Company Man
Birmingham, Alabama | Film Short
Drama, History
1906. Birmingham, Alabama. A coal miner turned middle manager is sent back underground to break a growing strike - only to confront the people, and the past, he thought he’d left behind. A Southern drama about class, ambition, and the cost of abandoning your roots.
Company Man
Birmingham, Alabama | Film Short
Drama, History
1 Campaigns | Louisiana, United States
Green Light
This campaign raised $19,100 for production. Follow the filmmaker to receive future updates on this project.
100 supporters | followers
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1906. Birmingham, Alabama. A coal miner turned middle manager is sent back underground to break a growing strike - only to confront the people, and the past, he thought he’d left behind. A Southern drama about class, ambition, and the cost of abandoning your roots.
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
Company Man is a narrative short film about ambition, guilt, power, and the shadows we inherit.
Set in Birmingham at the height of the Central Alabama coal boom, the film follows Warren Hunt - a coal miner turned middle manager - as he’s sent back to the mines to break a growing strike. But what he finds underground isn’t just unrest. It’s a reckoning.
This is a film about Birmingham.
It’s a film about the South.
It’s a film about the history of labor activism in America.
But more than anything, it’s the story of a man desperate to rise, only to find himself face to face with the cost.
1906. Birmingham.
Warren Hunt has “bootstrapped” his way from the coal pits into middle management, believing he’s escaped the hard, dangerous life his father once lived. He’s ambitious, and has dreams of one day landing in the executive suite at one of Birmingham's biggest coal companies.
But when his bosses order him to strong arm striking miners into breaking their own union, he’s placed face-to-face with the world he left behind. What begins as a simple assignment becomes something deeper: a crisis of loyalty, and a crisis of identity.
Company Man is a haunting, character-driven film about class, power, and oppression, and the price of survival in a system a system where the only way for the oppressed to rise is to become the oppressor.
The story at the heart of Company Man has been largely forgotten. but its echoes are everywhere. In the early 1900s, black and white miners in Birmingham organized together for better wages and safer conditions. They were met with a violent response: evictions, armed guards, vigilante mobs, and eventually, the deployment of the Alabama National Guard. Their movement was crushed by political and industrial power.
This isn’t just history. It’s the origin story of labor relations in the South. And it still resonates today! Across the country, workers are rising up once again, facing many of the same power structures, many of the same choices.
Company Man isn’t just a period piece. It’s a meditation on class, guilt, and ambition - on what we lose when we trade solidarity for ambition.
And it asks the question at the center of so many lives:
What are you willing to give up to get ahead?
We’ve assembled a Southern cast and crew that lives and breathes this story and this history.
Several members of the crew have family members who worked in the Birmingham coal fields, and we’ve focused on pulling together a team that understands the weight of this history, not just as filmmakers, but as Southerners with deep ties to this place and its past.
We’re making a film rooted in lived experience, shot on location at real industrial sites, using authentic Southern voices both in front of and behind the camera. We’re making something haunting, immersive, and urgent.
And we’re doing it with the people who know this story best.
We’ve are currently in pre-production and recently shot our teaser (photos below). We begin principal photography in August.
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But now we need you.
Your support helps us:
- Bring 1906 Birmingham to life with immersive production design
- Build out period-accurate costumes, sets, and props
- Pay our Southern crew members
- Share the untold history of Birmingham labor with new audiences
We’re aiming to submit to major festivals across the country, host local screenings across Central Alabama, and share the film with high schools, universities, and community organizations in the South.
If you can, please support us today. Every contribution, big or small, makes a real impact. Plus, we’ve got some exciting incentives lined up to thank you for your support!
Not able to give? You can still make a difference by spreading the word! Share our campaign on your socials, send it to friends, and help us build a community around this film. Follow our journey on Instagram at @companyman_film and on our Seed & Spark page to stay updated about the project.
Join us. Be part of this history.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Costumes
Costs $6,500
Authentic, period-accurate costumes will bring 1906 Birmingham to life, immersing audiences in the world of Company Man.
Sloss Furnaces
Costs $1,000
Filming at this historic industrial site adds unparalleled authenticity, grounding the story in a real setting of this story.
The Coal Elevator
Costs $2,500
A crucial location, this setting captures the harsh reality of coal mining and the claustrophobic tension at the heart of our story.
Sponsor the Mining Crew
Costs $2,000
Help us bring to life the entire mining crew! Support the hardworking cast who populate our film’s underground world.
Stock the Company Store (help feed our cast/crew)
Costs $4,000
Stock the company store! Help keep our cast and crew fed during our 4-day shoot!
Camera Package
Costs $4,000
To capture the grit of 1906 Birmingham, we’re using a camera setup that gives the film its distinct, immersive texture.
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
The Crew
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Chase Haislip | Writer/Director
Chase Haislip is an award-winning filmmaker based in New Orleans. His work explores family, class, and generational trauma in the American South, and has been featured at film festivals across the country.
His script for Company Man won Best Alabama Short Script at last year’s Sidewalk Film festival. His feature scripts Houndstooth and Queen Hereafter, both of which explore the complicated history of the State of Alabama, are currently on the Blacklist’s “Top List” and are "Blacklist Recommended." He is a Stowe Story Labs alumni and a chapter leader within Filmshop.
--
Bohdana Smyrnova | Producer
Bohdana Smyrnova is an independent film producer/writer/director with 25 years of experience. She produces narrative, documentary, and experimental films that explore the depth and dark side of human nature.
She holds an MFA from NYU (Dean's Fellow) and is an alumna of Cannes Film Festival Residence, Gotham Film Week and ScripTeast. Bohdana’s work has screened at over 350 events worldwide, winning 30+ awards.
Bohdana has taught film at Syracuse and Wesleyan universities (USA), as well as Chernivtsi National University (Ukraine) through docutribe. Currently developing her debut feature documentary “There’s No Place”, Bohdana divides her time between the USA and Ukraine.
--
Tasha McCrory | Producer
Tasha McCrory is a Birmingham-based producer with a deep passion for independent and arthouse cinema. Tasha has worked in the film industry since 2017, and has served on the production team for nearly 30 Alabama-based films, including The Death of Dick Long (directed by Daniel Scheinert, the award winning director of Everything Everywhere All At Once).
With experience spanning Birmingham, Los Angeles, and North Carolina, Tasha specializes in balancing creative vision with the financial and logistical realities of production. Her work is driven by a commitment to supporting filmmakers and bringing ambitious, artistically bold projects to life.
--
Yann de Moerloose | Director of Photography
Yann de Moerloose is a cinematographer based in the Southeastern United States. He was born in the picturesque city of Brugge, Belgium, and has since cultivated a rich visual language through a career spanning Europe and the USA.
As a member of the prestigious Society of Belgian Cinematographers (SBC), he has lit and shaped the look of countless TV commercials, TV docs, shorts and music videos for established global brands, celebrities and musicians.
One of the values Yann holds closest is that the filmmaker should always remain curious.
--
Kelley Boonruang | Set Designer
Kelley Boonruang is an accomplished production designer who has driven the visual direction of incredibly indie music videos, to Sundance award-winning feature films.
She delights in utilizing her technical and creative design sense to create immersive worlds on film, and relishes the novelty of the unique challenges the art department provides, from building sets for Samuel L. Jackson to creating props for Sabrina Carpenter.
Currently residing in Atlanta, GA, she has had the opportunity to collaborate with some of the finest crew, actors, directors and producers in the Southeast.
--
Carron Clark | Costume Designer
Carron is currently based in Alabama and has lived all over the US and Caribbean. Upon retirement from a long HR career, Carron decided to get back to what she loves - film & theatre.
She founded a non profit theatre in 2013, costume designed many films - from small passion to big budget projects (recently winning Best Costume Design by RED Movie Awards in Reims, France), and directed award winning stage shows. She is dedicated to bringing quality projects to the South.
--
Kristin Dober | Line Producer
For over fifteen years, Kristin has successfully produced all types and sizes of productions, including national broadcast commercials, documentaries, photography, digital & social video content, music videos, narrative short films, unscripted television, 2D and 3D animation, motion graphics, and experiential installations.
Through managing budgets, timelines, and collaborating with trusted partners, she consistently creates award-winning work for clients across a variety of industry verticals. Her work has been published in Communication Arts and Flash Fiction Magazine, and she has been recognized by the American Advertising Awards at the local and national level for creative excellence in production.
The Cast
Blaise Russo | "Warren Hunt"
Blaise is a New York-based actor who has trained at The Stella Adler Studio and is an active member of their Outside/In projects as well as studying at The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Connecticut where he is from. He has mostly worked in the theater having performed in Clifford Odets’ Golden Boy, Neil Simons’ Rumors, Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado About Nothing as well as playing Cliff in Cabaret.
--
Ian Senator Dunn | "Mr. Graves"
Ian Dunn is a NYC-based actor who grew up in Nashville, TN. His friends refer to him as "Senator Dunn." As an actor, Ian often blurs the lines of comedy and drama, with a niche for playing insightful, omniscient seers and wise truth-sayers, who often have something up their sleeve. Ian has acted in film, television, and over 50 plays, including roles in "City on a Hill," "Emergence," and "Mrs. America." Off screen, he is also a freelance Bartender, Bar Consultant, and NYC tour guide, blending history and hospitality.
--
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Jason Bayle | "Bibb"
Jason Bayle is an actor, director, and writer based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. His film and television credits include: Black Bird, NCIS: New Orleans, Happy Death Day, The Big Short, Trumbo, Claws, Queen Sugar, American Horror Story: Freak Show, and more. Originally from Chicago, Jason has appeared on some of Chicago’s best stages with Tony winners Patti Lupone, Michael Cerveris, Audra McDonald, Jessie Mueller, and toured nationally in Scrooge: The Musical, starring Richard Chamberlain. He currently acts, teaches, and directs in Baton Rouge, and is writing his first musical, Lonesome Time, featuring the songs of the Long Gone Lonesome Boys.
--
Nathan Kirby | "Joey Campbell"
Nathan Kirby was born in Iowa. He is currently an actor, martial artist, stunt man, fight choreographer, coach and speaker based in the Southeast, who has performed in numerous narrative films across the region. Nathan is a professional mixed martial artist and a motivational & key note speaker, allowing his life experiences to spread light and joy to others and in turn help them find their passion and potential.
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
Company Man is a narrative short film about ambition, guilt, power, and the shadows we inherit.
Set in Birmingham at the height of the Central Alabama coal boom, the film follows Warren Hunt - a coal miner turned middle manager - as he’s sent back to the mines to break a growing strike. But what he finds underground isn’t just unrest. It’s a reckoning.
This is a film about Birmingham.
It’s a film about the South.
It’s a film about the history of labor activism in America.
But more than anything, it’s the story of a man desperate to rise, only to find himself face to face with the cost.
1906. Birmingham.
Warren Hunt has “bootstrapped” his way from the coal pits into middle management, believing he’s escaped the hard, dangerous life his father once lived. He’s ambitious, and has dreams of one day landing in the executive suite at one of Birmingham's biggest coal companies.
But when his bosses order him to strong arm striking miners into breaking their own union, he’s placed face-to-face with the world he left behind. What begins as a simple assignment becomes something deeper: a crisis of loyalty, and a crisis of identity.
Company Man is a haunting, character-driven film about class, power, and oppression, and the price of survival in a system a system where the only way for the oppressed to rise is to become the oppressor.
The story at the heart of Company Man has been largely forgotten. but its echoes are everywhere. In the early 1900s, black and white miners in Birmingham organized together for better wages and safer conditions. They were met with a violent response: evictions, armed guards, vigilante mobs, and eventually, the deployment of the Alabama National Guard. Their movement was crushed by political and industrial power.
This isn’t just history. It’s the origin story of labor relations in the South. And it still resonates today! Across the country, workers are rising up once again, facing many of the same power structures, many of the same choices.
Company Man isn’t just a period piece. It’s a meditation on class, guilt, and ambition - on what we lose when we trade solidarity for ambition.
And it asks the question at the center of so many lives:
What are you willing to give up to get ahead?
We’ve assembled a Southern cast and crew that lives and breathes this story and this history.
Several members of the crew have family members who worked in the Birmingham coal fields, and we’ve focused on pulling together a team that understands the weight of this history, not just as filmmakers, but as Southerners with deep ties to this place and its past.
We’re making a film rooted in lived experience, shot on location at real industrial sites, using authentic Southern voices both in front of and behind the camera. We’re making something haunting, immersive, and urgent.
And we’re doing it with the people who know this story best.
We’ve are currently in pre-production and recently shot our teaser (photos below). We begin principal photography in August.
But now we need you.
Your support helps us:
- Bring 1906 Birmingham to life with immersive production design
- Build out period-accurate costumes, sets, and props
- Pay our Southern crew members
- Share the untold history of Birmingham labor with new audiences
We’re aiming to submit to major festivals across the country, host local screenings across Central Alabama, and share the film with high schools, universities, and community organizations in the South.
If you can, please support us today. Every contribution, big or small, makes a real impact. Plus, we’ve got some exciting incentives lined up to thank you for your support!
Not able to give? You can still make a difference by spreading the word! Share our campaign on your socials, send it to friends, and help us build a community around this film. Follow our journey on Instagram at @companyman_film and on our Seed & Spark page to stay updated about the project.
Join us. Be part of this history.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Costumes
Costs $6,500
Authentic, period-accurate costumes will bring 1906 Birmingham to life, immersing audiences in the world of Company Man.
Sloss Furnaces
Costs $1,000
Filming at this historic industrial site adds unparalleled authenticity, grounding the story in a real setting of this story.
The Coal Elevator
Costs $2,500
A crucial location, this setting captures the harsh reality of coal mining and the claustrophobic tension at the heart of our story.
Sponsor the Mining Crew
Costs $2,000
Help us bring to life the entire mining crew! Support the hardworking cast who populate our film’s underground world.
Stock the Company Store (help feed our cast/crew)
Costs $4,000
Stock the company store! Help keep our cast and crew fed during our 4-day shoot!
Camera Package
Costs $4,000
To capture the grit of 1906 Birmingham, we’re using a camera setup that gives the film its distinct, immersive texture.
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
The Crew
Chase Haislip | Writer/Director
Chase Haislip is an award-winning filmmaker based in New Orleans. His work explores family, class, and generational trauma in the American South, and has been featured at film festivals across the country.
His script for Company Man won Best Alabama Short Script at last year’s Sidewalk Film festival. His feature scripts Houndstooth and Queen Hereafter, both of which explore the complicated history of the State of Alabama, are currently on the Blacklist’s “Top List” and are "Blacklist Recommended." He is a Stowe Story Labs alumni and a chapter leader within Filmshop.
--
Bohdana Smyrnova | Producer
Bohdana Smyrnova is an independent film producer/writer/director with 25 years of experience. She produces narrative, documentary, and experimental films that explore the depth and dark side of human nature.
She holds an MFA from NYU (Dean's Fellow) and is an alumna of Cannes Film Festival Residence, Gotham Film Week and ScripTeast. Bohdana’s work has screened at over 350 events worldwide, winning 30+ awards.
Bohdana has taught film at Syracuse and Wesleyan universities (USA), as well as Chernivtsi National University (Ukraine) through docutribe. Currently developing her debut feature documentary “There’s No Place”, Bohdana divides her time between the USA and Ukraine.
--
Tasha McCrory | Producer
Tasha McCrory is a Birmingham-based producer with a deep passion for independent and arthouse cinema. Tasha has worked in the film industry since 2017, and has served on the production team for nearly 30 Alabama-based films, including The Death of Dick Long (directed by Daniel Scheinert, the award winning director of Everything Everywhere All At Once).
With experience spanning Birmingham, Los Angeles, and North Carolina, Tasha specializes in balancing creative vision with the financial and logistical realities of production. Her work is driven by a commitment to supporting filmmakers and bringing ambitious, artistically bold projects to life.
--
Yann de Moerloose | Director of Photography
Yann de Moerloose is a cinematographer based in the Southeastern United States. He was born in the picturesque city of Brugge, Belgium, and has since cultivated a rich visual language through a career spanning Europe and the USA.
As a member of the prestigious Society of Belgian Cinematographers (SBC), he has lit and shaped the look of countless TV commercials, TV docs, shorts and music videos for established global brands, celebrities and musicians.
One of the values Yann holds closest is that the filmmaker should always remain curious.
--
Kelley Boonruang | Set Designer
Kelley Boonruang is an accomplished production designer who has driven the visual direction of incredibly indie music videos, to Sundance award-winning feature films.
She delights in utilizing her technical and creative design sense to create immersive worlds on film, and relishes the novelty of the unique challenges the art department provides, from building sets for Samuel L. Jackson to creating props for Sabrina Carpenter.
Currently residing in Atlanta, GA, she has had the opportunity to collaborate with some of the finest crew, actors, directors and producers in the Southeast.
--
Carron Clark | Costume Designer
Carron is currently based in Alabama and has lived all over the US and Caribbean. Upon retirement from a long HR career, Carron decided to get back to what she loves - film & theatre.
She founded a non profit theatre in 2013, costume designed many films - from small passion to big budget projects (recently winning Best Costume Design by RED Movie Awards in Reims, France), and directed award winning stage shows. She is dedicated to bringing quality projects to the South.
--
Kristin Dober | Line Producer
For over fifteen years, Kristin has successfully produced all types and sizes of productions, including national broadcast commercials, documentaries, photography, digital & social video content, music videos, narrative short films, unscripted television, 2D and 3D animation, motion graphics, and experiential installations.
Through managing budgets, timelines, and collaborating with trusted partners, she consistently creates award-winning work for clients across a variety of industry verticals. Her work has been published in Communication Arts and Flash Fiction Magazine, and she has been recognized by the American Advertising Awards at the local and national level for creative excellence in production.
The Cast
Blaise Russo | "Warren Hunt"
Blaise is a New York-based actor who has trained at The Stella Adler Studio and is an active member of their Outside/In projects as well as studying at The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Connecticut where he is from. He has mostly worked in the theater having performed in Clifford Odets’ Golden Boy, Neil Simons’ Rumors, Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado About Nothing as well as playing Cliff in Cabaret.
--
Ian Senator Dunn | "Mr. Graves"
Ian Dunn is a NYC-based actor who grew up in Nashville, TN. His friends refer to him as "Senator Dunn." As an actor, Ian often blurs the lines of comedy and drama, with a niche for playing insightful, omniscient seers and wise truth-sayers, who often have something up their sleeve. Ian has acted in film, television, and over 50 plays, including roles in "City on a Hill," "Emergence," and "Mrs. America." Off screen, he is also a freelance Bartender, Bar Consultant, and NYC tour guide, blending history and hospitality.
--
Jason Bayle | "Bibb"
Jason Bayle is an actor, director, and writer based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. His film and television credits include: Black Bird, NCIS: New Orleans, Happy Death Day, The Big Short, Trumbo, Claws, Queen Sugar, American Horror Story: Freak Show, and more. Originally from Chicago, Jason has appeared on some of Chicago’s best stages with Tony winners Patti Lupone, Michael Cerveris, Audra McDonald, Jessie Mueller, and toured nationally in Scrooge: The Musical, starring Richard Chamberlain. He currently acts, teaches, and directs in Baton Rouge, and is writing his first musical, Lonesome Time, featuring the songs of the Long Gone Lonesome Boys.
--
Nathan Kirby | "Joey Campbell"
Nathan Kirby was born in Iowa. He is currently an actor, martial artist, stunt man, fight choreographer, coach and speaker based in the Southeast, who has performed in numerous narrative films across the region. Nathan is a professional mixed martial artist and a motivational & key note speaker, allowing his life experiences to spread light and joy to others and in turn help them find their passion and potential.