Michigan’s film incentive program may be long gone, but the heart of its film industry still beats.
Two teams of Oakland County filmmakers each recently wrapped set on movies shot almost entirely in the county- one big-budget feature length taking a new spin on a piece of Detroit folklore and another short, character driven art noir film following the demise of a lead singer of an art rock band.
The Oakland Press recently caught up with these filmmakers to discuss both the movies they’ve made and what’s happening in the Michigan film industry.
Silvertongue Entertainment: Lambeth Walk
VIDEO: See a trailer of “Lambeth Walk” (Warning: strong language used)
RELATED: Check out the other team, Kyyba Films, story here.
In 2016, a group of three young men met working at movie theater in Bloomfield Township: Nolan Elias, writer, director and owner of Silvertongue Entertainment, 23 of Bloomfield Hills, Daniel Dehkordi, chief administrator, 26 of West Bloomfield and Nick Alexander, actor and producer, 22 of Pontiac.
The group became fast friends, coming together that year to begin working on the studio’s first movie, “Lambeth Walk.”
The 29-minute short film tells the story of Micky Tramble, lead singer and guitarist for an art rock band, a genre which became popular between 1982 and 1985. Tramble, a drug-addict, is dying from a degenerative disease. The story is told almost entirely by the characters that surround him, exploring how Tramble’s death and lifestyle impacts the people in his life.
It took Elias two-years of character building to flush out the seven main characters of the film. The script itself was written in three days.
“The way these characters are, is kind of like a slap in the face. The film is about family relationships, the Cold War is mentioned quite a bit, but it’s also about how people respond to tabloids and how the youth looks to celebrities as role models,” Elias said.
“My big problem is how people glorify celebrities and raise anything they do to god-like proportions. They become icons. Their vices become icons. These characters are horrible people and I do my best not to glorify anything.”
Elias went on to explain how the film acts as a quasi-callout to those who judge negative events in other people’s lives, instead of trying to fix societal problems as whole.
“The only way I could do that was to show the worst of what society could offer for judgement. Even though the lead character is dying, he’s not taking it with grace, he’s accelerating his demise as a victim of his own mind.”
Most of the film was shot over 12-days in Pontiac, where the group found a recording studio on Lawrence Street downtown that has a 1980s feel to it. Other scenes were shot at The Ritz hotel in Warren, Planet Ant Theater in Hamtramck, Depot Park in Clarkston and parts of West Bloomfield.
Including purchasing equipment, the R-rated film cost about $12,000 to make.
Discussing the state of the Michigan film industry, the group was adamant that the film couldn’t have been made anywhere else.
“I’ve been getting job offers to go to Los Angeles and Atlanta, and I’ve always just been saying no,” Alexander, who plays Tramble in the film, said. “My work isn’t done here and I don’t think I can do what this company wants to do if I was in those places and that’s because of the people here. In Los Angeles and Atlanta, they’re so tired of these kinds of filmmakers.”
Elias continued, saying that many filmmakers and actors feel they need approval from places like Hollywood to make a movie.
“We don’t need permission from them. There’s nothing stopping you,” Elias said. “We’re happy to have made what we wanted. I feel confident that people will view this as a different, unique piece.”
Silvertongue Entertainment plans to submit the film to the festival circuit, including events like the Traverse City Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival. A deal is also in the works to distribute the movie alongside other short-films to local theaters this summer.
“We shouldn’t try to shoot like Hollywood. If everything’s the same, then why go to the movies? To see the same types of films over and over again, you’ve completely lost why people dabble in art. It’s an expression of uniqueness and without it, you might as well invest in a brick wall,” Elias said.
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