Big Scoop: Filmmaker Chronicles Quest

By Amy Matthew

It’s a sweet gig for filmmaker Jeremy McGovern, in more ways than one.

Not only is he making a documentary about two of his longtime friends, Matt and Mike Casarez, the movie is about a happy topic — ice cream — and he gets to film in his home state.

“On a very selfish level, I finally get to do a project where I can come home and see my friends and family,” he said.

That’s not the primary motivation, however. The story is what hooked McGovern: two brothers in a tiny mountain town attempting to break the world record for most flavors of ice cream.

“I really like documentaries — fun documentaries that don’t ruin your day and make you hate life and curl up and cry after you see them,” said McGovern. “There are still good things going on, fun things to be had.”

McGovern, 32, has lived in Los Angeles for seven years. He graduated from East High School in 1996 and attended the University of Southern Colorado (Colorado State University-Pueblo) before moving to the West Coast. Last year he started a film company, Mattoid Entertainment, with two partners. They’ve got several movies besides “Sweet Dreams” in the works. Their first completed feature, “In the Darkness,” can be seen on Hulu.

For a microbusiness like Mattoid, funding is the biggest challenge to getting projects to the screen, and that fact hasn’t been helped by the recession.

“For us to go out and do a $5 million movie . . . it’s just not happening now,” McGovern said.

Therefore, the filmmakers are seeking contributors for “Sweet Dreams.” They hope to raise at least $20,000 by mid-August and McGovern wants to make his initial filming trip this month, with follow-up visits every couple of months to track the Casarezes’ progress.

Anyone interested can visit http://www.indiegogo.com/sweet-dreams to donate as little as $5 or as much as the full $20,000. A donation of $100 entitles the giver to name his or her own flavor of ice cream — a name that will be recorded with Guinness when the record is broken.

“People in Colorado are going to get way more excited about this than people in L.A.,” McGovern reasoned. “If Matt and Mike are going to have 1,000 flavors, this is something a lot of people can be part of.”

Originally Published in the Pueblo Chieftain