Film & TV
David Robert Mitchell
born 1974 · film director, screenwriter
Clawson-born director of It Follows, who has set three of his four features in metro Detroit and shot It Follows around the city.
- Born
Clawson, Michigan
age 51- Detroit years
- 1974–1990s, 2009, 2013
- Field
- Film & TV
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
David Robert Mitchell was born in Clawson, a small city in southeastern Oakland County, and studied at Wayne State University in Detroit before film school. Metro Detroit has been the setting of most of his work. His debut, The Myth of the American Sleepover (2010), follows suburban teenagers on the last weekend of summer. His breakthrough horror film It Follows (2014) was shot in late 2013 in Detroit and its suburbs, including Clawson, Sterling Heights, the ruins of the Packard Automotive Plant and the 1928 Redford Theatre, where the heroine's fateful movie date takes place under the glow of the theater's pipe-organ interlude. After the Los Angeles-set Under the Silver Lake (2018), he returned to the region on screen with The End of Oak Street (2026), a dinosaur survival film set in 1982 metro Detroit, although it was shot in London and Atlanta.
Highlights
- Wrote and directed It Follows (2014), shot in Detroit and its suburbs
- Debut feature The Myth of the American Sleepover (2010), set in metro Detroit
- The End of Oak Street (2026), starring Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor, set in 1982 metro Detroit
- Under the Silver Lake (2018) competed at Cannes
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Related place · 2013
Redford Theatre
Historic Old Redford movie palace with a working theater organ, used for the movie-date scene in It Follows; still shows classic films.
Studied here · 1990s
Wayne State University
Mitchell studied at Wayne State in Detroit.