Springfield native Michael Anthony Brown just won an Emmy as part of the editing team on the FX show “Welcome to Wrexham,” but he wants to try something new.
“It is really, truly, a fun project to work on. I'm trying to get away from sports, but to me, as ironic as it sounds, it doesn't feel like a sports documentary,” Brown said.
The show, now in its third season, focuses on a Welsh soccer team purchased by actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. The team is trying to win its league, of course, but for Brown, the real story is in the relationships among the players, owners, and the town.
“We’re trying to find the story within this big bag of footage, but it's a character piece where it's a small town and people have certain eccentricities within the quiet moments,” Brown said.
Hours turned into minutes
Brown has to help whittle up to 30 hours of footage into half-hour episodes while creating a story. His best friend, actor and singer Lucas Grabeel, compares Brown’s work to writing.
“As an editor, essentially he is a writer because he builds stories from images, and facial expressions and interviews,” Grabeel said.
Because of Brown’s jobs and love of adventure, and Grabeel’s global success with “High School Musical,” the two have traveled extensively since moving to Los Angeles together in 2003. Grabeel said Brown was always creating on the road.
“He would always make these short, little emotional videos that would have the best soundtrack,” Grabeel said. “He had images of raindrops coming down off of a windshield, and random people walking down the street, but the way that he would cut them together — it was taking the mundane and creating art and beauty.”
Sometimes it doesn’t take much.
“Maybe that’s something coming from Springfield — people are interesting, even in their silence,” Brown said.
Origin story in Springfield, Missouri
Prior to starting at Kickapoo High School in 1999, Brown asked for permission to take a media class as a freshman instead of waiting until his junior year, which was standard.
It didn’t work out — but then, it did.
“I didn't take any media classes (at Kickapoo),” Brown said, cheerfully. “I just sort of made it my mission to do it on my own.”
Grabeel transferred from Logan-Rogersville to Kickapoo before his junior year and became fast friends with Brown.
“He made videos and I was in them,” Grabeel said. “We had a lot of fun, and it was basically the start of our filmmaking career because we came out to LA and we didn't stop.”
Brown said spent his college money on editing equipment.
“I had the savings bonds that my grandma gave me, and without my mom knowing, I spent all of it on film equipment,” he said. “I feel like I bought, like, half of Best Buy when I was that age.”
His parents, Ben and Melinda Brown, were not thrilled.
“Those savings bonds were what his grandparents have given him since he was born, so, in our mind he was going to be using them for college,” Melinda Brown said.
Mom and Dad grew to accept that their son had a different path.
“Whenever he bought the equipment, we were like, ‘It’s not for that, it's for schooling,’ Melinda Brown said. “But we finally settled down and thought, ‘Well, you know, this is his preparation for schooling. It's ok.’”
Initially, they considered technical schools, perhaps paying for it with baseball scholarships. Michael was not interested.
“He just wanted to focus on media and not on all the other curriculum associated with going to college,” Ben Brown said.
Switching his life's focus from baseball to film editing was a left turn, as Michael puts it, but his experience as a percussionist in high school band still lends itself to his work.
“Editing is so much about rhythm, and pacing, and timing,” Michael Brown said. “You're trying to play and hit all the right notes and follow the time, and it feels very similar whenever I'm editing.”
Becoming an ‘Avid' fan
Channel One is a now-defunct content and news provider that was shown in public schools around the United States. It sponsored an annual contest for “Student Produced Week.” Brown was selected and shadowed the line producer for a week in Los Angeles. He told his temporary colleagues he planned to work there after graduation.
“They were like, ‘Okay, sure, kid,’” he said.
Although he could edit, he wasn’t trained on Avid editing software.
“When I moved, there were no jobs available,” Brown said. “I needed to get some sort of training to fast-track my acceptance as a serious ‘kid' and I was looking at a couple of film academies.”
“Lucas had a manager and was getting some things going, but Michael was really struggling because he didn’t know Avid,” Ben Brown said. “I found this Video Symphony out there and talked him into going to that.”
He was the youngest person in his 11-month course by about 20 years. Early on, Grabeel worked at Blockbuster, and Brown worked at Hollywood Video. They watched a lot of movies on a 13-inch TV Brown won at Project Graduation.
Brown also worked overnight shifts as an assistant editor at a place called Creative Differences, making duplicates of the day’s shows so producers could offer notes. One day a man walked in and said he needed something wild.
“I need you to make pictures of bears. I need better pictures of cubs playing in the stream.”
It was Werner Herzog, who was finishing up the documentary “Grizzly Man.”
‘You're a terrible assistant'
Brown said he frequently lost his keys, and once had to break into the building to start his shift. He’d also done small editing jobs, which came in handy when his supervisor called him soon after.
“He’s like, ‘Michael, you're a terrible assistant. I think you'll be better off like being an editor.’”
Sure enough, Brown was better as an editor.
“I ended up going straight from that to working my first actual editing job, which was cutting television poker,” Brown said.
He worked on short introductory features about poker players competing in tournaments. He also met Adam Goldberg, a producer who later recommended him for “Wrexham.”
Changes after car accident
He’s worked on location at the French Open and traveled with NFL Honors. He worked on the series “Losers,” about athletes who struggled, and “Coach Prime,” about Deion Sanders.
Now he usually works from his home in North Hollywood. He married Rose Marie Rupley, an actress, in October. He’s grateful for his work, but he’s restless.
“You start to develop patterns and you know what those producers want,” Brown said, “So, it's easy to make those shows.”
Right when he started on “Wrexham” in 2021, a car accident left him with a concussion, memory issues, and panic attacks. Rupley, their pets, and drumming help Brown deal with lingering anxiety.
“It was just, like, all of this started from that car accident and I'm actually still alive,” Brown said. “Everything that has happened afterwards has been so great. I thought that it was a really negative experience — and it was — but I’m overcoming that.”
Perhaps that perspective makes trying new things less frightening. He wants to do more narrative pieces and work with new people.
“I think it's so healthy to reset and get to know somebody, and how they work and what their ideas are,” Brown said.
New project with super potential
He’s currently in the pre-production stages of a film about the origin of superheroes. Rob Montague is directing it.
“It’s a very unusual medium,” Montague said. “It's an animated film, documentary, and a narrative, like an action blockbuster. It kind of lives in all three worlds.”
Montague said non-disclosure agreements prevent him from sharing more details on the film, but he is verbose about Brown.
“He has a sensibility and a sensitivity as an artist that I just felt was perfect in telling the story, and it's a big handoff for me, because usually I edit everything I direct,” Montague said.
Montague said he’s working with a nonprofit called Shape Cleveland that helps underprivileged kids get into visual arts. Much of the money the film makes will go toward Shape Cleveland and other charities.
“I was like, ‘Who do I trust? Ultimately that first and only choice is Michael Brown,” Montague said. “He has a way of painting with the brush that has all the right colors.”
The Emmys
Brown’s recent Emmy, for outstanding editing for an unstructured reality program, is his fourth overall.
He said he didn’t attend the televised events at Peacock Theater, but he did go to the Disney after-party. He reconnected with McElhenney.
“Rob is just a really great guy; down-to-earth, but busy. I haven't met Ryan (Reynolds) yet, but he has, like, 18,000 different companies and is managing his film career and all of that,” Brown said.
Brown was also excited to meet Trevor Noah, former host of “The Daily Show.”
“I was happy to tell him that I think it’s really cool that he’s jumping from one thing to another,” Brown said. “It's so easy in this business to stay in your lane, but he decided he’s got other things he wants to try. I really relate to that.”
Grabeel said Brown texted him after the Disney party. Brown wanted to celebrate with his best friend.
“My girlfriend (Riham El-Ounsi) and I are in our pajamas, and he’s like, ‘What are you guys doing? Can we come over?’ It was so touching that he was like, ‘Where do I want to go after the party? I want to hang out with Lucas and Riham.’”
