Jimmy Lifton

Lifton deserves accolades for this move because it expresses the ‘Three E’s’ of Gamechanging–Emotion, Environment and Education–and also because until we put a lens on the Unity Studios scene, there was no such thing as a ‘Three E’s of GameChanging.’ So thank you, Jimmy, for that.

Here, minty fresh, are the Three E’s, as expressed by Jimmy Lifton:

Emotion.  Nothing expresses heart any better than a person who returns home to help folks out.  You can look at It’s A Wonderful Life, when George Bailey postpones his honeymoon to stave off a bank run in his hometown of Bedford Falls; you can look at Michael Moore and the city of Flint, Michigan, in Roger and Me, the documentary that put Moore on the map; and you can look at Unity Studios, which is getting built in Allen Park outside of Detroit, where Jimmy Lifton was born and began his career as a studio musician and recording artist.

Environment.  The Unity Studios scene acts on a Wayne County, Michigan, environment that is in such a state of upheavel it is as receptive to innovation as newly-plowed earth is to plant seeds.  Real estate prices are low.  The labor pool is large, with high unemployment, which means the cost of labor is low.  The state of Michigan, its Governor, Jennifer Granholm, and the Michigan Film Commission have been very aggressive about courting film and TV production in the state, with $50 million in incentives given to producers in 2008.  The Film Commission says it expects $250 million to be spent on film and TV production in the state in 2009.  Finally, there’s the cinematic ‘abandoned factory/bombed out neighborhood’ look that characterizes much of Detroit City, making it ideal for any kind of post-apocalyptic story on Hollywood’s production schedule.  One person in our Facebook network made this semi-facetious suggestion a few weeks ago:  “The Obama administration should introduce a bill in Congress that for the next two years, all post-apocalyptic films must be shot in Detroit.”

Education.  Unity Studios will include the Lifton Institute for Media Skills.  This qualifies the new facility for federal and state education funds for retraining people from the automotive sector who need to find new lines of work.  By including the LIMS in the design for Unity Studios, Lifton supports the idea that learning is the gateway to transformation.  Always has been.  Always will be.  Nothing is more certain to improve one’s scenes than the introduction of new and useful information.