Mike Collins
"When I went to College in Connecticut, I studied communications where I trained as an editor. However, the first two years out of college was tough going, as I bounced around retail jobs. I was selling text books, working in a hardware store until I wound up managing a shoe department at Walmart. One night I am there late and this couple come in looking for boots, but they are more interested in the logos on the side. So I asked them why they were so pained over the look of the logo. It turns out that they were working on a TV show and they could' t show the logos. This was the closest I had sniffed anything to do with film and television, since I left college.”
"I kept in contact with these guys, and then one-day, they are doing a piece about restoring this old church in a really crummy neighborhood in Philly. And that's how I got my big break working as an editor on that story. Up until that moment, I really thought that my dream was not going to happen. However, when the moment arrives you have to be prepared to go after it. If it comes just once in your lifetime, then you are seriously lucky. On that job I got to do some really nice work for some really interesting people; so I guess my life has been about doing exactly that ever since!"
"Nowadays, I work for a not-for-profit being a cinematographer and director. Originally, The Missionary Society hired me to build a multimedia unit for them. The job has grown into the best of both worlds now, where I get to tell stories everyday in the most compelling way I can. They are such good people and really proud and encouraging in all of the stories I tell, including the passion projects I do through Cinema Mercantile.”
"The work I do as Cinema Mercantile really came out of a program I did with Stillmotion a few years back. One of the projects we did as part of that program had me directing a team, where we were asked to do a 30 sec TV spot on music store called Gryphon Strings. I was kind of disappointed after we did this 30sec spot, because there was much more to their story that really could have be told.”
"So I specifically asked Patrick Moreau at 'Stillmotion', if could I turn all of the footage we shot for the TV commercial project into a miniature short. This was probably the first time that I figured that the style of work I am was getting paid to do, I could use for story’s I want to do.”
"In my current job, I am literally lucky enough to be a full time director and cinematographer. I work for people that are trying to make the world a better place and they treat me and my team exceptionally well. I really couldn’t ask for a better situation to be in. However, I knew that I still needed to do more passion projects."
"When I started doing this, I never really thought about Cinema Mercantile as being something that would be a money maker. It was always a passion project. I was lucky to have a lot of talented people follow me along on this journey, because they thought they would be good fun projects to do or make great reel pieces. What I think is really cool about this stuff, is what we offer to people, is that if you give me a day or two of your time, I will in return, give you a professional cinematic piece that you can use however you want!”
"When I went looking for a name to call these passion projects, all I knew is I wanted to use the word cinema. Then I saw the ‘something’ Mercantile Company in 'Monocle Magazine'. When I looked the word Mercantile up and found that one of the definitions was to do with being a trade, it was too good to be true. I am literally trading my skills for everyone’s time that I do a piece for, so it all made perfect sense. So my passion projects are now called Cinema Mercantile.”
"After I completed the piece for Gryphon Strings, I was thinking of what to do next. Then Hurricane Sandy hit New York, I am seeing all of these articles to do with the all of this historic salvaging. I am thinking to myself ‘where does all this wreckage go?’ These are all historical things that were wrecked on the boardwalks and they have to go somewhere. I thought here is a great story. So I contacted a couple of big New York salvage yards and I didn’t get a single response from anyone!”
"Being originally from Philadelphia, I thought I could kick this idea off back home. I knew of this big old salvage company run out of a mill where they have all of these amazing artefacts. I figured that this could be our next feature story. So when I spoke to the owner Linda, she asked what the catch was. I told her that there is no catch. That I just want to tell her story. Linda is kind of like my original partner in crime. She is the one that initially said 'yes' to having her story told and that really helped get Cinema Mercantile going.”
"With the success of the salvage company project, and after seeing Andrew David Watson’s film, ‘Cast and Salvage,’ I really wanted to do something about motorcycles next. I figured that motorcycles are pretty cool and they photograph really well. Andrew suggested a couple of bike shops in Philly, because again, I wasn’t too sure if any of the local bike shops here in New York would ever get back to me. When I started looking for vintage motorcycles shops in Philly, ‘Spare Parts Company just kept coming up time and again.”
"With a guy like Roland, it is so hard for him to promote himself. He is so embarrassed by the attention. So you can imagine how he was when our short film recently opened the New York Motorcycle Film Festival!"
"Not that it really matters how many people see these piece. Even if nobody watches the pieces we are doing, I would be kind of OK with that, because these are all stories that I feel I want to tell.”
"How we find stories can be as interesting as telling them sometimes. Recently, I met these really talented young designers from Ohio who had just moved to New York, called ‘These are Things.’ They were doing some really amazing stuff here in Brooklyn at the old Navy Yards. This whole part of Brooklyn is becoming a really creative district with loads of artists now working out of all these the disused warehouses."
"About the same time, I also saw this amazing letterpress logo on Etsy and found it was done by yet, another another amazing young artist called Bessie Anderson. They all happened to be working out of the old Brooklyn Navy Yards, so I figured I could do two stories at once. Unfortunately, the guys at ‘These are Things’ decided that New York wasn’t for them and went back home, but I did get this amazing story about Bessie Anderson’s work. She is really awesome and does amazing work with hotmetal and an old letterpress."
"I have always tried to find stories that really interest me. I feel that if it interests me, then I can make something compelling out of it that hopefully somebody else will want to see. We have been pretty luck and got a fair amount of exposure from our work with no publicity at all. We even have a feature slot with ‘The Atlantic' magazine now, who really love our work, which I think pretty amazing. Every time we do a new piece, we just upload it straight into their website.”