Northville the Star of Historical Short Film

Though Adam Woloszyk grew up just 10 minutes from Northville, he didn’t know much about the Wayne County burg.

“To me, Northville was just a boring town,” said Woloszyk, 29, of Plymouth. “I lived near it my entire life, but I never knew about it at all.”

That changed this month when Woloszyk joined college classmate Caitlin McInnis, of Northville, to present a six-minute film that highlights Northville’s history.

The short film, titled A Timely Meeting, is one of five so-called Mobiflicks created by separate filmmaking teams competing in this year’s PAH (Project Accessible Hollywood) Fest Motown, sponsored by Livonia’s Madonna University.

The five teams were selected from 15 entrants who submitted 250-word film pitches, Woloszyk said. After the teams were chosen, they had a week to assemble a cast, write their script and create their movie magic.

“It’s great for the amateur filmmaker,” said Woloszyk, who , which features prominent places in Plymouth and won the $1,000 top prize. Among the Plymouth locations featured in the short film are the and . Woloszyk is enrolled in Madonna’s Broadcast and Cinema Arts program and aims to get his second bachelor’s degree and pursue a career in filmmaking.

A Timely Meeting aims to be part entertainment and part history lesson. The film opens with a young boy readying to move away from Northville to Chicago. Before leaving town, the boy is invited by a young neighbor for a final game of catch at the local ball field, only to be taken on a walking trip of Northville’s historical sites, including the , where legendary boxer Joe Louis once trained. It pans businesses on Main Street, including and the .

Woloszyk (pronounced “wall-check”) said the film was shot in high-definition video with a Canon EOS Rebel T3i – an amateur camera marketed primarily for still photography – and edited digitally. Last year's Plymouth film is online here via YouTube, while Woloszyk anticipates posting this year's film on his blog soon. Meanwhile, it can be seen at the film fest's website: http://www.pahnationfest.com/theatre/11_detroit_pahfest_11/.

Woloszyk and 16-year-old Caitlin – a home-schooled senior who takes broadcasting courses at Madonna University – interspersed shots of recognizable Northville scenes, such as a passing train on the town’s railway and quaint businesses downtown.

The film features a Field of Dreams-like twist, too, when it turns out that the boy’s new Northville-knowledgeable friend is actually his grandfather.

Woloszyk said the nod to time traveling came from his and McInnis’ shared appreciation of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone.

“The film was about these boys appreciating Northville,” said Woloszyk, who researched Northville’s history through library books and interviews with historians. “In the end, I found I was learning just as much as the characters in the movie.”

The PAH Fest wrapped up Sunday night in Livonia. The film didn't win this year's cash prize, but it did win the Artistic Appreciation Award, Woloszyk said.