{"id":1340,"date":"2017-10-25T14:13:56","date_gmt":"2017-10-25T18:13:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=1340"},"modified":"2019-01-07T13:45:56","modified_gmt":"2019-01-07T18:45:56","slug":"new-focus-tom-parr-85","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/new-focus-tom-parr-85\/","title":{"rendered":"A new focus for Tom Parr \u201985"},"content":{"rendered":"

During an advertising career that has spanned decades, Detroit-based creative director Tom Parr \u201985 has worked at some of the industry\u2019s biggest agencies\u2014including McCann Erickson, Ammirati & Puris, BBDO\u2014on some of the world\u2019s best-known brands including General Motors, Coca Cola, FedEx, and Apple.<\/p>\n

But his latest project\u2014High Point 10-79<\/em>, a documentary about an innovative approach to reducing domestic violence\u2014is a world away from that advertising work.<\/p>\n

Parr\u2019s foray into documentary filmmaking began three years ago after he received a call from Susan Scrupski, his former high school classmate. Scrupski, a domestic violence survivor whose start-up, Big Mountain Data, focuses on applying data-driven solutions to domestic violence, had just seen terrifying video footage of former football star Ray Rice beating his wife that had surfaced. \u201cTommy, we gotta do something,\u201d Parr recalls Scrupski saying.<\/p>\n

That \u201csomething\u201d became High Point 10-79<\/em>, a stirring documentary about the novel approach High Point, North Carolina, is taking to prevent domestic violence. High Point\u2019s strategy involves \u201cforced deterrence,\u201d offering help to a small group of chronic domestic abusers and punishment for repeat offenders. The initiative is working. High Point\u2019s recidivism rate for domestic violence, once a plague, is at 14 percent; the national average is 30 to 60 percent within six months of a domestic abuse crime being committed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to amplify this story, because they have the data,\u201d says Parr. \u201cThis approach works<\/em>. This isn\u2019t conjecture\u2026That\u2019s been our passion. We started it, we\u2019re committed to finishing it, and, at the end of the day, we know this will make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea for documenting the High Point program came from Scrupski, who had seen Marty Sumner, High Point\u2019s former chief of police, briefly discuss his city\u2019s approach on This Week with George Stephanopoulos<\/em>. She personally followed up with him, and filming on the documentary started in early 2015.<\/p>\n

Parr says he thought the project would take two weeks. More than two years later, the work continues. Documentaries require time\u2014something Parr and his longtime creative partner, Igor Kovalik, the film\u2019s co-director and editor, lacked. Plus, the story kept growing. The crew returned so frequently to High Point that waitresses began greeting them personally: \u201cHi, y\u2019all, you\u2019re back! How\u2019s the movie?\u201d Parr drove down over long weekends to continue working on the film. The budget paled to his usual corporate work. Forget production assistants making Starbucks run\u2014\u201cevery nickel\u201d has gone into what\u2019s on the screen, says Parr. Fancy hotels were replaced with a half-dozen people squeezed into an Airbnb. Parr and Kovalik even lugged their own equipment and set up their own lights. Nonetheless, Parr says he has loved every bit of the experience. High Point 10-79 has become his passion project.<\/p>\n

Parr says the full film should be complete by spring 2018. Nonetheless, the work is already resonating. An early version of High Point 10-79 screened at IACP 2016, the annual conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. That prompted Fort Bragg Army Base to show the film to its staff, says Parr.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Oct. 30, Parr screened a short version of the film on campus as part of the School of Social Work\u2019s event, 21st Century Approaches to Ending Intimate Partner Violence. <\/a>A panel of experts, including Scupski and Chief Schultz, were on hand to discuss the film and the initiative.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really heady at the beginning, thinking, \u2018Well, we might be able to make a difference,\u201d says Parr. \u201cIt\u2019s one thing to say it, but when you hear from people and they tell you, \u2018Oh no, this made a difference,\u2019 you\u2019re like, \u2018Wow.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During an advertising career that has spanned decades, Detroit-based creative director Tom Parr \u201985 has worked at some of the industry\u2019s biggest agencies\u2014including McCann Erickson, Ammirati & Puris, BBDO\u2014on some of the world\u2019s best-known brands including General Motors, Coca Cola, FedEx, and Apple. But his latest project\u2014High Point 10-79, a documentary about an innovative approach […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":1341,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"image_focus":"","hide_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-back"],"thumbnail":"\"\"","catString":"The Back","issue":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1340"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1421,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1340\/revisions\/1421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}