Jim Haggerty

Born in Queens in 1973, Jim Haggerty grew up wanting to make movies. At an early age he was obsessed with going to the movies and he still considers his family buying a VCR one of the defining moments of his childhood.

After years of making wacky ten-minute cop movies starring him and his playground friends with a camcorder, he graduated from Great Neck North High in 1991 and began studying film at Hunter College.

Finding himself discouraged and disappointed with the film program at Hunter (or the lack thereof) he started to become more interested in music and switched majors when he transferred to SUNY Old Westbury in Fall of 1993, where he would eventually graduate in 1996. His interest in music and television led him to take up the guitar, intern at the Ricki Lake Show, and dabble in rock journalism as a contributing writer for popular Long Island music rag The Island-Ear.

Jim's most notable accomplishment through his college years was as host and creator of his own cable access television program, 'Jim Haggerty's Rock N Roll Party', which ran from 1995-1999 and featured interviews, music videos, and on-location live performances from popular rock music acts such as Motorhead, Iron Maiden, L. A. Guns, Slaughter, Overkill, Warrant, Raging Slab, The Sneaker Pimps, and many others. The show developed a strong and loyal local following in Long Island and Manhattan where it aired. Of course, best of all, it got Jim back in front of and behind the camera, his first love. It was at this time that Jim started remembering his original calling to make movies. By this point he'd embarked on a music industry career, taking a job at RED Distribution (a division of Sony). While there, he attempted to make a space alien movie that never reached completion when one of the key actors just stopped showing up. For his next project, Haggerty decided to work only with people he could trust - friends, and friends of friends. He wrote a script over the course of commuting to and from work each day on a mini-laptop and started asking around at parties, at work, or anywhere else he encountered people. Lots of people agreed to take part, but none fully thought he was serious until they were summoned to show up to his place every weekend to film.