Adviser turns camera on middle America; two RVs, a crew, and plenty of highway
Summer is known for the release of blockbuster movies such as Jaws, Independence Day and Alien. Most share spectacular special effects, terrifying plots and iconic heroes. Now, there's a decidedly low-tech contender: Broken Eggs. No, there's no computer-generated graphics, but the fear factor is real: It concerns the looming retirement crisis in America.
Former Certified Financial Planner Chad Parks hit the road with a team of filmmakers this summer to document how average Americans envision their retirement and how the harsh realities of job loss, inadequate savings and uninformed investment decisions can crush those dreams.
“A significant majority of Americans are unprepared for retirement,” Parks said during a stopover in Washington, DC, more than halfway through his six-week road trip from San Francisco to New York City. “In fact, many do not have any plan whatsoever, nor do they have any real understanding of their potential options.”
Parks, who is CEO of The Online 401k, a low-cost, web-based retirement plan provider for more than 5,000 small businesses, says he wants to get people talking about these problems in an attempt to come up with a crowd-sourced set of solutions. “Instead of waiting for Washington to solve the problem, we want to present the collective consciousness to solve the problem and outline what sacrifices we are willing to make,” he said. “The fabric of our nation will be torn apart unless we decide to do something about it,” he warned.
Through the film, Parks hopes to put a human face on the endless list of studies about how American workers, who have not saved enough to finance a secure retirement, plan to work as long as they can to make up the shortfall — assuming they have a job and are healthy enough to keep it.
Beginning in mid-April, Parks and his crew traveled in a caravan of two RVs and an attention-grabbing vintage orange VW bus to big cities, small towns and national parks in Nevada, Utah, Kansas and Texas — pockets of populations that don't normally get a lot of attention. Then, they meandered through the river towns of Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky en route to the nation's capital where they talked to financial experts, thought leaders and policymakers. “We looked for inspiring stories, informed opinions and innovative solutions,” Parks explained.
Parks' company is financing the approximately $100,000 cost of the film, which he hopes to release in September and to update periodically with viewer responses via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the film's website www.brokeneggsfilm.com . “This is an expensive way to tell a story, but it's the easiest way for people to consume the information,” he said. Sure, it's a marketing ploy, but it could turn out to be informative and entertaining.
Pass the popcorn and put on your 3-D glasses.
