How A Rejected Film Grant Became a Prime Video Premiere

Today, I’m sharing the story behind how my latest project, The Future Is Flag, came to be.

Produced in partnership with Michael Strahan’s SMAC Entertainment and Under Armour’s Lab96, the film premiered during Super Bowl week before making its national television debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. The Future Is Flag is now streaming on Prime Video.

But the journey started much earlier, with a cold email, a pitch deck, and a rejection.

Here’s how a “no” turned into a project I’m incredibly proud of.

Let’s get into it. We are so back!

The Cold Email

Ahead of the LA28 Olympics, I found myself thinking about the next story I wanted to tell.

I kept coming back to flag football, a sport heading towards its Olympic debut, with incredible women athletes with star power who were changing the game.

I saw an opportunity to document their journey.

I believed deeply in the story.

The only problem? I didn’t have a funder, production partner, or studio.

I just had an idea and a track record of telling stories I believed deserved to exist.

So I did what I had always done: I created my own opportunity.

Opportunities don’t just come from who you know, they also come from what you’ve built.

So whenever I send a cold email, it's not a completely cold introduction.

I've spent years creating, producing, and sharing my work online.

I've built a portfolio of projects, proof of concepts, and examples that show how I tell stories and bring ideas to life.

That body of work is my social proof.

And that’s why I always encourage filmmakers to build before they’re asking.

You never know who will see your work or when an opportunity will come your way, but when that moment arrives, you want to have something to show.

A pitch is much stronger when it’s not just an idea. It’s an idea backed by evidence.

There is also an important caveat: the size of the opportunity has to match the experience you’ve built.

You have to be realistic about where you are in your career and approach opportunities where your track record supports the conversation.

The goal isn’t to skip steps, it’s to consistently build the body of work that allows you to take the next step.

In this cold email case, the work I had created over the years gave me the confidence and credibility to reach out, share my vision, and start a conversation.

I reached out to an athlete manager and shared my vision for his client.

I wasn’t just explaining what I wanted to make, I was showing him what I had already done and why I believed I was the right person to tell this story.

We got on a call, talked through the possibilities, and explored what this project could become.

There was no deal. No funding. No guarantee it would go anywhere.

But there was a meaningful conversation and connection.

And sometimes, that’s where everything starts.

The Rejected Film Grant

The next step was finding a way to bring this idea to life.

I applied for a reputable film grant focused on the intersection of film, sports, and culture, exactly the space where I believed this story belonged.

I knew the application would be competitive.

When you apply for opportunities like this, you’re often going up against hundreds to thousands of projects, filmmakers, and stories.

There are so many factors that go into these decisions:

- Timing

- The selection committee

- The projects they’re looking to support that year

- How your story fits into the larger landscape

But I also knew I had a real shot.

The story was timely.

The athletes were compelling.

The cultural moment around women’s sports was growing.

And I believed the vision we were presenting was something people needed to see.

But even with that, we didn’t get the grant.

And honestly, I’ve never actually received a grant I’ve applied for.

But that has never stopped me from making films at a high level.

I think there’s a misconception that a “no” means an idea isn’t worth pursuing.

But in this industry, rejection is more common than the greenlight.

Some of the projects you believe in most will be the ones that take the longest, windy path.

The grant didn’t come through, but the work we put into the application wasn’t wasted.

We had clarified the story.

We had strengthened the vision.

We had created a plan for what this project could become.

And most importantly, the relationship was now there.

Because sometimes the opportunity you’re waiting for doesn’t come how you expected. 

The Opportunity

This is where the power of staying visible really showed up.

A few months later, Under Armour approached that same athlete manager about creating a branded documentary.

And when they started looking for someone to tell that story, my name was already connected to it.

That’s the thing about opportunities, people can’t think of you for something if they don’t know you’re there.

You can be the right person for the job, but if no one knows your name, your work, or your perspective, the opportunity will often go to the person who is already in the conversation.

Being top of mind matters.

Especially in an industry where decisions are often made quickly.

A producer, brand, or partner may not have the time to conduct a thorough search or discover every person who could be a fit.

They often start with the names they already know, the people who have been recommended, or the creators who have made themselves visible.

In this case, that earlier conversation put me in the right place at the right time.

The pitch I worked on in good faith months earlier came back around.

And the project I believed in before any money was on the table had found its moment.

That opportunity became The Future Is Flag.

The lesson I took from this wasn’t that every cold email turns into a major opportunity.

It’s that you never know which conversation will matter later, so you have to be willing to start them.