Savoy shared that while he was a student at Columbia College, his directing professor John Hancock, had a prolific impact upon not only his career but the making of this particular film. After viewing Savoy’s first short film “Blood Brothers,” Hancock told the young student, “I think you’re going to be somebody.” Powerfully positive words that resonated with Savoy, Hancock shared his wealth of information, pushing Savoy to find a story with which he personally connected. That story found him by way of a roommate who introduced him to a group of high rolling partiers with a limitless bank account.
Savoy was in awe of this group of young people who were all recent graduates from Loyola University. “They were my age at the time, 21 [or] 22, and they were really cool.” After an evening at a club, the bill came with a grand total of $10,000 to which one in the group readily paid. Savoy, astounded, politely asked, “Hey man, if you don’t mind me asking, what do you do?” The benign response of working in a family-run business easily satisfied Savoy’s curiosity, but after six months of this style of celebration, Savoy received a phone call from the Chicago police department. There was a warrant for Savoy’s arrest, but he was encouraged to just come down to the station and talk. After being shown photos of the group he was with, Savoy readily acknowledged knowing them and considered them “really good friends.” Savoy reluctantly said, “I was looking like an idiot, partying with them, so I look like I’m a part of them.”
Unbeknownst to Savoy, this group of unemployed graduates who felt cheated after jumping through all the requisite hoops, began “taking U-Hauls out to the really nice suburbs like Barrington and Lake Forest, and wait for people to leave. They would bust in and steal as much as they could. They’d [then] drop it off to a guy here in the West Loop who was a mechanic and he’d pay them $30,000 cash for everything they took. They would do these three to four times a week and they did it for two years.”
Michael Shannon and Patrick Schwarzennegger
in Echo Boomers