Spartan Profiles: Brett Singer

DOTCOM SEND-UP

            By April 2000, the spectacular rise of dotcoms came to a screeching halt as bust after bust was announced.  With first-hand experience of the dotcom crash, Brett Singer, ’95, a writer, designer and co-founder of the Sneaky Kings production company in Chicago.  Singer just produced a film, dot, that mocks what he calls “the madness and the greed created by the dotcom gold rush.” The film has won a slew of awards including “Best Feature” at the Dancing Films Festival in Santa Monica, CA. 

            “The people in the movie are completely asinine, but lots of people who’ve seen it have said to me, ‘Hey, I worked with that guy,’ or ‘That was my boss,’” says Brett, who ought to know. 

             In 1998, he and his partners founded WanderOn.com, a website dedicated to adventure travel.  “We told you where you could go bungee jump,” he explains.  “It evolved into a business to business online marketplace for bike manufacturers.  We ran out of money after a year and a half.”  His office, incidentally, was used as a set for the film dot. 

             A native of Buffalo, Brett visited a friend at MSU who was in the same residence hall of former football players Ty Hallock and Rob Frederickson.  “That was very cool,” he recalls.  “I wanted a big school.  MSU offered so many options, where if I wanted to change majors I could.” 

            At MSU, he took a number of classes from film professor Bill Vincent.  “I did some independent study with him,” he recalls.  “I wrote a 30-page paper on Stanley Kubrick.  I became passionate about film.”  That’s why, after the demise of his dotcom, he and his partners decided to make a mockumentary about the whole rise and fall of dotcoms. 

            Their film never mentions what product the dotcom was selling.  “That’s Alfred Hitchcock’s McGuffin,” he notes.  “It’s what drives everything.”  Brett, whose clients include The Oprah Winfrey Show, believes dot will help him land future projects, which include a mystery thriller he has scripted.  “It’s an effective calling card,” he says.  “It proves we can raise the money and make a film.”