It was the end of 2015, and I had been working on News From the Fringe as a TV concept. It had been a wild year with several ups and downs while trying to get the show off the ground. Kenny and my wife, Stephanie, and I had shot a bunch of footage, but nothing we thought was good enough to take to a pitch meeting. I wanted to cover a subject that makes you do a double take. That was when we decided to visit a cryogenics facility to shoot some test footage.
After several weeks of planning, the Cryonics Institute invited us to Detroit to see their facility and talk with the Cryonics Institution's founder's son. He sat down and did a 20 minute interview for the reel that would be shown to networks in hopes of getting the show picked up. I made sure to ask the questions that everyone wants to hear -- Are there any celebrities in the tanks? (He answered with a definitive no). I also wanted to know his beliefs on the afterlife, whether or not he thought the body has a soul, and if there is a soul and a god, how do you get back into your body? He answered as if he'd been asked that on a daily basis. He said he wasn't religious and didn't think that most members of the Cryonics Institute were either. He went on to say if god is all so powerful he would find a way to get you back into your body.
Being at the facility really played a number on me by reminding me that I would be dead one day just like everyone else. I even briefly considered signing up to be frozen when I die. It's surprisingly not that expensive and costs around $30,000 -- not to mention your life insurance covers the cost.
I would go on to put together a quick test reel for MTV and other networks. Two weeks after filming with the Cryogenics Institute, we would go to Viacom's building in Timesquare and pitch News From The Fringe. In the pitch meeting, I would show a test reel from our visit to the Cryonics Institute. Not only did they like the darkness of the reel, they took several weeks to pass on the project. Watch the 30-second clip and let us know what you think.
