One Minute - Iron Mountain Basketball Documentary

There is no community quite like the Upper Peninsula. Whether it is shoveling a neighbor out of a snowed-in driveway, or cheering on a high school team in a deep postseason run, UP residents count on each other to make things happen. 

Now our UP-based team needs your help with something different: A documentary.

Last season, Iron Mountain should have been the backdrop for a heartwarming high school basketball story. Instead, two controversial calls (a travel and an intentional foul) in the D3 Boys State Title game, hosted at Michigan State, put a sudden stop to Iron Mountain’s historic undefeated season. Just like that, the state title was taken out from under them with .01 left in the game. 

In 2020, The Mountaineers will work day by day, game by game to pursue the state championship, in hopes of righting the wrongs from last year and bringing the title back to Iron Mountain, and all the UP residents who supported them. Upbeat Sports and Mountain Media Works are partnering to bring their story to life on screen, and we need your support to help us cover the costs of crafting a professional documentary that can appeal to both UP residents and every underdog community that’s ever dreamed of hard-fought glory. This documentary will be an inspiring story of hard work, redemption, and UP-power, and your help is vital in helping us tell it.


Who Are We?


Bryce Derouin (Upbeat Sports Co-Founder) received his journalism degree at Grand Valley State University where he worked as the sports editor for the student newspaper. He returned to the U.P. as a sports writer for the Escanaba Daily Press before serving as the sports editor the Daily Mining Gazette in Houghton. His journalism experience includes working as the beat writer for the Michigan Tech and Grand Valley State football and basketball teams, in addition to four years of in-depth preps coverage. He recently chronicled the state runner-up finish of the Chassell girls basketball team and state-semifinal run of the Dollar Bay boys basketball team. 


As a 2010 Bark River-Harris graduate, he understands the passionate following that exists with U.P. sports and is committed to making Upbeat the premier source of peninsula-wide sports coverage. He currently resides in Marquette.


Eden Laase (Upbeat Sports Co-Founder) is an accomplished young journalist who has worked at multiple publications, including Sports Illustrated. She has covered sports at all levels from U.P. high school athletics to Gonzaga basketball and the Denver Broncos. Laase’s journalism experiences includes the College Hockey playoffs and the Final Four. 


A graduate of Gonzaga University, Laase most recently worked at the Daily Mining Gazette in Houghton, where she developed a passion for covering high school sports. She currently resides in Marquette, where she founded Upbeat with Bryce Derouin.


Seth Anderson (Mountain Media Works Co-Founder) is a writer and filmmaker with over 12 years of professional media experience. After growing up in the UP, Seth resided in Los Angeles for over a decade, working in both audio and video production, early podcast development, voiceover direction, and web-based media development. A passion for film and video production led him back to the UP to co-create NORTHBOUND, a post-apocalyptic web series set in a northern Michigan wilderness. In 2018, he returned to the UP with his wife to form Mountain Media Works, a video production company co-founded with partner Michael Johns. 


MMW’s mission is to highlight the people, businesses and communities that are reshaping the modern Upper Peninsula through innovative media that inspires viewers and pushes the region forward.


Michael Johns (Mountain Media Works Co-Founder) is a cinematographer/ photographer who grew up in Iron Mountain/Kingsford. After graduating college Michael worked in St. Louis, traveling with the crew at RGG EDU creating documentary/tutorials, with professional photographers and videographers from around the world.  Michael’s love of sports growing up mixed with his passion for sharing people’s stories visually makes him a great fit for this project. 


Watch “We Are Flivver Nation”, a Mountain Media Works production made in cooperation with Breitung Township Schools: www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=OyREMR1oVi8 


Where Your Funds Will Go

This documentary aspires to the same level of quality seen in similar projects such as Netflix’s Last Chance U and ESPN’s 30 for 30. To achieve this, we plan to follow The Mountaineers throughout the highs and lows of their 2019/2020 season, covering as many practices and games as we can manage, and recording this material in a way that will both ensure a professional product and keep the costs low. 


That said, there are still certain necessary costs we need to cover in order to craft a documentary that can compete with higher-profile documentaries, yet at a fraction of the cost. Here is a breakdown of where the funds we raise will go:


Equipment: Our team has come up with an innovative production package that mixes digital cameras with the new iPhone 11 (possibly the first mobile device marketed specifically for filmmakers). We also need to be able to cover a highly active arena environment, and that requires sound equipment that will be unobtrusive and allow us to record our key subjects without getting in the way of the task at hand. We will also be recording a large amount of footage, and this will require safe media storage in the form of memory drives and backups.

Production Fees: To compensate the production team for the time taken away from other work-related duties, we’ve calculated the fees and come up with an efficient figure to help offset the many hours devoted to covering a busy Mountaineer season that could potentially go well into March of 2020.
Travel Costs: We mean to cover every step of the season, and this means traveling over the UP and potentially downstate. To ensure we are able to paint a thorough picture of the entire season, we’ll be required to drive wherever the team takes us as they chase the title.

Why Now?

A moment like this doesn’t come often. Many of our subjects will graduate in 2020, and the team will never quite have the mix of talent and personalities that it does right now. In 2020, there is a legitimate chance for The Mountaineers to make up for a heartbreaking loss. In the process, this team will showcase the ups, downs, pressures and excitements of playing high school basketball in the UP. This documentary will chronicle the season, game by game, all while reflecting on last year, the history of Iron Mountain basketball and the future of the players. To accomplish this in a way that will resonate with viewers, and provide the attention to detail it deserves, we are calling on you, our community to help us move mountains with this incredible team.

*Disclaimer: The Iron Mountain area schools and their athletic programs are in no way affiliated with the fundraising for this project. All proceeds will go to Upbeat Sports towards the costs associated with making this documentary.