American Idol Star Shoots Big Music Video in Tiny SWMI Town
It's not all about Hollywood, dawg. American Idol star Margie Mays fell in love with Michigan when she filmed a music video at the drive-in theater in Buchanan.
How does a Delaware native with Hollywood aspirations end up in Buchanan?
Margie Mays grew up in Wilmington, Delaware and then followed her dream all the way across the country to California. After graduating from Stanford University, she moved to L.A. and competed on seasons 2 and 3 of American Idol. These days, she is still making music and shot her latest video not on a Hollywood sound stage, but at the drive-in movie theater in Buchanan, Michigan. Why Buchanan?
The answer is simple: music video director Kyle Misak is a Kalamazoo native. Misak has written and directed over twenty films, three of which are feature length. Creed Bratton of The Office read his script for Crazy Carl, loved it and agreed to do this small independent film for much less money than NBC would pay him for something like this. When Kyle found out that the idea for Margie's video was to be set in the '60s, he immediately thought of somewhere back home in Michigan. His production director Don Chase is from Buchanan and reached out to several classic car clubs, who turned out in force with over 100 classic cars showing up for the shoot on August 15.
While she was here, Margie Mays fell in love with Buchanan and Michigan,
I’m in love with Michigan. It’s different from LA. People are kind to me. ‘Do you want food? Do you want to eat something?’ I’m like ‘no, I’m full, but thank you so much.’ It’s just peaceful out here. I’m completely overwhelmed by this. This is so kind and nice.
Look for Margie Mays' video for her upcoming single "Take It Back" to be released soon. You can see some of the classic cars used in the video here and read more about the excitement in this small town when a big production took over for a day.