How is it that everything has to revolve around me? I have some major issues.
Last year on my bornday the iNternets Celebrities brain trust (RAFI, CAS and I) were having an e-mail convo and CAS broached the idea of shooting a movie about check cashing spots after Rafi spotted a comment at Oh Word suggesting that. As usual we all agree that we will do it, but the truth is that our daily schedules don’t easily facilitate our filmmaking desires. As I re-read that thread I kind of laugh to myself because the movie we ended up creating is expressed in that e-mail.
Check cashing locations are necessary evils in poor neighborhoods. They provide the services that banks are unwilling and incapable of generating. The check cashing locations keep poor people on the economic grid.
RAFI and I are somewhat idiot savants in that even though we are both writers we have a hard time delivering outlines and scripts to CASIMIR for discussion. We generally like to meet up beforehand and figure out our locations then just go in and start shooting and let the discovery of the moment guide us. That’s easy work for RAFI and I. For CAS, not so much. He has hours of tape stock to upload and review. I don’t envy his workload.
The following film you are about to go in on is from several days of shooting. CAS and I did a scout reel first as we rolled around Bushwick, Brooklyn. We brought in IAN SAVAGE for the the first day of hard shooting in and around Bushwick. IAN rolled with us up in Utah at the Sundance Film Festival. The third day of filming we indoctrinated JOSH WEISBROT to the i.C. collective as we drove around Downtown Brooklyn. Many hours of film footage went into this short video.
Chea goes out to BEN POPKEN from Consumerist dot com, CLAY RAIDER gave us some real talk. He is a dude we chopped it up with outside of the Taj Mahal of check cashing spots. Shout to VeE from Scritch and Scratch for supplying some sketches for the visuals. ELI KETER does the music and you really need to show him some respect when the horns blow in. ‘Bodega’ has been a wildly successful film for us and we recently won the judges honorable mention at the Paul Robeson Film Festival at the Newark Museum (come out and check us at the screenings in July). ‘Checkmate’ is even better. Word to Ol’ Dirty Bastard.
“Cash rules everything around me. C.R.E.A.M. get the money, dollar dollar bill y’all!”
Yo this is ill cause I was watching this documentary about credit this weekend. How about all those big banks that won’t come to the hood ARE financial backers for those checking cashing places. So we won’t come there…but we will fund the people who charge you more.
I.C.’s Stay Winning.
yo d you are crazy kid.yo banks step ya game up!!classic
“Debt is the new money.”
Brilliant
Another great video…
real
Debt is effed the eff up!
Nothing like the check cashing spot with the three inch thick bulletproof glass. *sigh*
Love it!
this joint was informative and funny as hell. Good work, y’all stay winning
debt is definitely the new money.
iC’s stay winning. awards and props, mostly, but who knows. maybe someday you guys can get iC, LLC into debt!
good work, fam.
Good movie and funny, never really thought about the check cashing places like that until I saw this. If I may ask, what camera and audio setup did you guys use?, because the quality was really good.
loved the vid, brings back memories lmao.
and reminds me that i got one to turn in fridayyyyyy… at a small fee of course.
Good work.
Poor people don’t trust the bank with their money.
LOL.
ended up regretting making it rain, huh?
hahahaaa
Best yet. Nice work, fellas.
The big ass check killed it. The question is how much was it for.
Our biggest big check so far has been for five bills. It gets split a whole bunch of ways but I ended up with about a hundred. I spent that on a pair of Foamposite 1 retros.
Chea!
Another classic piece of edutainment.
“If I die today, I win” -lol, nice work guys
Loved it!
“making it rain…….lot of anxiety in that. What is that about?” LMAO!
Another classic. Nearly a dozen LOL lines that I could count. I linked. DP readers with blogs should do the same.
CLASSIC!
best one yet – absolute kwality!