Filmmaker James Allen Smith gets ‘Floored’ in Chicago’s trading pits

Filmmaker James Allen Smith gets ‘Floored’ in Chicago’s trading pits
Filmmaker James Allen Smith gets ‘Floored’ in Chicago’s trading pits

Filmmaker James Allen Smith gets ‘Floored’ in Chicago’s trading pits

WBEZ brings you fact-based news and information. Sign up for our newsletters to stay up to date on the stories that matter.

The Chicago Board of Trade and The Mercantile Exchange are more than just institutions where small fortunes are won and lost on a daily basis. They’re spectacles, full of larger than life characters. Filmmaker James Allen Smith captured them up close in his film “Floored.” The documentary is a rare look at life in the pits and how a young upstart – technology – is changing things. We talked to him earlier this year about how his background as a Web designer for a number of trading companies gave him access. One day, he was called down to the Merc by one of his clients. What he thought would be a routine visit turned out to be his first time on the floor. He says it was a shocker!