With VHS camera in hand, Michigan native Jerry White Jr. and friends recorded over 400 hours of experimental video art and comedy sketches in a Detroit-area public access TV show they called 30 Minutes of Madness.
“We all clicked together because we were the outsiders, nerds, skaters and punks, jumping around, freaking out – so '30 Minutes of Madness' sounded right,” says White.
Their story is being told in a new documentary film called 20 Years of Madness.
The film follows White as he returns to his hometown of Rochester, in Oakland County, to make a new episode for the show’s 20th anniversary.
In the film the friends are forced to take a hard look at their lives and reconcile their teenage dreams with the realities of adulthood.
“For me it was strangely ironic that they made this show called 30 Minutes of Madness and then a bunch of them ended up sort of having these crazy lives,” says Jeremy Royce, director of film.
The film will be screening at the Traverse City Film Festival on Thursday, July 30 at 9 p.m.
