August 2019 Volume 1

INDUSTRY NEWS & CALENDAR

Filmmaker bridges gap between industry, students Edge Factor's Jeremy Bout delivers keynote at Forge Fair 2019 By Lincoln Brunner

The first time Jeremy Bout heard that one of his films helped change a student’s mind about their future, it hit him: He could make an important difference in two arenas he knew a lot about— manufacturing and movies. Bout, 42, spent his 20s and early 30s working in CNC machining and other metalworking jobs. When he started his company, Edge Factor,

conversation made something click in Bout’s mind, a revelation that changed the course of his business and the way he thought about his filmmaking. “I was starting to have different educators come to me, and we realized, education has to be part of what we’re doing,” Bout says. “If we’re going to take their stories and turn them into a tangible something, we need education to be a part of this.” So Bout began inviting educators on-set to advise him on vignettes about different facets of metalworking involved in the people and equipment he was featuring. But that just got the ball rolling on what has become Edge Factor’s main play—giving every stakeholder in the manufacturing career game the information, inspiration and connections they need to build the workforce of the future right now. It appears to be an idea ripe for the times. With American students facing the mounting shortage of skilled manufacturing labor with a collective yawn, companies like Edge Factor are hoping to provide a bridge between young workers and employers that can benefit all parties involved. “We’re saying, ‘Hey, education: Here’s a tool to navigate career pathways. And families: You want a one-stop shop? Edge Factor can bring all that information to your door,’” Bout says. “Edge Factor is really pulling back the veil on that journey of career development for families within their community. “So, it’s much less today about that killer film, even though that’s still a huge part of what we do. It’s way more about actually helping local communities tell their stories.” Lincoln Brunner is an author and editor with 20 years of experience writing for the metals industry. He lives in Texas with his wife and three daughters. Reach him at lincoln.brunner@gmail.com.

in 2009, he carried with him a specialized body of knowledge that he has used to create a unique niche in the filmmaking world— documentaries about metalworking that told great stories while showing viewers how things got made. That original concept, like a movie series, has grown to become a multimedia idea factory that offers story-based tools to connect businesses, communities, workforce development organizations, schools and families with solutions that fit their needs—employees, job growth, better labor forces and careers. “The stories are important, but delivering the stories at the moment at student needs to hear them is really what we’re focusing on,” Bout says. Finding great manufacturing-based stories came easy for Edge Factor, even from the start. In Oct. 2010, Edge Factor filmed a real-time documentary about Center Rock Inc., the small Berlin, Pa., company that created the drill that helped rescue 33 Chilean miners who were famously trapped underground for two months. Center Rock’s hammer drill cut the 2,200-foot shaft through which rescuers pulled the men up to safety. While Bout was filming that documentary in Pennsylvania, he got a phone call from a professor near Seattle. The teacher had just shown his students a short trailer that Bout had made called, “The Beginnings.” The trailer detailed how Bout’s crew had fabricated a specialized camera rig from scratch, which enabled them to shoot their first feature film in 3-D—a sort of behind-the-scenes sneak peek and manufacturing documentary all in one. That trailer had, by itself, convinced a student in that professor’s class to change their major to a manufacturing-related field. That

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