87-second drone video shot for business promotion hailed as an 'instant classic' by Hollywood directors

A drone video shot for business promotion in a Minneapolis bowling alley was hailed as an instant classic. The drone's operator, who shot the 87-second video in a Minneapolis bowling alley last week, didn't expect it to be viewed hundreds of thousands of times on social media, or to win high praise from Hollywood directors.

Fans of the video, titled "Right Up Our Alley," marveled at what they said was a remarkable cinematic achievement: a continuous take, shot at high velocity, in tight spaces and without digital effects.

One Hollywood veteran said it "adds to the language and vocabulary of cinema."

"This is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen," wrote the director Lee Unkrich, whose 2017 film "Coco" won an Academy Award for best animated feature. "Jaw on the floor."

The bowling alley where the video was shot, Bryant Lake Bowl and Theater, also has a restaurant, a cabaret theater and a bar that makes "rail cocktails." It opened in 1936 in a former garage that had serviced Model T Fords.

"Right Up Our Alley," shot by the drone operator Jay Christensen, was made as part of a project to document well-known businesses around Minnesota that are threatened by the pandemic, said Brian Heimann, a producer at Rally Studios, the Minneapolis production company that produced it.