David W. Griffith Corp

The Birth of a Nation was produced by a little company called David W. Griffith Corp. That's right—Griffith didn't just write and direct the film, but he also formed a company to produce it.

The dude really wanted to make this movie.

Want to know how else Griffith showed that he really wanted to see the birth of The Birth of a Nation? He invested a boatload of cashola. The film's budget began at $40,000 but quickly ballooned to over $100,000, which with inflation is nearly $2.5 million dollars today. No other film of the time had such a gut-bustingly large budget.

That being said, we don't know much about the David W. Griffith Corp. The Birth of a Nation seems to be the only film it ever produced. Hmm—even if we don't know the nitty-gritty details, however, the fact that Griffith created a corporation specifically to produce this film shows how committed he was to his vision.