A Visit to the Movies, American Made

I want to let you know about a movie that I decided to see the other day. I drove to nearby Baltimore’s historic Charles Theatre to see American Made Movie, which has just concluded a 32-city, 32-day tour.  I must admit that I don’t go out to the movies much anymore. Perhaps it’s because of the comfort my oversized HDTV in my own living room offers, or the rising cost of the movie experience.  Maybe it is the seemingly increasing regurgitation of the same ideas, with TV shows begetting movies and sequels of sequels. For that matter, it could just be that I’m getting older (hello, mid-40s!) and like to stay home more.  At any rate, I’m glad I ventured out to see this movie.

As Ken Voytek noted in a recent blog, "Historically, manufacturing has been a key driver of economic growth after a recession and thus it is important to see it return to a long-term sustainable growth trajectory."  These words seem like they could be shown as a preface to this film. The movie indeed demonstrates the importance of manufacturing to America. It really connected with me on a personal level, as it framed the story of American manufacturing in places that I have ties to, including Detroit, where I lived in the late 1990s; Cromwell, CT, where my father worked in the mid 90s; and Gwinnett County, GA — part of metro Atlanta, where I was born and raised.

In Detroit, which recently filed for bankruptcy, the film notes the city’s troubles that have occurred as manufacturing jobs have ebbed. When I Iived there between 1996-2000, I was struck by the once-impressive architecture and infrastructure that had begun to crumble. During my time there for instance, Tigers Stadium — which had opened in 1912 five days after the Titanic sank, yet remained a fantastic place to watch a baseball game near the end of the 20^th Century — held its final Detroit Tigers game. The J.L. Hudson Building — built in in 1911 — was demolished, and in the process, rubble was accidentally strewn onto the Detroit People Mover, causing it to shut down until the following year. It was evident in the late 90s that Detriot was clearly facing a tough road ahead, yet conditions seem to have worsened since. In fact, the film notes that Detroit has lost about half of its manufacturing jobs just in the last decade. Perhaps the most incredible stat about Detroit is that it is the only city in North American that went from a population of more than two million to less than one million during the 20^th Century.

In Cromwell, the movie tells the story of Merrie Buchsbaum, an entrepreneur, founder, and owner of Merrily Made, a handmade polymer jewelry and pen company that counts the Smithsonian Institution among its clients. Merrie attended the Baltimore screening and spoke afterwards about the need for consumers to consider the full ramifications of their purchasing decisions. I thought about Mark Schmit’s May blog in which he noted the Consumer Reports finding that 78% of U.S. consumers prefer American-made products over their foreign-made counterparts. American Made Movie makes the point that, for the consumer, the cheapest product doesn’t necessarily mean the best value when quality is factored in. The film also reminds us that when choosing which product to buy, one should also consider the impact on the community where that product is made. In doing the “calculus,” we’re to take the manufacturer of the product, its employees, and their families into account. Plus, there is a further “multiplier effect” to figure in. When you also consider that every $1 spent in final sales of manufactured products supports $1.40 in output from other sectors of the economy, the importance of purchasing an American-made product become even more apparent.

In Gwinnett County — home of Dacula High School, where filmmakers Nathaniel Thomas McGill and Vincent Vittorio graduated — the film features community leaders talking about a comprehensive community and economic development plan that has been developed and enacted via Partnership Gwinnet. As a result of taking a proactive approach to growing their manufacturing base, the county has expanded or relocated over 200 companies and added over 9,400 jobs in Gwinnett.

I’m also happy to report that at least two firms featured in the film are MEP clients. Athletic shoemaker New Balance, which is headquartered in Brighton, Massachusetts — with production facilities in the Bay State as well as Maine — has worked with Mass MEP and Maine MEP on lean manufacturing, workplace communication, and process documentation. Viking Range, which makes industrial-grade consumer appliances and is based in Greenwood, Mississippi, has been involved in numerous projects with Innovate Mississippi  (the state’s MEP affiliate), including finite element analysis (a numerical method to analyze a material or object and find how applied stresses will affect the material or design).

I credit the filmmakers for taking an apolitical tone to the film when discussing topics that could certainly become political, and often do. Meanwhile, while the movie tour for American Made Movie has ended (the final stop took place August 5^th in my original hometown of Atlanta), the film will hit theatres for general release in August 30. If what I’ve written has piqued your curiosity, then perhaps you might check it out.

Do you have a comment or a thought about American Made Movie, or about the topics that it examines? If so, please share them here.