Blair

English professor Michelle Blair started preparing to work on her documentary “The People’s College”, which was a profile of students and the challenges they face of the local community college system. The film is currently on hold.

The film began production with pre-interviews and the choice of who would join the project in the summer of 2011.

Blair started with some money from family that would give her the opportunity to film a short clip and start a Kickstarter campaign that would enable her to film the full movie.

Once the Kickstarter was up for five to six weeks Blair met her goal of $5,000

In addition to the Kickstarter campaign, Blair also applied for the Independent Television Service grant to help her film as much as she could.

She filmed a 10-minute trailer and sent it to the grant and succeeded in receiving the grant; since then, Blair has been unable to raise money for the film.

She spent a year applying for 10 grants to foundations such as Sundance Film Festival, Lumina Foundation, and Latino Public Broadcasting, but she has only received rejections.

Blair’s goal is to raise $2,000 to make a new trailer due to new ideas and plans that have come up in the past year that can be put in the trailer.

“On the one hand I feel like the film is part of something bigger, but on the other hand I feel like I’m alone in it,” Blair said, “I haven’t found anyone to come on board and be on the same level as me so that’s where I am right now.”

A release date has yet to be announced.