Frey\u2019s creative ties to the area don\u2019t end there. Twenty years ago, following the release Burton\u2019s \u201cCharlie and the Chocolate Factory,\u201d 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\u2019s Ed Grimley character on \u201cSaturday Night Live.\u201d<\/p>\n
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 \u201c4th and 99\u201d at Marple Newtown High School football field in Newtown Square over Thanksgiving weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe came to us almost as a fan,\u201d says writer\/actor David Amadio, one third of the Minor Prophets alongside Damon and Steve Kuzmick. \u201cHe really liked what we were doing and wanted to be a part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
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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\u2019s Action News.<\/p>\n
But after graduation, Frey was lured to Hollywood, finding assistant work on the Paramount Studios lot with the short-lived 1996 sitcom \u201cThe Faculty.\u201d 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\u2019s \u201cSweeney Todd,\u201d also working on a number of books for the production company. \u201cThough Derek\u2019s role was as a producer on Tim\u2019s films, he always brought a director\u2019s mindset to the collaboration, which made their partnership such a natural fit,\u201d says Gallo. \u201cIt\u2019s 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\u2019s most meaningful is seeing him come into his own and the opportunity to support and document that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Where Frey\u2019s 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. \u201cThere\u2019s always a social message, and their stories are firmly embedded in suburbia and the tri-state area,\u201d says Frey.<\/p>\n
This past summer, Frey and the Minor Prophets filmed their latest short film in West Deptford, New Jersey. \u201cThe Current State of the Backyard Pool Industry\u201d tells the story of a family\u2019s 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. \u201cDennis is able to sand down some of the rough edges in our writing and make it glow,\u201d says Amadio.<\/p>\n
For Frey, the best movies sets are like dreamscapes. A favorite was the Montgomery, Alabama, location for Burton\u2019s 2003 fantasy drama \u201cBig Fish.\u201d When the production team wanted \u201ca real giant, someone with a physical presence,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhenever I watch it, it gets me every time,\u201d says Frey of the film, about a son who tries to learn more about his dying father by reliving the stories he told. \u201cThe story itself is so beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n
And getting lost in a beautiful story isn\u2019t such a bad place to be.<\/p>\n
Visit Derek Frey Films<\/a> and The Minor Prophets<\/a>.<\/p>\n