FOLLOW THE MONEY one of the most unique Independent UK film in years

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FOLLOW THE MONEY

BY

JOHN HARDWICK

About The Film  –

For thirty days and thirty nights three British filmmakers follow a ten dollar bill as it criss-crosses the United States. The bill passes through the hands of countless wonderful characters, and as the journey stretches out across 6,000 miles, a unique portrait of contemporary American life unfolds before us.

The Team Behind The Film  –

John Hardwick – John is a TV and film director who has made programmes for Channel4, Film4 and the BBC. He has made two previous feature films, including Svengali, a comedy drama starring Jonny Owen, Vicky McClure and Martin Freeman which is being released next year.

Steve Boggan – Steve is a journalist who writes for national newspapers and magazines in the UK. He is a former chief reporter at The Independent whose work has appeared in The Guardian G2 and its Weekend magazine, The Times, The Sunday Times magazine,The Observer magazine, the Daily Mail, National Geographic Traveller and The Independent’s Saturday magazine. He was included in the 2012 Time Out Culture 100 list, the magazine’s choice of the most original and influential people in the creative and media industries.

Ben Unwin – Ben has directed music videos and commercials for clients such as Dido, Yusuf (AKACat Stevens), Panasonic and Hyundai. His first feature documentary Well Done Now Sod Off about the band Chumbawamba, won the Audience Award at the Leeds International Film Festival. As well as directing, Ben also edits for other directors across a wide range of genres from documentary to comedy series.

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In 2010, long before Follow The Money was even a twinkle in our documentary makers’ eyes, Steve Boggan was in the U.S. working on a book that would inspire the film. He came up with the idea of following a ten dollar bill as it crossed the country. He wrote down his experiences and produced a wonderful book about his travels called, you guessed it, Follow The Money. Here it is:

The book came out in 2012. It was tremendously well reviewed and was a BBC Radio 4 Book Of The Week.

John told Steve that the concept behind his book would make a great documentary. Ben was enlisted into the team and the three of us pooled our resources. We borrowed some cameras and set off to find out how the concept would work with added film crew… We found that it worked better than any of us had imagined!

The rules of the film

Because Follow The Money is based around the random movement of money, we decided on three rules to give our shoot a solid framework.

Rule 1: Start in the geographic dead centre of the United States. If you include Alaska and Hawaii, the centre of the USA is a small town called Belle Fourche in South Dakota. Here it is:

Rule 2: Find a local person in the centre of the United States and give them the bill. Explain that it is now up to them how they spend it. We never touch the bill again. From now on, the bill belongs to other people and they decide where it goes.

Rule 3: Follow the money for one calendar month. If you haven’t met an incredible cross section of the great American public after 30 days, you probably never will.

The people we met along the way

The people we encountered whilst following the bill were some of the most fantastic and interesting people we could hope to meet.

We met truckers, cowboy poets, native american singers, a university professor, an itinerant busker, a homeless car washer, an oil millionaire, a feted jazz musician, a transgender chef who used to cook for Bill Clinton, A woman who worked for the US military but was constrained by law from being able to tell us any more than that, a bar manager, a coffee grower, a gang of punks who thought they were pirates, a garbage man, an excommunicated Mormon bishop, A fairground girl, two hippies and a cattle rancher. To name but a few

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