When we talk about the cities that define America, the same ones come to mind: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles. Cities filled with twinkling lights that have inspired many grand stories that leave so many breathless. But there is another city that needs to be in the conversation—a city that encapsulates the American dream better than any other place previously named: Detroit. The hub of the industrial revolution. The home of the automobile. The place where modern music and techno was born. A town built on grit and determination, where a strong sense of community has kept the heart of the city pumping.

In 2008, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm signed a film incentive package that was preparing the city to take flight in the film industry. The incentive, which was the biggest film incentive in the nation at the time, put the state of Michigan on track to become one of the most affordable, and therefore, biggest hubs for film and television in the U.S. The landing of major film franchises like Transformers and new tentpole projects like the television series Detroit 1-8-7 were proving to the world that Detroit was the place to be for film production. But, when Governor Rick Snyder made cuts to the incentive in 2011, Hollywood lost interest in the city.

But, in true Detroit fashion, folks continued to work hard and create. The people of Detroit have a work ethic that cannot be matched, all while keeping a kindness and honesty about them. It is a breeding ground for artistic discovery. Independent artistic collectives and production companies have been here, finding success both locally and internationally. There is commercial and branded content (Kai Dowridge's American Utopia: Detroit", Margot Bowman and Imani Mixon's "Showing Up, Showing Out") along with a growing narrative scene ( Ahya Simone's "Femme Queen Chronicles", Detroiters). The moment you step into the city, it all comes together. The realization that you are on sacred ground, the history created here woven into the fabric of what makes Detroit…Detroit. There is something to be said about a city that—in spite of the false narrative that it is a struggling ghost town—kept its head held high and pushed forward. The work speaks for itself.

We talked to some local creatives in the city who work hard to make sure people know what the city has always known: the spirit in Detroit has never faltered, even with all the strife that has come its way.

Andre Foster (First Fight)


André Foster is the Co-Founder and Partner of First Fight, a creative studio based in Detroit, Michigan. An alumni of College for Creative Studies, André has established a prolific and illustrious career in the advertising industry that has spanned nearly 20 years. In that time, he has expanded his skill set from Illustration to motion design, 3D, video editing and now to creative entrepreneur. Since First Fight began in 2016, André along with his partner Guy Allen have helped cultivate successful partnerships with clients such as Dave & Busters, Stock X, and Quicken Loans family of companies; as well as supporting great community non-profits. As creative director of First Fight, André’s goal is to create world-class work at every turn, and opening up a world of possibilities for the next wave of artists in Detroit.

Guy Allen (First Fight)


Guy Allen is an award-winning commercial illustrator, motion graphics designer and animator who’s been creating knock-out work in Detroit for over 15 years. Serving as Partner and Creative Director at First Fight, Allen has helped both local and national brands from Dave & Busters to Quicken Loans and StockX. On a mission to keep Detroit creatives in the city, Allen and his business partner Andre Foster have embarked on the mission of telling the world about the top-level talent here in Detroit. Inspired by his wife and kids, Guy is driven to be the best animator, boss and entrepreneur he can be.

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Detroit Narrative Agency


Detroit Narrative Agency incubates quality and compelling stories that help shift the dominant harmful narratives about Detroit towards stories of liberation and justice. Our fellowship program supports a cohort of Black and Brown filmmakers in Detroit to develop short films and accompanying community impact strategies. We also have other programming, like quarterly film screenings that bring people together to discuss film and media relevant to our communities.
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ill Weaver


ill Weaver is a founding director of Detroit Narrative Agency. In addition to their work with DNA they are an artist and organizer who co-founded Emergence Media, Complex Movements, Detroit Future Youth, and coordinated Detroit Summer for over a decade. Their artistic work has been recognized by awards and fellowships including: Sundance Knight Fellows (2016), United States Artists (2015), Kresge Arts in Detroit (2010), and the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for Women and Gender in the Arts and Media (2009).

Cornetta Lane Smith


Cornetta Lane Smith is the Director of Community Impact at Detroit Narrative Agency (DNA), where she will help nurture the narrative-shifting ecosystem in Detroit and nationally. Cornetta believes that storytelling can facilitate healing, build community, and eliminate harmful narratives. Since 2015, Cornetta has founded three community storytelling projects: Core City Stories, Pedal to Porch, and Dinner for 30 — all of which provides Detroiters a platform to tell stories that truly matter to them.

Ryan Pearson


Ryan is the Director of Programs for Detroit Narrative Agency (DNA) She is a native Detroiter, innate creative, cinephile, and arts administrator by trade. She received her Bachelor of Theater of Arts from the University of Michigan, and later completed graduate studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Ryan's goal is to contribute to immersing Detroit and the world in layered, complex, and nuanced stories centering people of the African Diaspora and other beautiful communities that have often been misrepresented, underrepresented, neglected, and/or overlooked.

Eden Sabolboro


Eden Sabolboro is an award-winning video and film producer and video journalist. She hopes to contribute to finding opportunities and solutions to the social and financial issues that many women of color filmmakers and creatives grapple with today. Her film and video storytelling projects are best described as refreshingly inclusive and courageously human.

Jeremy Brockman


Jeremy Brockman is an Emmy award-winning cinematographer from Detroit, MI. Not having a formal film school education, Jeremy was able to learn much about the craft of cinematography by freelancing as a camera assistant, and eventually camera operator for narrative shorts, documentaries and music videos. Jeremy’s passion for cinematography comes from his belief that powerful imagery and thoughtful storytelling can be used to create significant change within society.

Kai Dowridge


She is a fine art photographer, filmmaker, creative, and an optimist. Kai’s passion for photography started off from telling stories through her own eyes as a child. She studied and watched how people’s different expressions on their faces and bodies translated into their stories, and then transferred this into art. This was how she knew portraiture was important to her, telling stories through people. She knew nothing about photography or knew it was even a career option until she reached the age of 16. She then discovered people who are now her daily inspirations like Bee and Roger Walker, Vivian Maier, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Gordon Parks, and many more who had influenced and inspired her to dig deeper into the craft. Kai continues her love for photography and continually photographs throughout all of Detroit and beyond.

Paige Wood


Paige Wood is an award-winning independent filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, and creative consultant who may or may not be the third Morgendorffer sister — only unapologetically Black and with better glasses. Born in Detroit and working worldwide, Paige is inspired by the surreal, the all too real, and the trying times of early adulthood.

Terry King


Terry King Founded STS Editorial in 1993, A high-end creative edit house, which grew into the full service post-production house, STS Marketing LLC dba TERRITORY. Born and raised in Detroit, Terry still lives in the area with his wife and two daughters. An avid trapshooter, cyclist, roller Skater and sometime guitarist, Terry choses to run his business from the editorial chair. Starting his career as an assistant with Detroit’s premiere editorial house at the time Image Express, back in 1983, Terry says, “As long as the business will have me, I’ll be around”.
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What is the artistic language of Detroit?

Eden Sabolboro

One thing that I do appreciate being in the city of Detroit is the fact that, in comparison to a lot of other places that have more established infrastructure for their industries, we can still create. Because of the lack of actual infrastructure [here], you really get a sense of people working on their goals together. To be an artist and a creative in Detroit, it's very much entrenched and involved with community as well.

Jeremy Brockman

Detroit is a big hustle town. That's kind of the way filmmaking is here, because there's not someone to just give you $50,000 and say, "Hey, go make your feature film." So they might make a $10,000 feature film, which is literally no money. Then they take [what they make from that project] and they invest it into another and try to get bigger. So there's people doing things, but it's such a grind. It's just like it is anywhere I can imagine, but even more so here.

Kai Dowridge

It's like a big bowl of sweet potato pie. It's so sweet, you can't even think of another name for it. No matter where you're from, what your background is, we always welcome and accept you for who you are. Detroit has some character. It's just a lot of people outside can't really see past through how the media, social media, and news talk about us. Detroit has some soul, some character. Nobody can make a sweet potato pie as good as a Detroiter. And that means no one can do what we do.

Paige Wood

The word that comes to mind is "seismic." When Detroit enters a space, that presence is felt. Detroit is the originator of a lot of things⁠—as a city, as a community, as a culture⁠—from music to fashion to film and all other forms of art, you can see the impact of Detroit from every angle. Especially when you recognize that Black culture is the driver of all popular culture…I can't put my name on an exact way to describe the city's artistic language, but the word "pioneer" is in whatever that definition might be, for sure.

What made you stay in the city instead of migrating out to Los Angeles or New York?

Guy Allen

Honestly, I never even thought about leaving. It is a town filled with family-oriented people. Working remotely is great with technology today. We can work from anywhere. Yeah it's good to be in LA to make contact and things, but we're doing fine where we're at. We fly out every once in a while. We make contacts out there, but we always come back.

Jeremy Brockman

What made me stay here in Detroit is that there are still a lot of great stories to be told about the city and its people. [Those stories should be] told by people who have been here.

Paige Wood

I tried LA. Don't get me wrong, I liked the hustle and bustle, but what I love about Detroit is that people want to know you, not just your work. More often than not, what you will hear here is, "What do you stand for? What do you value?" before folks even get to, "So, what do you do?" It's refreshing because that type of energy allows you to see who you align with or can learn to vibe with upfront. You really can't put up any pretenses here.

Terry King

I started work as an editor in the '80s. There was so much work here. There was national work. A lot of [the filmmaking] things that are done in LA are done, to this day, because [people in Detroit] were handling so much footage (in commercials) and we came up with ways to do things better. A lot of the [commercial] work here was industrial stuff, like automotive campaigns and some retail work, but it was really well done. [It wasn’t until] the late '80s, early '90s that a lot of the agencies started taking a lot of work out west.

Ryan Pearson

I actually lived in California for a bit, and it never really felt like home, and was unsustainably expensive. In the time I was there, I also had an epiphany that unless Hollywood is the route you absolutely want to go, you can be involved in independent media making anywhere. For the types of stories and work I've desired to be a part of, Hollywood wasn't a total necessity. I don't think ill or Cornetta ever had intentions of moving to those cities because their core focuses were not on filmmaking, but more so storytelling, other art forms, and community organizing through an array of platforms. It depends on what your goal is. At DNA, we are focused on community-based storytelling and community impact versus appealing to the industry.

"People always say, 'Detroit is coming back, Detroit is coming back.' But personally, for me, in the five years that I've observed, I don't think Detroit really ever left…The city was kept alive by it's really robust and passionate artist community." -Eden Sabolboro

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How are you using film to cultivate community in the city?

Andre Foster

One thing I've talked to Guy about, and one of the things that I really want to try and do in the future, is to reach kids at a middle school to college level. We’ll let them see what we do: animation, video, production, and all that. I don't know if [the program will be] an internship, or if it’ll be us going out and speaking. We’ll let them know that, if you have an interest in this and a passion for it, you can do this sort of thing here.

Detroit Narrative Agency

We've had many film community folks come on to DNA-supported projects from our fellowship program as mentors, production crew, and in other roles. In turn, we've fostered new connections and collaborations. There is really interesting and unique media creation happening in Detroit, and as DNA grows, we have been able to rep for our city nationally and get people interested in the work we and other Detroit media makers are doing. We are growing and people are looking at Detroit media and DNA wondering what's next, which is exciting.

Jeremy Brockman

I see my role as kind of assisting storytellers and bringing their visuals to life. So that when that time comes, we'll have some people here with some really legitimate pieces that can generate more interest and [hopefully] more money to support everything.

Paige Wood

As a producer, my biggest goal is to work with productions that have an explicit intent to work with and within the community. That means hiring local Black and Brown talent both above and below the line, paying equitable rates, and making a conscious effort to include impacted and/or relevant voices within shaping the storytelling for the screen. In essence, my vision of community is one where creators who value the city and the work that needs to be done, are connected with the best people to get it done⁠—and it's awesome that I facilitate that vision.

"Success in the city is driven by Black women, and the city's filmmaking community is no exception. If you're looking to bring any badass Black femmes or non-binary folks onto any production, Detroit is the first city where you should look."

-Paige Wood

Showing Up, Showing Out

Why do you think Detroit is often left out of conversations regarding the film industry?

Detroit Narrative Agency

Detroit has been left out of conversations regarding the film industry because it's not viewed as an industry city even though film is made here. At the moment there isn't the infrastructure or resources being poured into film and media making film a sustainable industry in Detroit. We started to see some build when the film tax incentives were established years ago, but when they were cut by former governor Rick Snyder, the infrastructure that was developing ceased. If there was more funding that supported the development of films and filmmakers, which would also encourage people to stay in the city and do work, we would potentially be on the map as a film industry city. There's no question of whether or not the talent exists. There is so much talent here; what is missing is the platform, resources, and opportunities.

Eden Sabolboro

Large scale production companies won't touch a state if they don't get a tax break from it. That's just the obvious truth. You now get a community of people who have stayed behind, and are forging a name for themselves in very creative ways. And making something out of nothing. Hollywood now and the rest of the industry are looking to these regions that are not really touched a lot. They're looking to the Midwest for the next great story. I think that instead of [creators in Detroit] feeling like, "Hey, we're left out of these discussions because we don't have film incentives," we should think, "Oh, [staying in our city]is a ripe opportunity for us." There's so many more stories coming out of the woodwork that need to be told. We're primed to be able to tell these stories ourselves.

Jeremy Brockman

When you pair a great idea with really good technical execution, people start to notice. You become legitimate. The artists here, I feel like they have some really, really great ideas, but they just don't have the technical execution that's needed for people in LA or people in New York to notice. When you get a certain part of the market to consider you legitimate, that's how you get money to do bigger projects.

Terry King

A lot of companies thought, “I can be here in January in Detroit with 21 inches of snow or I can be in LA and be out on the beach” or whatever. For the film side, there was a lot of excitement, but it all went away when the governor took away the tax incentive. [The government] couldn’t see the revenue that would come from the media industry when [creatives] could. [So film companies were like], "Look at Atlanta!" Some of the bigger post-houses would have been able to survive [if the tax incentives stayed].

"There is so much talent here; what is missing is the platform, resources, and opportunities." – Detroit Narrative Agency

What is happening in the city to help change the narrative around the artistic community in Detroit?

Eden Sadolboro

When you come to Detroit, you will meet a lot of filmmakers who are making things happen. and creating an infrastructure that supports everybody. I am a part of Final Girls Detroit. We're a small pool of professional women filmmakers, or women identified filmmakers. With organizations like this, factions of creatives and filmmakers can support each other and still get shit done.

Jeremy Brockman

There are things happening. There are fellowships that are going on here to support different disciplines. One example is The Kresge Foundation. They have an annual Kresge Fellow Arts Fellowship. They select nine people each year from different disciplines to be a Kresge Fellow, and they give you a $25,000 check, no strings attached, for you to be an artist. Our government didn't really give us time to build up a significant infrastructure before they killed the tax incentives, but I think we are getting back to it.

Paige Wood

The Detroit industry is a film school in itself. You're learning from each other. [Organizations like] Detroit Narrative Agency are working to shift narratives around Detroit, particularly with projects done by Detroiters themselves. [Because of that] In my experience with the crews that I've worked with, you're not outsourcing to LA or New York.

What is it like being on a Detroit set? What makes the experience stand out?

Jeremy Brockman

There isn’t much in the way of traditional filmmaking going on here, but being that Detroiters are natural hustlers, films are being made and sold in the same spirit that music artists make albums and “sell out of their trunk.” With the widespread availability of equipment and knowledge from YouTube, people are telling their own stories on their own terms. You’ve got your hood dramas, art films, experimental films, whatever you want to make.

The best part about shooting here as an indie filmmaker native to the city is the access you can get if you’ve got a relationship with the community. Filmmakers, in the city specifically, rely a lot on relationships to get access to locations and other resources. Sometimes, you just go out on the street and shoot. It’s kind of wide open. The community supports that.

Paige Wood

The only way to describe it is unpredictable. For so long, we were and still are a very guerilla-style, by-any-means-necessary type of city when it comes to production, especially when it comes to working within the neighborhoods or outside of the city center. Here, you only work with what you need and the strongest of who you need—no more or no less. To be clear, that's mentality isn't always by choice, but unless you're working on a car commercial—and even still—that's just the reality of how most have to get by.

Last summer for "Showing Up, Showing Out," we were having trouble finding a classic car for our shoot. The first day of filming, we managed to find a lead and drove up to their house to film, but it turned out their car wasn't one that fully fit the image we were going for. Still, the owners were nice enough to invite us to their backyard barbecue happening at the same time, as a chance to chill and get to know us. They didn't care that this shoot was with Dazed or for Carharrt, they just liked our energy. And as crazy as it sounds, it turned out that this was a barbecue hosted by the leader of one of the state's biggest car clubs, and by way of good conversation, great food, and elote, we soon secured the car of our production dreams not even 30 minutes after first arriving.

What do you want people to know about Detroit?

Detroit Narrative Agency

Detroit's current gentrification is not a "comeback." It's been an intentional investment to attract outside people to the city, instead of using those resources to invest in the majority Black and brown people who have been here for generations. Detroit never "left." Detroiters have been here, are resilient, and will continue to pour into our city and communities because we love it, and it's ours.

Eden Sabolboro

People always say, "Detroit is coming back, Detroit is coming back." But personally, for me, in the five years that I've observed, I don't think Detroit really ever left. The city was kept alive by its really robust and passionate artist community.

Guy Allen

Everybody in this town is really friendly. Especially if you're a business owner, people want you to succeed here. That's a major thing—people want you to succeed.

Kai Dowridge

People from out of town ask all the time, "What is the thing I should know about Detroit?” and I'd always say: get to know the people here. It would change your mind so much.

Paige Wood

Success in the city is driven by Black women, and the city's filmmaking community is no exception. If you're looking to bring any badass Black femmes or non-binary folks onto any production, Detroit is the first city where you should look.

Terry King

There are some incredibly creative people here. Creativity comes out of lacking. If you don’t have much to work with, you create stuff to work with. I always love to see what people come up with when they don’t have everything at their disposal. The creativity is here. The people that can do the work are here if you’re willing to look beyond what makes you comfortable. Let people be themselves and do what they do. I’ve met a lot of people that were super creative that didn't get where they should have gotten. And advertisement is one of those businesses that should take a look at itself.

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