Briefcase: From B-School Grad to Indie Filmmaker

Kevin Good ’02 has used his Smith School finance degree to pursue an unusual career track for a business major: Indie filmmaking.

“When people think about filmmaking, they think it’s about talent or being discovered in a laundromat,” he says. “But only 1 percent of it is talent. The other 99 percent is starting and managing a small business.”

Good always pictured himself falling into a corporate finance or venture capital career after graduation, but decided to try his hand at filmmaking instead.

His most recent film, “Dinner with the Alchemist,” was nominated for 15 awards and won Best Narrative Feature, Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress, Best Editing, Best Original Score, Best Production Design and Best Wardrobe in the 2016 IndieCapitol Awards.

“If you’re going to spend most of your life working, you’d better make it something you are really interested in,” he says. “You will be good at it, you will survive it and look forward in the morning to do it. Within reason, it’s more important than making money.”

In the drama, which features a cast of characters pulled from actual police reports, a wealthy alchemist travels to New Orleans to seek help from the legendary voodoo priestess. When several murders occur, the alchemist and locals butt heads as they try to identity the serial killer.

Creating a film outside Hollywood is a difficult task, Good says, so the key to success is a good team. He worked with more than 70 cast and crewmembers from the Washington, D.C., region, including his wife, who wrote the screenplay.

Good says making a movie is simply about creating and selling a product. You must observe how competitive the marketplace is, keep costs at a minimum and avoid spending money you don’t need to spend.

He says one lesson from Smith School professor Mark Wellman about developing and managing a brand is far more relevant to the process than courses on filmmaking.

“If I could do it all over again, I would be more aggressive about taking classes I was interested in instead of classes I needed to graduate,” he says, reflecting on his education. “Smith and UMD provide many tools, but it is up to you to slow down and say, ‘Hey, this is something I would like to try to do in life.’ You will graduate at some point. The question is, will you have built up a skillset that you actually want to use for your future?” /JC/