Michigan native Gary Gilbert was in Birmingham, on April 12, 2011 promoting his latest movie Meet Monica Velour in a benefit for the charity JARC. Director/writer Keith Bearden, and lead actors Dustin Ingram and Kim Cattrall were also in attendance.

MMM had the opportunity to sit down with Gary and discuss his filmmaking experience.

MMM – You and your brother have demonstrated a commitment to Michigan and to the Midwest. Can you explain your feelings for Michigan and why you are committed to this region?

GG – It’s my home and always will be my home.  My closest friends today are friends that I had from junior high and high school, and funny enough, I’m the only one in my entire extended family that left.  Although I do come back, at least a half a dozen times a year, it’s convenient that Detroit‘s right enroute from N.Y. to L.A. so whenever I go to N.Y. I definitely stop in Michigan. Either on the way there or on the way back.

Having such deep roots here, I think, is at the center of why it comes natural to not even think twice about it. Bringing back a film for a fundraiser for JARC, or to benefit the city, in any way I can, in terms of filmmaking.  And that’s why we jumped on two films in two years here too; not only take advantage of the tax incentive, but to help contribute to the cause -- I mean, to building an industry here.

MMM – How did you transition from Rock Financial/Quicken to being a filmmaker?

GG – Dan was a few years older than me when we started the company. It was my summer going into my senior year at the University of Michigan.  When he asked me if I wanted to get involved in a small mortgage brokerage company, then called Rock Mortgage, it was as though he were asking me to plow snow for the winter or cut lawns for the summer.  I didn’t think it was going to become our lives.

I was with the company for the first fourteen to fifteen years, and then in 1998, we took the company public. We traded publicly for about one-and-a-half years. Then in December of 1999, we closed with Intuit Quicken. That was the point where I got out.

Even though I was a substantial shareholder, my brother was always the President and CEO. I often tell people ‘there is only so long you can work for your older brother.’ I knew that was a point where either I was gonna stay in Michigan and work with him or for him for the rest of my life, or I was going to try to venture off and make a move.

I had no idea what I wanted to do initially I moved to N.Y. I always loved N.Y. - I had a couple of friends there.  And I just started thinking what do I really love? What do I have a passion for? And its movies -- film. As a kid I’ve always loved movies; I used to go with my cousins, my brother, and old friends to Berkley every Saturday or the Royal Oak Main and I just loved the whole experience of going to a theatre and seeing a great movie.

Funny enough, this is back in 2000. Now people in Michigan don’t get in to the movie business, so I was dreading the rolling of the eyes of my friends and family – “oh what is he up to now?” I decided I was going to take eighteen months - maybe a couple of years, and just try to setup as many meetings as I possibly could, through any way I could, any connection I could, to try and understand the business.

I was committed during that [time] period to not write a check; to not finance anything.

I knew that I actually wanted to produce. I didn’t want to just play a financing role. So all the projects that I was looking at financing, while I was educating myself about the industry, were going to be predicated on having a producer role.

MMM – What is your approach to picking winning film projects?

GG – It all starts with the material. I have got to love the script, got to love the story, have to have a passion for the story so that’s the first step - loving the material. Then it’s really a matter of looking at all the other ingredients starting with the filmmaker. Is the actual writer the director? Is the filmmaker a director that is going to be directing someone else’s script? What cast is involved? What other producers, if any, are involved? Then kind of weighing all the ingredients that you have in front of you and saying ‘Well, it may not have all of the ingredients I am looking for, but it has the vast majority of them.’

Making a calculated guess and going with it. Looking at all the ingredients that one has, weighing it out and just going for it. At a certain point you always have to take a leap of faith. I think it really comes down to that.  They’re not always successful; there a couple of movies you haven’t heard of.

MMM – Can you share some of your experience in successfully achieving theatre distribution of your films?

GG – Independent film has had it very tough for four or five years; it’s now just starting to come back. A good example is in 2004, when we sold Garden State to Fox Searchlight and Miramax. 2004 and 2005, both those years, there was not only the Garden State sale but there were significant acquisitions of other films. After that, it dried up... and now it’s just starting to pick up again.

You do still have Focus Features, who released the The Kids Are All Right, and Fox Searchlight who released Garden State. They are two of the best in the business. They really know what they are doing in terms of that niche marketing: finding the market for those smaller independent films. But even when it did dry up for a few years, when you look back at this past January, Sundance 2011, it came back. There were almost a half-dozen, if not more, acquisitions. It is starting to come back, but it’s not easy.

Meet Monica Velour is a great example. Anchor Bay is a fine company - they have done some great work in terms of distributing independent films. It’s a combination of Anchor Bay’s efforts, our efforts as producers, along with the actual talent’s efforts.

Kim Cattrall coming here - she is promoting it. She is in Toronto now doing the same thing. She is willing to do whatever it takes to get people out there and in to the theatre to see the movie. Not just because it’s a good movie, she obviously is proud of it. It’s everybody putting in a major effort to promote it