Nick Verbitsky has the skinny on corporate texts, mortgage lies and boardroom videotape.
And the movie he created from these scintillating subjects might soon be coming to a theater near you.
The Connecticut Film Festival is premiering “Confidence Game” at its Danbury confab in late April, with the Blue Chip Films documentary focused on the collapse of Bear Stearns and the burst of the mortgage finance balloon.
It marks the first theatrical film by Norwalk-based Blue Chip Films, which Verbitsky founded initially to produce corporate video work, only to broaden later into TV projects.
“Confidence Game” is not the first documentary to chronicle the underpinnings of the Great Recession ”“ “Inside Job” and “American Casino” are a few of the others ”“ but Verbitsky thinks it furnishes a deeper glimpse at what transpired, thanks in part to the cooperation of several investigative reporters who gave him tips on where to find footage and interview subjects.
“The rumors were rife at the time that there was this shadowy group of hedge fund investors that colluded to take the firm down,” Verbitsky said. “I remember just being really outraged by that.
“Pretty soon after, I was lucky enough to hook up with a guy who had a lot of internal video (at Bear Stearns),” Verbitsky added. “It was in a room marked ”˜destroy”™ ”¦ Everything from earnings presentations to internal meetings about, you know, scuttlebutt.”
Verbitsky said he and his brother Paul put at least four months of solid work into the project before hitting the flip switch in making the project a go.
“It was really when I found these guys on the ”˜factory floor,”™” Verbitsky said. “With any project like this, you need to have those people. If you can”™t get them, you know, its tough to tell the story ”“ otherwise you”™re just editorializing.
“I had a lot of stuff together before I found this couple and broker,” he said. “I was thinking, ”˜Wow, I have something here,”™ but in the back of my mind there was something missing. The minute I found these people, I said, ”˜That ”“ that”™s what I need.”™”
With the movie finished, now Verbitsky needs a distribution partner. For now, he downplays the idea of a wide theatrical release, thinking a smaller run in independent, campus and art-house theaters is more realistic. More likely yet, he thinks, is a TV deal ”“ with the movie perhaps living on in DVD form, including in MBA classes as a cautionary tale.
Verbitsky recalls interviewing a Harvard University professor who called Bear Stearns the focal point of U.S. financial history.
“He said from a qualitative standpoint, there was nothing bigger than Bear because that”™s when the curtain was just kind of pulled back,” Verbitsky said. “What you found out later was that nobody in upper management really had a handle on their business ”“ not even a clue.”
