TITLE: Crotty’s Kids
SUBTITLE: One Topic. Two Sides. Three Teams. An Entire Year. With Crotty’s Kids.
LOGLINE: Crotty’s Kids follows six urban debaters and their unlikely coach, who together buck the South Bronx trend, where 60% of males do not graduate high school.
SYNOPSIS: Crotty’s Kids follows six Black and Hispanic debaters from the Eagle Academy for Young Men in the South Bronx, whose lives are transformed by Eagle’s unlikely coach, who, amidst a midlife crisis brought on by the death of his parents, seeks to prove that any kid, from any background, can compete with the city’s best and brightest.
PRODUCER/WRITER/DIRECTOR: James Marshall Crotty
TRAILER/TEASER: www.CrottysKids.com
CONTACT: James Marshall Crotty, 303 Park Avenue So., Ste. 1063, NY, NY 10010. Phone: 646-246-4795. Jim@CrottysKids.com
FISCAL SPONSOR: Independent Feature Project (IFP). Tax I.D. number: 13-31-18525.
FOOTAGE: 470 Gigabytes of total footage: 137 individual QuickTime files, 20 Sound Files (AIFF audio files). Film shot using a DVX 100A camera. Standard Definition. 8-bit Video. 720 X 480 Resolution. All footage is saved on hard drives. Edited version of film is saved in Final Cut Pro.
PROJECT GOAL SUMMARY
Crotty’s Kids raises awareness of the epidemic high school dropout rate among inner city minority students, its devastating effect on urban neighborhoods and U.S. competitiveness globally, and the transforming effect that mentoring and competitive debate can have on students and mentors alike.
FILM DESCRIPTION
Told with humor and suspense, and shot in a gritty verite style reflecting its unvarnished South Bronx milieu, Crotty’s Kids follows six Eagle Academy debaters as they evolve from content-light amateurs to critical thinking heavyweights. But debate is only an ongoing McGuffin to the heart of the story: young men in search of an intellectual father figure. Coach Crotty arrives in their lives with the clock running out. In two years, the young men of Eagle are likely to become grist for a staggering statistic: 60% of urban males never graduate high school.
As Crotty’s Kids grow in debate, we are pulled into the struggles of their personal lives: poverty, gang violence, a rape allegation, and how, for an urban black male, stealing a cell phone can lead to an encounter with the prison system. Layer by layer, scene by scene, we come closer to the real Crotty. Between the polar extremes of his constructed coach persona, we find a softer side. Interviews with friends and family reveal a man on a mission. But a series of failed tournaments, program funding cuts, parental resistance, and the conflict between Crotty’s unique pedagogy and the educational status quo causes him to question whether there is value in his quest.
By film’s end we see the Eagle team win big, but realize that this journey was never about winning debates. Our hearts break at the complete portrait of Crotty and his motives, when he openly admits to the camera, “I have never had kids of my own; this is it, man.” Subsequently the Eagle debate program is cancelled, leaving Crotty without his kids and the kids without their surrogate father. Are they prepared to stand on their own against the statistic that drew Crotty to them in the first place?
TARGETED AUDIENCES
There are, by conservative estimates, several million active high school, college, and middle school debaters in the U.S. There are also tens of millions of former debaters, here and abroad, who consider participation in high school debate one of the pivotal points in their lives, and critical to their success in law, business, politics, academics, journalism, and more. A Who’s Who of prominent Americans -- from Google’s Melissa Mayer to attorney David Boies (Gore V. Bush) -- could be created for former policy debaters, in particular. These two groups comprise the natural fan cohort for Crotty’s Kids.
We expect to substantially grow the base for the project from the debater community outwards to all those interested in the success of African-American and Hispanic youth. This effort will be aided because Crotty’s Kids will be the first pan-media debate experience to hit the market after the Oprah-financed and Denzel Washington-directed The Great Debaters (released December 25, 2007 by the Weinstein Company). Because of its later release date, Crotty’s Kids will ride the coattails of The Great Debaters, while giving a comprehensive modern day snapshot of the activity missing from the Oprah film. In addition, the film will ride the wave of publicity generated by the election of President Barack Obama, in that it shows urban black and Hispanic teens as intellectual superstars and debate as a revolutionary force transforming inner city academic achievement.
REACHING TARGETED AUDIENCES
The marketing of Crotty’s Kids will begin with the core audiences that comprise the high school debate community, including viral campaigns to the large, vibrant debate communities found at PlanetDebate.com, Cross-X.com, VictoryBriefsDaily.com and VictoryBriefs.com, the National Forensics League website (NFLOnline.org) and corresponding print magazine Rostrum, Debate Central (debate.uvm.edu), as well as the many debate blogs and forums available through Yahoo, Facebook, et. al. In order to further brand the film and command audience interest, teasers will be posted on YouTube and other content aggregators. After its theatrical run, Crotty’s Kids will be pitched as a reality-based documentary TV series, available both on-air and online. An expanded Crotty’s Kids website will allow users to post debate-related videos or link to debate-related videos elsewhere on the web, as well as procure downloads of ongoing Crotty’s Kids content.
Unlike any other remotely similar project, Crotty’s Kids has the potential to reach a large mainstream audience because it cuts through today’s polarized rhetoric surrounding issues of teacher training and school choice to get to the heart of what really works in educating young urban men: the active presence of a loving, committed male mentor. For this reason Crotty’s Kids will be a persuasive pan-media catalyst that brings to a wide audience the problem of inner city dropouts, and its deleterious effect on urban neighborhoods and U.S. competitiveness worldwide. The issue of inner city dropouts is at a crisis point. Crotty’s Kids shows a clear and effective way that average citizens can get involved to solve a socio-political problem that affects us all.
DISTRIBUTION METHODS
Using co-production partner Monk Media’s (www.monk.com) fifteen years experience in web and multimedia development/marketing, as well as Monk’s 25 years experience in magazine and book publishing, Crotty’s Kids will be distributed in the following formats after, or concurrent with, its theatrical and/or TV run.
DVD
The Crotty’s Kids DVD will include extra features not found in the feature documentary film, including: a) instructional videos by leading debate experts on how to debate, how to judge debate, and how to nurture a successful high school debate program; b) videos of full-length top-level varsity debate rounds (with color commentary of each round) for use by students and coaches; c) entertaining and instructional outtakes from the Crotty’s Kids film; and d) a comprehensive lexicon of debate vernacular called How to Talk Debate, written by Crotty’s Kids principal James M. Crotty (author of How to Talk American), with a unique audio component featuring real world debaters using each of the debate idioms in a real round; e) Outtakes from Crotty’s Kids. We also will make at least 1,000 free copies of the DVD available to schools and coaches without the funds to purchase on their own.
Website
The new improved Crotty’s Kids website will include enhancements that will make the site not only an effective promotional vehicle, but a destination site for those interested in debate and other effective ways to foster the educational advancement and critical thinking skills of inner city teens. For a snapshot of Monk Media’s web design work, please go to www.monk.com (go to www.monk.com to get a glimpse of the high-level site that CrottysKids.com will become). The new site will include, but not be limited to, these features:
1) High-engagement Social Media for Crotty’s Kids audience and those interested in debate to submit success stories and other pedagogical tips and links.
2) Videos of high-level debate rounds from around the world, plus webisodes featuring other policy debaters.
3) Where Are They Now, which will consist of ongoing blogs and video blogs by Crotty’s Kids Principals about where they are in their lives.
4) Crotty’s Kids Store, where fans can purchase Crotty’s Kids-related merchandise, including T-Shirts, Caps, and a wide array of debate tools (handbooks, DVDs, Video downloads, and more), and register for Crotty’s Kids-branded debate camps, online tutorials, webinars, and scholarships.
Mobile Media
Using Monk’s experience in custom content development, Crotty’s Kids will be available for download to smart phones and portable readers, such Apple’s iPad and iPhone, and Amazon’s Kindle, among others. In addition, Monk will create a free Crotty’s Kids app for fans to receive highlights from the Crotty’s Kids website, the latest information on each year’s debate resolution and competitions, as well as assorted debate-related games and contests.
In addition to distribution revenue generated by the documentary’s worldwide theatrical and/or television run, revenue for Crotty’s Kids will come from these sources: online advertising sales to debate camps and debate handbook companies advertising on CrottysKids.com, downloads of episodes via iTunes, Amazon, Netflix, and other online stores, DVD sales, Crotty’s Kids-related merchandise sales, as well as foreign and domestic licensing.
PROJECT BUDGET (AVAILABLE TO SERIOUS PARTIES UPON REQUEST)
FUNDING SOURCES
Foundations:
1) Fledgling Fund: Crotty’s Kids was a grant finalist for postproduction support in June 2010 and will reapply with a more finished rough cut in August 2010 for outreach support.
2) Cinereach: solicited in June 2010 for postproduction support.
3) Sundance Documentary Fund: to be solicited for postproduction support.
4) Tribeca Documentary Fund: to be solicited in October 2010 for postproduction support.
5) New York State Council on the Arts: to be solicited in February 2011 for outreach support.
Secured Private Sources:
1) James Marshall Crotty: ($51,800 cash and in-kind donation to cover primary production).
2) Monk Media: ($15,650 in-kind donation to cover design, programming, hosting, marketing, and search engine optimization of existing and expanded website for www.CrottysKids.com.)
3) Justin Oberman: ($26,200 in-kind donation for sound and video equipment and shooting 40 hours of video).
4) Alex Kosene: ($12,000 in-kind donation for equipment and shooting second trailer and teaser footage).
5) Cevin Soling: ($10,000 in-kind donation for consulting and creating first trailer and teaser).
6) Duncan Sylvester: ($600 in-kind donation for one day of spot shooting).
7) Nathan Katzman: ($1,200 in-kind donation for two days of spot shooting).
Pending Private Sources:
1) Michael Kassner: ($20,000 donation contingent upon securing at least $40,000 in other donations).
2) A collection of prominent attorneys – all former debaters -- that will donate between $100 and $10,000.
3) Approximately 120 supporters of the National Association of Urban Debate League.
4) Supporters of the Eagle Academy.
Amount Needed to Finish Postproduction and Outreach: $50,000.
The above funding request will allow us to complete the editing, sound design, mixing, scoring, color correction and outreach for Crotty’s Kids. These funds will be used between August 2010 and June 2011.
PROJECT TIMELINE
Crotty’s Kids has completed primary production and is now in postproduction. We will complete final editing by January 2011.
PROJECT LEADERSHIP
Producer/Director/Writer JAMES CROTTY is best known as the cofounder, editor, and peripatetic publisher of Monk: the Mobile Magazine. He is the author of several books, including “How To Talk American” (Houghton Mifflin), “The USA Phrasebook” (Lonely Planet), and, with fellow “Monk” Michael Lane, of “Mad Monks on the Road” (Simon & Schuster), “The Mad Monks’ Guide to New York City” (Macmillan), and “The Mad Monks’ Guide to California” (Macmillan). From 1998-2000, Crotty and Lane were Playboy’s chief travel and culture correspondents, generating one million unique monthly visitors to their offbeat videos, profiles, and guides on the “Prowl” section of Playboy.com. Since then, Crotty has commandeered several works in TV, multimedia, and film, including “The Mad Monks’ Guide to NY CD-ROM” (Voyager/Monk Media), “The Audition” (Spectacle Films), “Apryl Miller: Color and Sound” (Monk Media), and the eponymous “Crotty’s Kids” (Crotty’s Kids, LLC). (Phone: 646-246-4795)
Crotty’s Kids Co-writer and Co-producer BRUCE UPBIN is a Managing Editor at Forbes Media in charge of new editorial product development across all platforms. Before that, he was an Assistant Managing Editor running the magazine's technology and health coverage as well as special sections on innovation and creativity. Upbin joined Forbes as a Reporter in 1995 and has served as Deputy Chief of the reporting staff, Midwest Bureau Chief, and Senior Editor. He has written a dozen cover stories and regularly provides business commentary on CNN, NPR, CNBC, BBC, Forbes on Radio and Fox News. (Phone: 212-367-3239)
Crotty’s Kids Executive Producer CEVIN SOLING, president of Spectacle Films and Xemu Records, is deeply involved in the entertainment industry as a writer, director, producer, and performing artist. Soling directed and produced The War On Kids, winner of the best educational documentary award at the New York Independent Film and Video Festival. Soling also produced the hour-long documentary about trepanation, A Hole in the Head, which won the Best Documentary Award at both the Atlantic City Film Festival and at the Brooklyn International Film Festival. (Phone: 917-549-2052)
Crotty’s Kids Editor GINA LEIBRECHT has collaborated with documentary filmmaker, Les Blank, on several projects, including All In This Tea, which she co-produced, co-directed, and edited, and which had its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2007. Among other highlights are Karina Epperlein’s Phoenix Dance, about a dancer who returns to the stage after losing a leg to cancer, which won San Francisco International Film Festival’s Golden Gate Award for Best Documentary Short in 2006, and made the short list of Academy Award Nominations for Best Short Subject Documentary in 2006; and Kevin White’s A Land Between Rivers, a one-hour documentary about the history of California’s Central Valley for PBS, which won a CINE Golden Eagle Award for Excellence in Film and Television in 2007. (415-206-1633)
Crotty’s Kids Editor DUSTY DUPREL is an experienced storyteller, and editor of the feature film Beyond the Chair, shot and produced in over six countries. (Phone: 619-985-8847)
Crotty’s Kids videographer/coproducer ALEX KOSENE is a bicoastal writer and producer, and founding partner of Third Strand Productions. (Phone: 646-460-6595)
Crotty’s Kids’ SAMI MUSTAKLEM is an Indianapolis-based film editor, and founding partner of Third Strand Productions.
Crotty’s Kids Assistant DP JESSICA SOW is in her third year at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
DIRECTOR’S ARTISTIC STATEMENT:
I am making “Crotty’s Kids” in order to demonstrate a constructive way to solve the much-discussed problem of inner city dropouts. Debate was a positive way for me to escape a troubled Nebraska home and attend a top college, Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. I wanted the same opportunity for young Black and Hispanic men from the South Bronx. My hope is that Crotty’s Kids will inspire audiences in the tradition of other “triumph” documentaries, such as “Mad Hot Ballroom,” “Murderball” and “Hoop Dreams.” I believe that audiences act to solve a social problem when they are entertained and when the issue is made personal.
As a result, there will be plenty of suspense and emotional highs and lows as I seek to transform, almost overnight, my content-light amateurs into critical thinking champions. The Eagle team is green, with only one year of experience under its belt. They must overcome not only their harsh surroundings, but see me through to the swift victory I know they can achieve. “You may not believe it now, but I will deliver a state championship for Eagle in year three of this program,” I said at a school assembly in the first year of the program. The young debaters didn’t have a clue what I meant, but a courageous few were willing to join me on my quixotic quest.
What I didn’t reveal was that I wasn’t settling for a state championship. My sights were set higher. I wanted to coach the first urban team in America to qualify for debate’s triple crown: The Catholic Forensics League Nationals, the National Forensics League Nationals, and the prestigious Tournament of Champions. I achieved this goal while coach at Bronx Science, whose students are selected based on a highly competitive entrance exam. There is no entrance exam required to attend Eagle, which is situated near Yankee Stadium in the heart of the South Bronx, an area where sixty percent of black men never even finish high school, let alone win debate tournaments. I was determined to prove that any kid, from any background, could compete with the city’s best and brightest. It was a daunting challenge I set for my young charges, and myself, but, as you will learn in watching this film, I do not shy away from challenges, even at the cost of my health. As we watch the Eagles traverse a huge chasm in cultural capital, however, I end up overcoming the biggest hurdle, as I become the male mentor I never had myself.
But beyond its entertaining narrative, Crottys Kids also packs a socio-political punch, subtly exploring the manipulation of power in America. High school debate is a game, but it’s the same game played by CEOs, trial lawyers, and political candidates, who will trade in what they believe for what they know will win. Crotty’s Kids also introduces us to the subculture of high school debate, its key players and ancestry, odd habits and lingo. This is fast-paced theater, a sport featuring academic athletes from all walks of life, a bulwark of the Western tradition. And it happens every weekend under our noses in mostly empty classrooms across the USA.
SUBTITLE: One Topic. Two Sides. Three Teams. An Entire Year. With Crotty’s Kids.
LOGLINE: Crotty’s Kids follows six urban debaters and their unlikely coach, who together buck the South Bronx trend, where 60% of males do not graduate high school.
SYNOPSIS: Crotty’s Kids follows six Black and Hispanic debaters from the Eagle Academy for Young Men in the South Bronx, whose lives are transformed by Eagle’s unlikely coach, who, amidst a midlife crisis brought on by the death of his parents, seeks to prove that any kid, from any background, can compete with the city’s best and brightest.
PRODUCER/WRITER/DIRECTOR: James Marshall Crotty
TRAILER/TEASER: www.CrottysKids.com
CONTACT: James Marshall Crotty, 303 Park Avenue So., Ste. 1063, NY, NY 10010. Phone: 646-246-4795. Jim@CrottysKids.com
FISCAL SPONSOR: Independent Feature Project (IFP). Tax I.D. number: 13-31-18525.
FOOTAGE: 470 Gigabytes of total footage: 137 individual QuickTime files, 20 Sound Files (AIFF audio files). Film shot using a DVX 100A camera. Standard Definition. 8-bit Video. 720 X 480 Resolution. All footage is saved on hard drives. Edited version of film is saved in Final Cut Pro.
PROJECT GOAL SUMMARY
Crotty’s Kids raises awareness of the epidemic high school dropout rate among inner city minority students, its devastating effect on urban neighborhoods and U.S. competitiveness globally, and the transforming effect that mentoring and competitive debate can have on students and mentors alike.
FILM DESCRIPTION
Told with humor and suspense, and shot in a gritty verite style reflecting its unvarnished South Bronx milieu, Crotty’s Kids follows six Eagle Academy debaters as they evolve from content-light amateurs to critical thinking heavyweights. But debate is only an ongoing McGuffin to the heart of the story: young men in search of an intellectual father figure. Coach Crotty arrives in their lives with the clock running out. In two years, the young men of Eagle are likely to become grist for a staggering statistic: 60% of urban males never graduate high school.
As Crotty’s Kids grow in debate, we are pulled into the struggles of their personal lives: poverty, gang violence, a rape allegation, and how, for an urban black male, stealing a cell phone can lead to an encounter with the prison system. Layer by layer, scene by scene, we come closer to the real Crotty. Between the polar extremes of his constructed coach persona, we find a softer side. Interviews with friends and family reveal a man on a mission. But a series of failed tournaments, program funding cuts, parental resistance, and the conflict between Crotty’s unique pedagogy and the educational status quo causes him to question whether there is value in his quest.
By film’s end we see the Eagle team win big, but realize that this journey was never about winning debates. Our hearts break at the complete portrait of Crotty and his motives, when he openly admits to the camera, “I have never had kids of my own; this is it, man.” Subsequently the Eagle debate program is cancelled, leaving Crotty without his kids and the kids without their surrogate father. Are they prepared to stand on their own against the statistic that drew Crotty to them in the first place?
TARGETED AUDIENCES
There are, by conservative estimates, several million active high school, college, and middle school debaters in the U.S. There are also tens of millions of former debaters, here and abroad, who consider participation in high school debate one of the pivotal points in their lives, and critical to their success in law, business, politics, academics, journalism, and more. A Who’s Who of prominent Americans -- from Google’s Melissa Mayer to attorney David Boies (Gore V. Bush) -- could be created for former policy debaters, in particular. These two groups comprise the natural fan cohort for Crotty’s Kids.
We expect to substantially grow the base for the project from the debater community outwards to all those interested in the success of African-American and Hispanic youth. This effort will be aided because Crotty’s Kids will be the first pan-media debate experience to hit the market after the Oprah-financed and Denzel Washington-directed The Great Debaters (released December 25, 2007 by the Weinstein Company). Because of its later release date, Crotty’s Kids will ride the coattails of The Great Debaters, while giving a comprehensive modern day snapshot of the activity missing from the Oprah film. In addition, the film will ride the wave of publicity generated by the election of President Barack Obama, in that it shows urban black and Hispanic teens as intellectual superstars and debate as a revolutionary force transforming inner city academic achievement.
REACHING TARGETED AUDIENCES
The marketing of Crotty’s Kids will begin with the core audiences that comprise the high school debate community, including viral campaigns to the large, vibrant debate communities found at PlanetDebate.com, Cross-X.com, VictoryBriefsDaily.com and VictoryBriefs.com, the National Forensics League website (NFLOnline.org) and corresponding print magazine Rostrum, Debate Central (debate.uvm.edu), as well as the many debate blogs and forums available through Yahoo, Facebook, et. al. In order to further brand the film and command audience interest, teasers will be posted on YouTube and other content aggregators. After its theatrical run, Crotty’s Kids will be pitched as a reality-based documentary TV series, available both on-air and online. An expanded Crotty’s Kids website will allow users to post debate-related videos or link to debate-related videos elsewhere on the web, as well as procure downloads of ongoing Crotty’s Kids content.
Unlike any other remotely similar project, Crotty’s Kids has the potential to reach a large mainstream audience because it cuts through today’s polarized rhetoric surrounding issues of teacher training and school choice to get to the heart of what really works in educating young urban men: the active presence of a loving, committed male mentor. For this reason Crotty’s Kids will be a persuasive pan-media catalyst that brings to a wide audience the problem of inner city dropouts, and its deleterious effect on urban neighborhoods and U.S. competitiveness worldwide. The issue of inner city dropouts is at a crisis point. Crotty’s Kids shows a clear and effective way that average citizens can get involved to solve a socio-political problem that affects us all.
DISTRIBUTION METHODS
Using co-production partner Monk Media’s (www.monk.com) fifteen years experience in web and multimedia development/marketing, as well as Monk’s 25 years experience in magazine and book publishing, Crotty’s Kids will be distributed in the following formats after, or concurrent with, its theatrical and/or TV run.
DVD
The Crotty’s Kids DVD will include extra features not found in the feature documentary film, including: a) instructional videos by leading debate experts on how to debate, how to judge debate, and how to nurture a successful high school debate program; b) videos of full-length top-level varsity debate rounds (with color commentary of each round) for use by students and coaches; c) entertaining and instructional outtakes from the Crotty’s Kids film; and d) a comprehensive lexicon of debate vernacular called How to Talk Debate, written by Crotty’s Kids principal James M. Crotty (author of How to Talk American), with a unique audio component featuring real world debaters using each of the debate idioms in a real round; e) Outtakes from Crotty’s Kids. We also will make at least 1,000 free copies of the DVD available to schools and coaches without the funds to purchase on their own.
Website
The new improved Crotty’s Kids website will include enhancements that will make the site not only an effective promotional vehicle, but a destination site for those interested in debate and other effective ways to foster the educational advancement and critical thinking skills of inner city teens. For a snapshot of Monk Media’s web design work, please go to www.monk.com (go to www.monk.com to get a glimpse of the high-level site that CrottysKids.com will become). The new site will include, but not be limited to, these features:
1) High-engagement Social Media for Crotty’s Kids audience and those interested in debate to submit success stories and other pedagogical tips and links.
2) Videos of high-level debate rounds from around the world, plus webisodes featuring other policy debaters.
3) Where Are They Now, which will consist of ongoing blogs and video blogs by Crotty’s Kids Principals about where they are in their lives.
4) Crotty’s Kids Store, where fans can purchase Crotty’s Kids-related merchandise, including T-Shirts, Caps, and a wide array of debate tools (handbooks, DVDs, Video downloads, and more), and register for Crotty’s Kids-branded debate camps, online tutorials, webinars, and scholarships.
Mobile Media
Using Monk’s experience in custom content development, Crotty’s Kids will be available for download to smart phones and portable readers, such Apple’s iPad and iPhone, and Amazon’s Kindle, among others. In addition, Monk will create a free Crotty’s Kids app for fans to receive highlights from the Crotty’s Kids website, the latest information on each year’s debate resolution and competitions, as well as assorted debate-related games and contests.
In addition to distribution revenue generated by the documentary’s worldwide theatrical and/or television run, revenue for Crotty’s Kids will come from these sources: online advertising sales to debate camps and debate handbook companies advertising on CrottysKids.com, downloads of episodes via iTunes, Amazon, Netflix, and other online stores, DVD sales, Crotty’s Kids-related merchandise sales, as well as foreign and domestic licensing.
PROJECT BUDGET (AVAILABLE TO SERIOUS PARTIES UPON REQUEST)
FUNDING SOURCES
Foundations:
1) Fledgling Fund: Crotty’s Kids was a grant finalist for postproduction support in June 2010 and will reapply with a more finished rough cut in August 2010 for outreach support.
2) Cinereach: solicited in June 2010 for postproduction support.
3) Sundance Documentary Fund: to be solicited for postproduction support.
4) Tribeca Documentary Fund: to be solicited in October 2010 for postproduction support.
5) New York State Council on the Arts: to be solicited in February 2011 for outreach support.
Secured Private Sources:
1) James Marshall Crotty: ($51,800 cash and in-kind donation to cover primary production).
2) Monk Media: ($15,650 in-kind donation to cover design, programming, hosting, marketing, and search engine optimization of existing and expanded website for www.CrottysKids.com.)
3) Justin Oberman: ($26,200 in-kind donation for sound and video equipment and shooting 40 hours of video).
4) Alex Kosene: ($12,000 in-kind donation for equipment and shooting second trailer and teaser footage).
5) Cevin Soling: ($10,000 in-kind donation for consulting and creating first trailer and teaser).
6) Duncan Sylvester: ($600 in-kind donation for one day of spot shooting).
7) Nathan Katzman: ($1,200 in-kind donation for two days of spot shooting).
Pending Private Sources:
1) Michael Kassner: ($20,000 donation contingent upon securing at least $40,000 in other donations).
2) A collection of prominent attorneys – all former debaters -- that will donate between $100 and $10,000.
3) Approximately 120 supporters of the National Association of Urban Debate League.
4) Supporters of the Eagle Academy.
Amount Needed to Finish Postproduction and Outreach: $50,000.
The above funding request will allow us to complete the editing, sound design, mixing, scoring, color correction and outreach for Crotty’s Kids. These funds will be used between August 2010 and June 2011.
PROJECT TIMELINE
Crotty’s Kids has completed primary production and is now in postproduction. We will complete final editing by January 2011.
PROJECT LEADERSHIP
Producer/Director/Writer JAMES CROTTY is best known as the cofounder, editor, and peripatetic publisher of Monk: the Mobile Magazine. He is the author of several books, including “How To Talk American” (Houghton Mifflin), “The USA Phrasebook” (Lonely Planet), and, with fellow “Monk” Michael Lane, of “Mad Monks on the Road” (Simon & Schuster), “The Mad Monks’ Guide to New York City” (Macmillan), and “The Mad Monks’ Guide to California” (Macmillan). From 1998-2000, Crotty and Lane were Playboy’s chief travel and culture correspondents, generating one million unique monthly visitors to their offbeat videos, profiles, and guides on the “Prowl” section of Playboy.com. Since then, Crotty has commandeered several works in TV, multimedia, and film, including “The Mad Monks’ Guide to NY CD-ROM” (Voyager/Monk Media), “The Audition” (Spectacle Films), “Apryl Miller: Color and Sound” (Monk Media), and the eponymous “Crotty’s Kids” (Crotty’s Kids, LLC). (Phone: 646-246-4795)
Crotty’s Kids Co-writer and Co-producer BRUCE UPBIN is a Managing Editor at Forbes Media in charge of new editorial product development across all platforms. Before that, he was an Assistant Managing Editor running the magazine's technology and health coverage as well as special sections on innovation and creativity. Upbin joined Forbes as a Reporter in 1995 and has served as Deputy Chief of the reporting staff, Midwest Bureau Chief, and Senior Editor. He has written a dozen cover stories and regularly provides business commentary on CNN, NPR, CNBC, BBC, Forbes on Radio and Fox News. (Phone: 212-367-3239)
Crotty’s Kids Executive Producer CEVIN SOLING, president of Spectacle Films and Xemu Records, is deeply involved in the entertainment industry as a writer, director, producer, and performing artist. Soling directed and produced The War On Kids, winner of the best educational documentary award at the New York Independent Film and Video Festival. Soling also produced the hour-long documentary about trepanation, A Hole in the Head, which won the Best Documentary Award at both the Atlantic City Film Festival and at the Brooklyn International Film Festival. (Phone: 917-549-2052)
Crotty’s Kids Editor GINA LEIBRECHT has collaborated with documentary filmmaker, Les Blank, on several projects, including All In This Tea, which she co-produced, co-directed, and edited, and which had its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2007. Among other highlights are Karina Epperlein’s Phoenix Dance, about a dancer who returns to the stage after losing a leg to cancer, which won San Francisco International Film Festival’s Golden Gate Award for Best Documentary Short in 2006, and made the short list of Academy Award Nominations for Best Short Subject Documentary in 2006; and Kevin White’s A Land Between Rivers, a one-hour documentary about the history of California’s Central Valley for PBS, which won a CINE Golden Eagle Award for Excellence in Film and Television in 2007. (415-206-1633)
Crotty’s Kids Editor DUSTY DUPREL is an experienced storyteller, and editor of the feature film Beyond the Chair, shot and produced in over six countries. (Phone: 619-985-8847)
Crotty’s Kids videographer/coproducer ALEX KOSENE is a bicoastal writer and producer, and founding partner of Third Strand Productions. (Phone: 646-460-6595)
Crotty’s Kids’ SAMI MUSTAKLEM is an Indianapolis-based film editor, and founding partner of Third Strand Productions.
Crotty’s Kids Assistant DP JESSICA SOW is in her third year at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
DIRECTOR’S ARTISTIC STATEMENT:
I am making “Crotty’s Kids” in order to demonstrate a constructive way to solve the much-discussed problem of inner city dropouts. Debate was a positive way for me to escape a troubled Nebraska home and attend a top college, Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. I wanted the same opportunity for young Black and Hispanic men from the South Bronx. My hope is that Crotty’s Kids will inspire audiences in the tradition of other “triumph” documentaries, such as “Mad Hot Ballroom,” “Murderball” and “Hoop Dreams.” I believe that audiences act to solve a social problem when they are entertained and when the issue is made personal.
As a result, there will be plenty of suspense and emotional highs and lows as I seek to transform, almost overnight, my content-light amateurs into critical thinking champions. The Eagle team is green, with only one year of experience under its belt. They must overcome not only their harsh surroundings, but see me through to the swift victory I know they can achieve. “You may not believe it now, but I will deliver a state championship for Eagle in year three of this program,” I said at a school assembly in the first year of the program. The young debaters didn’t have a clue what I meant, but a courageous few were willing to join me on my quixotic quest.
What I didn’t reveal was that I wasn’t settling for a state championship. My sights were set higher. I wanted to coach the first urban team in America to qualify for debate’s triple crown: The Catholic Forensics League Nationals, the National Forensics League Nationals, and the prestigious Tournament of Champions. I achieved this goal while coach at Bronx Science, whose students are selected based on a highly competitive entrance exam. There is no entrance exam required to attend Eagle, which is situated near Yankee Stadium in the heart of the South Bronx, an area where sixty percent of black men never even finish high school, let alone win debate tournaments. I was determined to prove that any kid, from any background, could compete with the city’s best and brightest. It was a daunting challenge I set for my young charges, and myself, but, as you will learn in watching this film, I do not shy away from challenges, even at the cost of my health. As we watch the Eagles traverse a huge chasm in cultural capital, however, I end up overcoming the biggest hurdle, as I become the male mentor I never had myself.
But beyond its entertaining narrative, Crottys Kids also packs a socio-political punch, subtly exploring the manipulation of power in America. High school debate is a game, but it’s the same game played by CEOs, trial lawyers, and political candidates, who will trade in what they believe for what they know will win. Crotty’s Kids also introduces us to the subculture of high school debate, its key players and ancestry, odd habits and lingo. This is fast-paced theater, a sport featuring academic athletes from all walks of life, a bulwark of the Western tradition. And it happens every weekend under our noses in mostly empty classrooms across the USA.
