James R. Petix

Raised in Troy, Michigan (a suburb of Detroit) James started making videos with his neighborhood friends at an early age. He attended the Focal Point summer film program at Cranbrook in 1996 and created a 16mm music video for his band at the time, The Immigrants, for the song "Me and Bela Lugosi". Cut by hand with scissors and tape, the film won him a $10,000 scholarship to the Savannah College of Art and Design. James' senior thesis at SCAD was the documentary short, "Tokyo Below" about independent rock scene in Tokyo, Japan. After graduating in 2001, James moved back to the Detroit area and started working in advertising. In the summer of 2001, Petix saw the White Stripes play a packed show at a tiny dive bar in their mutual hometown. Within months, Detroit garage rock was an international phenomenon and Petix turned his lens on it: the shows, sounds, musicians, heightened expectations, dreams, drama ...and ultimate implosion of the whole affair. Six and a half years in the making, Petix shot and edited "It Came From Detroit," the resultant feature length documentary, on nights and weekends while working 9-to-5 as a commercial editor at top post houses. Recently relocated to Los Angeles, Petix is directing music videos and working on his next major documentary project.