'Boom Boom' Comes Home Pitching Reality TV Show
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini says he has dreamed for 25 years of bringing television and film production to his hometown here. Now his dream is at the heart of a proposed reality show he is working on with the director of the biopic based on the boxing champ’s life.
“Boom Boom Goes Home” is the tentative title of the reality show, which would chronicle the former World Boxing Association lightweight champion and his efforts to develop TV and film production locally. Mancini, whose Boom Boom Entertainment is the parent company of Boom Boom Productions and Champion Pictures, is leasing production space and offices in the Ohio One Building downtown.
“I’ve been talking about this for a long time,” Mancini told The Business Journal. In 1989, he recalled, he wrote down his dreams and goals for what he wanted to do back in Youngstown, one of which was to develop a studio downtown, something he saw as a “very big possibility” back then and now views as a probability. “We’re making it happen,” he said.
“Downtown Youngstown could be downtown Brooklyn, the lower East Side of New York, South Street in Philadelphia, the North End of Boston, yet 10 minutes into Columbiana or Poland, Boardman and Canfield, you’re in the rolling hills of Nebraska and the flatlands of New Mexico or the green pastures of Washington state,” Mancini said.
“It’s the business of illusion. We have everything to offer here so why not try to bring production here, and that’s what I’m trying to spearhead.”
Mancini was approached several months ago by Jesse James Miller, who directed the documentary film based on The Good Son: The Life of Ray Boom Boom Mancini, the biography written by Mark Kriegel, about a possible reality show.
“Ray is a reality show sometimes,” remarked Miller, who is producer, director and writer for his Profile Films, based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Profile and Thunderbird Entertainment are jointly developing the reality series.
Over the three years of producing and filming The Good Son, Miller says he and Mancini became good friends and have been working on other projects ever since. He proposed the reality show, which would chronicle Mancini bringing his family here from Los Angeles and his efforts to develop the studio.
“It’s a chance to be able to showcase the town in a good light and to show that we could become a real player in the entertainment business,” Mancini said.
“The timing was right,” Miller added. “I think the genre can help Ray right now. It can help me and my production company. It’s something that’s really important in television right now and it catapults you into doing other films and stuff.”
The program would revolve around Mancini moving his wife, Campbell native Tina Rozzi, and his son, Ray, back to Youngstown from Los Angeles, where he has worked in the entertainment industry.
Mancini balked at the prospect when Miller first pitched it to him.
“The only reason I’m interested now is because the game’s changed,” he said. “The entertainment business has changed. Reality shows are big now. Viewers want to have some type of connection with the people they see on TV,” he said.
“Reality is the wrong word,” Miller elaborated, characterizing what he does as a “factualized hybrid entertainment” with high-end reenactments.
“My style is different than the run-and-gun kind of reality show,” he said. “He’s seen some of the stuff we’ve done at Profile Films and it’s been a little more filmic, a little more story-oriented kind of stuff so he [Mancini] feels safe there.”
Miller noted that more documentary and feature filmmakers like him are entering the genre. “The bar of all television is much higher now so you can’t really get away with just showing up with a camera and zooming in on somebody’s face,” he said.
Additionally, the options for distribution have expanded beyond the traditional broadcast television, cable and satellite networks now that Netflix, Amazon and Google are producing original content, Mancini pointed out. The agency he is working through has mentioned networks such as A&E and Discovery as possibilities for the series, he said.
Based on the pitch, “They love it and everybody wants to see it,” Miller said. Right now, a 13-episode run is envisioned, he said.
“Obviously the starting of the studio is a big element of the show,” Miller said. “It’s very important I think for the city and also for Ray. As a filmmaker I came here, location scouted a feature film and it’s amazing. It’s a studio backdrop. There’s a lot of opportunity here, the tax breaks are good and so it’s enticing for filmmakers like myself to come here.”
Mancini added he has had meetings with “major producers in Hollywood” who might be interested in coming to Youngstown to do original programming. “That’s a major coup. That’s what I’m working on here, so I’m going to make it happen,” he said.
Pictured: Ray Mancini talks with producer Jesse James Miller while videographer Ken Johns films for Mancini's new reality show, "Boom Boom Returns to Youngstown."
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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