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Welcome to our little experiment in community publishing. This is our 10th year – a pretty amazing milestone for any publishing endeavor, much less a niche-oriented business “trade” like this one. But the roots of Michigan Vue go back even further – almost 30 years, to a little newsletter called “Zooming In” published by the Detroit Producers Association. That newsletter quickly evolved into a full-size, quarterly magazine with a rather unique approach.
ZI was never intended to be a mere membership newsletter, but rather was conceived as a PR vehicle to bring the fractured and often fractious film and video production community – often small, competing shops – together and to promote our local crafts to the larger, media-buying clientele. And Michigan Vue was started with one express purpose – to continue that mission. To celebrate the talented craftspeople of our local film and video industry and promote the work they turn out. And to fight runaway production.
The idea is analogous to what Automation Alley has become to the area’s auto industry – an artificial entity that gives the industry a face and a forum, a reason to come together and a methodology by which to share work and ideas. But unlike the Big Three automakers and their huge cadre of suppliers, the film industry doesn’t have millions of dollars to rent a nice headquarters building and hire executives and lobbyists and staff people. So we simply asked everybody to pitch in and help. And they did. And they still do. As far as I can tell, this doesn’t happen anywhere else in the country; in this or any other business. Every industry has its trade magazines, to be sure – but none of them are based on an insane business model like this one.
So thanks, to all of you, for letting us be a part of the production family in Michigan. Thanks to all the photographers and graphic artists and our regular writers and all the occasional contributors. Thanks to everyone who’s ever bought ad space. (Please buy more ads. Subscriptions ain’t payin’ for this). Thanks to all of you who cheerfully provided your client lists and agency contacts so that we could develop a mailing list to get the word out. So – now we are 10. Happy birthday to Vue, and happy anniversary to a concept and a community view which stretch back almost 30 years. Keep the work at home.
- Doug Trevethan, Editor-in-Chief
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