Mero were greenlit by management to host their own late-nigh talk show on the channel. Even when more funds were available to be funneled into the show's budget, they both still opted for minimal edits, drunk alcohol out of coffee mugs that've obviously had their handles broken off before, and interviewed their celebrity guests out of a repurposed conference room, behind a desk that was blanketed with their own cartoonish graffiti.
There was another major aspect of the series that helped to show audiences around the country how "authenticity" wasn't just some surface-level aesthetic, but was actually an integral aspect of the production just as much as Desus & Mero were though: they let their production crew laugh and get in on the jokes, which, is normally considered a massive sin in TV production. Often times, the camera crew would break the fourth wall to ask Desus or Mero a question which would necessitate subtitles to even understand what they were saying. These off-the-cuff interventions would result in Desus and Mero going on a tangent to answer whatever question was being asked which lent very well to the show's atmosphere of just being a relaxed kick-back among friends.
The magic of Desus & Mero's formula on their Viceland show was that they were somehow able to relay their exclusively NYC-centric jokes and commentary in relatable terms to viewers no matter where they were from. They've joked and clowned so often on specific stereotypes that only exist around parts of the city so when it actually turned out to be pretty rewarding when they would go to crack the same jokes on a video and have it's content confirm those very same stereotypes. Through their delivery, you could genuinely feel like you knew a bit about NYC despite never stepping foot there. And, even though Desus and Mero would often never be able to take a topic seriously, sometimes it was completely appropriate for the video to provide all the necessary commentary for them. In the opinion of this author though, the magic that Desus & Mero brought to late night hasn't really carried over to the Showtime incarnation of their show, since, this time, they actually made it a point to flaunt their higher production values and invest more in bits & skits. But... one could easily read between the lines and see the brand's steady progression as all apart of their grand plan. Ever since Desus and Mero started their podcast way back in 2015, they constantly made running jokes something along the lines of "We're gonna sell out eventually, so be prepared when that finally happens". So, maybe, this little tangent lamenting how "these guys used to actually be good, but they kinda suck now" is playing right into their last great big punchline.? Either way, the Viceland portion of their career trajectory holds invaluable clues for locals on how our programs could possibly reach mass appeal just by doing nothing more than just being ourselves.
Contrast that with a show like Detroiters, which, if you're actually from the city of Detroit and in the same 18-40 year old demographic that Desus and Mero had locked down, you probably didn't know that the show even existed, or, if you did, you didn't actually watch it. That's probably for good reason. Speaking about the show straight up: it really wasn't all that good. Even though the production had a lot of things going for it like the show's creators doing everything in their power to try and hire actors/comedians who were actually from the city (such as "Principal Duvall" from Mean Girls a.k.a Tim Meadows , the perpetually pissed-off boss from Workaholics a.k.a Maribeth Monroe, and the serial shit-talker on All Deaf Digital's Roast Me Chris Powell, etc.) on top of making as many local references as they possibly could while trying to comment on similar local stereotypes, the delivery of Detroiters fails to grab the audience's attention in the same way. If jokes don't land, they sort of come off as too forced as opposed to the effortless observations that littered Desus & Mero. If you think that this editorial position is "too critical" or maybe "overly harsh", then, the sole editor of Black Label Detroit would fully encourage you to compare and contrast the two different shows by watching a couple clips from both of them. See if you don't walk away with a similar opinion. This observation is probably part of the reason why Detroiters only lasted 20 episodes as opposed to Desus & Mero's 300+.
How to ensure unique creativity makes the cut:
The final message that needs to be understood by the reader/listener after ingesting the information outlined in this report is this: All of these theories, suggestions, and ideas may be very nice to think about and even more exciting to anticipate. But, NONE of them are gonna be implemented by just simply "calling your legislature" or "writing letters to the mayor" or some other common, yet, completely ineffective tactic. Even though the vision outlined in this report, while appearing very much radical, might not seem all that political at face value, the author of this publication is here to assure and and all readers/listeners that it most definitely is. More strongly than that: it almost certainly needs to be.
This vision is inherently political because the processes that serve to dampen our creativity aren't just some obscure, random and incomprehensible changes that somehow manage to happen "naturally", they're the result of deliberate political processes. Only, for too long, those processes have worked against the interests of the youth in general and the creative community in particular. It's why music and arts departments in public schools are usually the first programs to go when budget cuts come to school districts as a result of austerity. If we seriously want these types of programs, we need to vocalize our frustration with the status quo, start organizing and collaborating with people regardless of if they're in our field or not, and keeping our attention as well as our creative focus squarely zeroed in on the political sphere. Artists, musicians, and creatives of all types have historically acted as what egg-headed academics usually like to call "agents of change" (which is literally just a title for a group of people who're able to solve problems in the community around them). The reason why creatives fit that role so well is because we're able to illustrate, like no one else, the social dilemma of our time through criticisms and commentary by presenting them within our works. It doesn't even need to be shocking or provocative, even simple and straightforward commentaries about what are perceived to be "personal problems" such as: loneliness, isolation, or depression can help non-artists understand a little something about themselves by looking at the anguish that someone is able to embed within their work.
As this year continues to drag on, no one seems to want to give us a chance to show what we're really made of, and more of our peers contemplate on moving away in an effort to "try and start something new" in a place somewhere far away from the city. It's the hope of this author that any creative willing to re-cultivate their curiosity is able to reflect on the ideas and recommendations presented in this report, and, when the right time comes, be willing to dedicate themselves to a project that seeks nothing more than the liberty to allow them to simply make a decent living; For themselves, for the wider community, and for the future generations of artists yet to come. Even though it might be hard to see now, the city of Detroit is practically spilling over with pent up creative potential. If that potential finally gets funneled into a political project that's aimed to feed all of our "starving artists" then maybe we could attract more people who share out-of-the box thinking, and, eventually, maybe we can help develop a genuine culture within a city that'll entice the country's starry-eyed idealists to make their names here instead of he other way around?
Achieving this goal would require us to tap into the same energy that allows us to conquer the hardest part of the creative process: getting the willpower to get up and get to it. Hopefully the world will be proud to witness the progress that we all make, together.
Links & sources:
20. "NYC Takes an L on WorldStar | Desus vs. Mero On Complex Ep. 9 Highlight #2" Complex on Youtube 2014
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