For immediate release
Contact:
Reagan and Camille Frixen 231 352-7899
Tim McKay 231 651-9295
Dan Kelly 231 882-0460
Ben Woody 231 383-1866
Micro Movie is a Benzie County Collaboration
What do Precision Collision of Frankfort, Fauxgrass’s Tim McKay of Benzonia, Western Michigan University student Ben Woody of Honor and Trickster Pictures of Beulah have in common? They just released a micro movie!
The unique collaboration between a bluegrass band, an auto body repair shop, a college student and the movie studio he interned for was initiated when Ben Woody approached his pal Danny Fox for some help. While interning for Trickster Pictures, (TricksterPictures.com) Woody had been experimenting with time lapse, where hours of action are compressed into a few minutes or seconds.
“As an intern I was encouraged to pursue my own ideas outside of work. I made several short movies for my blog, (BenWoody.com) using the company’s gear. I thought documenting Danny’s work as a car painter would be cool.”
Fox is a Paint Specialist at Precision Collision and Auto Glass of Frankfort, (PrecisionCollisionFrankfort.com) and he suggested to Woody that the owners, Reagan and Camille Frixen, might be interested in using Woody’s movie for promotion.
Upon seeing Ben’s first experiment Camille Frixen was sold. “I wasn’t sure what to expect, but when I saw Ben’s test movie I wanted him to do a whole car from start to finish. What a great way to show people what we do.”
As the scope suddenly expanded from a few hours to over a week of production, Ben proposed the project to Dan Kelly, who brought the full resources of Trickster Pictures into play.
Expanding on the Benzie County theme, Dan approached Tim McKay of Fauxgrass (FauxgrassMusic.com) about the soundtrack.
“The rest of the band met Dan for the first time when we were gigging at a wedding on Lake Leelanau. That’s when we gave him the go ahead,” said McKay.
The frenetic visuals of the accelerated action are enhanced by the upbeat pace of Fauxgrass’s all acoustic, ‘Maple Grove’. The track is also reminiscent of National Public Radio’s ‘Car Talk’ theme.
A micro movie can be any genre under 3 minutes, a common length at popular sights like YouTube.com and Vimeo.com.
In 2011 Northern Michigan’s production affinity group, the Michigan Movie Makers or M3 (MichiganMovieMakers.com) launched the region’s first Micro Movie Marathon, an informal festival featuring micro movies made anywhere north of Grand Rapids. The festival runs about 2 hours and is capped with audience balloting to select award winners.
“M3 has at least two Micro Movie Marathons each year to showase what the local production community is up to,” said Dan Kelly, who is also a founding member of M3. “Micro movies dominate the web. The short length is accessible to a huge audience, easy to distribute and presents fascinating challenges for the movie maker, whatever her level of experience.”
Toyota Prius Repair can be viewed at http://youtu.be/qXAT3ftLQDM or http://youtube.com/reaganfrixen and will be screened to the public at the January Micro Movie Marathon.