Folk Lore

Oct. 25, 2006

Idea: An investigator of the supernatural plays a deadly game with the dark forces of magic and myth to save his daughter. Sound like a grabber? The cast and crew of “Folk Lore” hope so: their independently-made film has its world premiere this Friday at Horizon Cinemas in Traverse City.
One of the stars of the show is Northern Michigan, which served as the wilderness backdrop of the action/adventure film. And if you attend its week-long run in Traverse City, perhaps you’ll notice some familiar faces onscreen; most of the cast and crew are from northwestern Michigan or the Upper Peninsula.
“Folk Lore” is the brainchild of writer/director Jeffrey Morgan and producer Andrew Tomlinson, both age 26. The partners have been friends since their high school days in Traverse City, continuing their friendship at Northern Michigan University (NMU) in Marquette.
“We’ve put an incredible amount of work into it,” Tomlinson says of the project which has been more than two years in the making. “Around 3,000 indie movies are made each year and only about 100 get out of the basement for distribution, so seeing it finally appear is really exciting.”

THE PLOT
Here’s the plot: “A paranormal investigator’s daughter is kidnapped. To rescue her he must participate in an ancient game of magic and endurance. He must abide by two rules: No modern weapons and no modern means of transportation. He is allowed one champion: a warrior skilled in the ways of ancient battle. Together they must face the forces of darkness.”
“The story came from some personal interests of mine, including religion, philosophy and myth,” says Jeff Morgan. “I kind of have a soft spot for the age of chivalry and knights, so that’s a big part of it. I spent about a year and a half writing the story and a lot of weekends at the library with books on everything from crime scene investigation to medieval times and the age of chivalry.”
Morgan polished his filmmaking skills in Hollywood. After earning a degree in fine arts from NMU, he spent two years in L.A. working with an independent film production company and assisting on major studio films.
“I learned a lot about the business aspects of filmmaking there, but I also learned that I didn’t want to raise a family in Los Angeles,” he recalls. Another factor which influenced him to come back to Northern Michigan is the fact that it’s extremely expensive to film in southern California, where a license to shoot a single day’s street scene can run $15,000.
“Here, everyone was so nice and helpful in creating ‘Folk Lore’ and we shot a lot of scenes on state land,” Morgan says.
When Morgan got back to Northern Michigan, he contacted his old friend Tomlinson and pitched the idea of making a film. At the time, Tomlinson had plans to pursue a graduate degree is psychology, but quickly switched gears to work on the 161-minute film, forming the independent Prometheus Motion Pictures company.

THE CAST
The partners also relied on local actors. “A lot of the people in this movie are those we met at NMU who had the requisite talent for their parts,” Tomlinson says.
Starring as the father on a mythic quest is Jordan Ewers, an NMU acquaintance whose background is a mixed bag of role-playing games, martial arts, political science and what his bio calls the study of “Human Endeavor.” His warrior guide is Piortr Burchard, a native of Poland who studied psychology at NMU and enjoys medieval combat reenactment and extreme camping.
Similarly, Ben Dawson was an NMU chum who did the metalsmithing on the film’s weapons and also played a vampire. Playing the wife is Stacey Griffith, an actress from TC who’s starred in Old Towne Playhouse productions as well as the Leelanau Players and Riverside Shakespeare Company. Al Lien, also of TC, has been active in the Old Towne Playhouse and Leelanau Players. Actress Audrey Lucero is a resident of the eastern U.P. Rounding out the project are art director Tobias Dawson and composer Mark Leonard.

HIGH TECH
Technology also played a starring role in the film in that “Folk Lore” was shot with the same high-definition digital video process used on this year’s “Miami Vice” film and 2004’s “Collateral.”
“Every shot went directly into a hard-drive,” Tomlinson says. “It was a tapeless production involving two Apple G5 workstations, one of which went everywhere with a generator.”
Morgan splurged on a $20,000 high-def camera and a long cord for shooting in the field. “That meant hiking out into the swamps near Ranch Rudolph and carrying an 80-pound generator and a 50 pound computer with us,” he recalls of a set at Brownbridge Pond, southeast of Traverse City.
With “Folk Lore” being part of the sword-and-sorcery film genre, it was also necessary to come up with special effects on a limited budget (estimated at $488,000).
“We had a fair amount of special effects in the movie,” Morgan says. “I didn’t limit myself as we were filming, but I knew we had people who could do them for us. A lot of great special effects are simple camera tricks.”
See for yourself when “Folk Lore” hits the big screen at 7 p.m. this Friday, Oct. 27 through Nov. 2 at Horizon Cinima and at the City Opera House (see sidebar) in Traverse City. The show will also run in Marquette and Houghton, and will be available on DVD at local outlets.