“People don’t always want to be reminded of the challenges they’re having in their daily life,” says Derek Frey. “They want all these big, fantastical experiences—to sit in a chair for a couple hours and forget about the things they’re dealing with.”
Frey can relate. As a kid, he’d sit along-side his grandparents at the Lansdowne Theater, watching the Hollywood-scale fantasies of Tim Burton, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg play out on the big screen. Those weekends marked the start of a lifelong love of filmmaking. One Burton movie made Frey feel particularly “at home.” In 1985’s “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” the Oscar-winning director seemed to treat his quirky cast of characters with so much love. As someone who leaned on humor to deflect attention from being the smallest kid at school, Frey suddenly had permission to be himself.
That connection was perhaps prophetic, as one of Frey’s first jobs was serving as an assistant on the Burton’s 1996 scifi comedy “Mars Attacks!.”
Over more than three decades, the Drexel Hill native has produced live-action and animated films for major studios He’s also directed several of his award-winning independent projects, including a 2012 music video for Grammy-nominated rock band the Killers. Through his ongoing collaboration with Burton, he’s served as a producer on “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children,” “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “Franken-weenie” and many other films.
But even as his career has taken him all over the world, Frey can’t shake his ties to the area. He and his wife, writer and photographer Leah Gallo, met through a friend while both were home for the holidays in West Chester. And they’re raising their two boys, seven and 11, in a 1840s farmhouse near Lincoln University. “Pennsylvania has always been home for both of us,” says Gallo, who was raised in New London. “My family is here, and that sense of rootedness has meant everything to us.”
“THIS PAST SUMMER, FREY AND THE MINOR PROPHETS FILMED THEIR LATEST SHORT FILM IN WEST DEPTFORD, NEW JERSEY. “THE CURRENT STATE OF THE BACKYARD POOL INDUSTRY” TELLS THE STORY OF A FAMILY’S RUN-IN WITH A NOCTURNAL STRANGER.
Frey directed his short film “Viaticum” in the family home. Andrew Wyeth’s celebrated 1965 watercolor “Master Bedroom” served as inspiration for the lighting in the dark comedy, about a tussle between a hospice nurse and a priest over a dying patient’s last rites.
“Viaticum” premiered at the Delco Film Festival in 2024, returning to the region a year later at the West Chester Film Festival, which is celebrating 20 years this month. “There’s so much contrast between the light and the dark, but it’s about what’s happening in those shadows,” says Frey of the film, which was shot in black and white. “It’s not about one or the other. It’s about something that exists in the middle.”
Frey’s creative ties to the area don’t end there. Twenty years ago, following the release Burton’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” Frey received an unexpected email from Gil Damon, his best friend from middle school. Damon thanked him for making the sort of movie he could enjoy watching with his kids. Frey, meanwhile, describes Damon as the funniest guy he knew growing up. Both were class clowns who bonded over Martin Short’s Ed Grimley character on “Saturday Night Live.”
When Damon mentioned he was making short films as part of the three-man Minor Prophets comedy troupe, Frey was intrigued. In 2006, the foursome launched their first collaboration, shooting “4th and 99” at Marple Newtown High School football field in Newtown Square over Thanksgiving weekend.
“He came to us almost as a fan,” says writer/actor David Amadio, one third of the Minor Prophets alongside Damon and Steve Kuzmick. “He really liked what we were doing and wanted to be a part of it.”
And there was the Delco connection. All four were Upper Darby High School graduates. Frey later got a taste for film-making with a group of fellow students at West Chester University. He was there to study communications and had his sights on a journalism career, even interning at 6abc’s Action News.
But after graduation, Frey was lured to Hollywood, finding assistant work on the Paramount Studios lot with the short-lived 1996 sitcom “The Faculty.” Then some-one tipped him off about a job with Tim Burton Productions, and his life changed exponentially. When Frey and his wife married in 2012, Burton and partner Helena Bonham Carter attended their Kennett Square wedding. Gallo has served as a photographer on Burton films since 2007’s “Sweeney Todd,” also working on a number of books for the production company. “Though Derek’s role was as a producer on Tim’s films, he always brought a director’s mindset to the collaboration, which made their partnership such a natural fit,” says Gallo. “It’s been incredibly rewarding to watch Derek in recent years step into expressing his own voice in the films he is producing and directing. The foundation from those years remains, but what’s most meaningful is seeing him come into his own and the opportunity to support and document that.”
Where Frey’s work with Burton indulges his interest in the weird and macabre, his collaborations with the Minor Prophets are rooted more in reality, with a touch of the unexpected. “There’s always a social message, and their stories are firmly embedded in suburbia and the tri-state area,” says Frey.
This past summer, Frey and the Minor Prophets filmed their latest short film in West Deptford, New Jersey. “The Current State of the Backyard Pool Industry” tells the story of a family’s run-in with a nocturnal stranger. It marks their tenth collaboration. Set challenges included filming underwater on a property in the flight path of Philadelphia International Airport. “Dennis is able to sand down some of the rough edges in our writing and make it glow,” says Amadio.
For Frey, the best movies sets are like dreamscapes. A favorite was the Montgomery, Alabama, location for Burton’s 2003 fantasy drama “Big Fish.” When the production team wanted “a real giant, someone with a physical presence,” Frey recommended his former West Chester classmate Matthew McGrory, who was dabbling in acting at the time. At 7-foot-6, McGrory was recognized as the tallest actor by Guinness World Records, passing away two years after the film was released.
“Whenever I watch it, it gets me every time,” says Frey of the film, about a son who tries to learn more about his dying father by reliving the stories he told. “The story itself is so beautiful.”
And getting lost in a beautiful story isn’t such a bad place to be.
Visit Derek Frey Films and The Minor Prophets.
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