How Chris Stuckmann raised $1.4 million, ran out of money, but still finished Shelby Oaks

“She showed me this roller coaster that was peeking above the trees — rusted and covered in vines,” Stuckmann tells Polygon. “I was mesmerized, and it always stayed in my mind.”Roughly 25 years later, he returned to that very same spot, Chippewa Lake Park, to film his debut feature film, Shelby Oaks. By then, Stuckmann was a well-established presence on YouTube, where his movie reviews and retrospective videos sometimes rack up millions of views. But to make the leap from critic to filmmaker, he had to call in every favor he could (including raising over a million dollars from his fans) and get creative while filming on a microscopic budget.