Kick Start This Film: Sam Marine and Michael Borowiec’s Man Underground

This article series has been absent for quite some time, and I apologize for that. Life has a weird way of catching up to you. But sometimes a film comes along that has such a cool idea, a premise that makes you say, “Dammit, why didn’t I think of that?”, you curse a bit because you didn’t but then realize the people making the film are great creative people that deserve it, so it’s all okay. That film is Sam Marine and Michael Borowiec’ Man Underground, a psychological sci-fi film about an alien conspiracy theorist who gets his friends on board to help him make a film about his past career as a government geologist. 

Kickstarter is a site that should be helping the independent filmmakers of the world to make shorts, features and other creative extravaganzas, not the Spike Lee’s, Zach Braff’s or the Veronica Mars films of the world. That might seem controversial, because nostalgia and a fanbase can make something get made (Joss Whedon’s Serenity comes to mind), so what’s the harm in that? But the way I look at it, the $50 you give to a guy who then got his film picked up and made a ton of money from it shouldn’t be going to him, but instead to a smaller affair such as this one. Having known Sam Marine and Michael Borowiec for a few years now, seeing Sam’s past work at College Humor (which was hysterical, definitely check out the Jake & Amir stuff and the music video work of Michael, there’s a ton of potential there. 

And all they’re asking for is $10,000 for the film, which is a pittance compared to the big budget indies that shouldn’t be called indies. You know the ones I’m talking about. And I love the scope they’re going for, even though they’ll be pushing that limit. Using the Red Scarlet X camera primarily, but due tot he film’s story, will be incorporating stuff such as VHS filming. And using the same actors in different roles will make for a mind bending experience, where we never know what is fact, what is fiction and how reality is all in the mind’s eye. The small town feel mixed with the alien conspiracy theme will be one that people should be looking out, a dramatic sci-fi film, one that makes you think instead of just eye candy that most are used to. 

They’re a third of the way there and about a week to go, so pass on that coffee today. Don’t eat that Taco Bell because you don’t want to make a mess in the bathroom later. Do you really need that shitty beer to drink at the bar? Go home, buy a better beer and then donate to this film because you’d be doing them and yourself a favor. And the perks that you can get are quite awesome. For $10, you can get a soundtrack of the film and my favorite perk is the $250 one, where Sam will personally paint a portrait of you or your pet which will be a truly one of a kind thing. So come on people, let’s kick start this film!

I’ll leave with a quote from Ms. Marine that I think sums up everything better than I ever could, “Michael and I co-wrote MAN UNDERGROUND to be filmed with an ultra-low budget and a small cast. We’ve studied a lot of the more successful, character-driven independent films made for around the 15K – 40K budget – films like Slacker, Clerks, Permanent Vacation, The Color Wheel – and while they all vary in story, tone and style, they share a form of storytelling heavily reliant on mise en scène, a confidence in the actors’ ability to inhabit a space and allowing them to do the bulk of the work in the world they’ve created. It’s this freedom that we find so appealing in independent film and we believe it’s an aspect to be embraced.”