“We hung out, I got to meet them and I actually stayed over at their house because it was super late. I woke up at 5 a.m. the next day and drove to school."

MIDDLETOWN — When Rob Gronkowski announced his retirement from the NFL in March, Owen Moy produced a short tribute video while sitting in one of his classes at Middletown High School that included career highlights of the now former New England Patriots tight end.

He posted it to Instagram with a few hashtags — #gronk and #patriotsnation among them — and didn’t think much of it. But it caught the eye of Camille Kostek, a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model and Gronkowski’s girlfriend, who shared it on her Instagram account and with her 653,000 followers.

From there it took off.

The video now has been viewed nearly a half million times, but more importantly, it sparked a professional relationship between Moy and Kostek.

“She gave me her number, and we were texting back and forth,” Moy told The Daily News in a phone interview Wednesday. “All of my friends were going crazy. They’re like, ‘You’re texting an SI model.’”

Kostek commissioned Moy to shoot content for her social media channels, and in April, he went to the couple’s home in Foxboro, Massachusetts, for an assignment. That’s when he met Gronkowski, who had thrown out the first pitch at the Boston Red Sox game earlier in the day.

“It was crazy,” Moy said. “We hung out, I got to meet them and I actually stayed over at their house because it was super late. I woke up at 5 a.m. the next day and drove to school.”

Moy said he’s worked with Kostek on about a dozen occasions since, but hadn’t filmed Gronkowski until this past weekend. He produced a video that shows the couple playing lacrosse in their backyard. It was featured on the website Barstool Sports and has been viewed on his personal Instagram page 11,000 times.

“Right now it’s pretty informal, but I’m starting to do more and more stuff with her, and we’re talking about doing more stuff with Rob,” Moy said.

Getting his start

Moy’s passion for film came about when he got a GoPro camera in the eighth grade. He would make short videos while on family vacations and of his friends jumping off rocks during the summertime, endlessly watching YouTube tutorials on various techniques to hone his craft.

By the time he reached high school, he was producing hype videos for the Middletown boys lacrosse team. He was the backup goalie for the Islanders, so he had plenty of time to film, but that’s not to say he didn’t make an impact on the field.

During the Division II championship game against Prout in 2017, starting goaltender Holland Pierik was injured with less than a minute left as Middletown clung to an 8-7 lead.

Moy, who had been filming the game, was thrust into action. Then a sophomore, he made one big save that helped the Islanders preserve that advantage for the program’s first championship since 2010.

“I was looking for my helmet and stick, and I told my friend to pick up the camera and start filming,” Moy said. “I ran onto the field, made a save and we won.”

As a junior, Moy returned to his backup role, but it allowed him to build something of a following in the lacrosse community. He reached out to the men’s programs at Brown and Harvard universities, offering his services for the chance to film some top-level lacrosse. That work led to the sponsor of the college teams, STX, paying Moy for his videos.

“From those videos, I built a following online as a lacrosse filmer guy,” Moy said. “I started reaching out to these pro lacrosse players who I always idolized.”

One of them was Rob Pannell, a former standout a Cornell. Moy convinced him to start a YouTube channel and would travel to New York by train on weekends to create content for that account. He then landed a gig with the Premier Lacrosse League and its founder, Paul Rabil, for whom he works on a part-time basis.

“I’ve always looked up to him, and it’s crazy I get to work with him,” Moy said of Rabil, one of the top lacrosse players in the world.

Additionally, Moy has created content for TB12, Tom Brady’s health and wellness enterprise. A huge Patriots fan growing up, he shot video of the star quarterback on the first day of training camp this year.

“That was unreal,” Moy said.

The power of social media

Unlike many of his friends, Moy won’t attend college. He says you don’t have to be in a classroom to learn the things he’d like to do. At first, his parents were skeptical. “But then when I started working with these big companies, it kind of legitimized it,” he said.

In the works is a potential deal with Shadow Lion, a Boston-based production company, and he’ll continue to create content for the Premier Lacrosse League and Pannell.

“I don’t really have a clear path of where I want to go, but I want to keep working with big athletes,” he said.

And, of course, with Kostek.

Social media has been a game-changer for someone like Moy. Whereas years ago a potential client had to see your portfolio before hiring you, filmmakers today can bring their work directly to the client by tagging them in posts, or through hashtags. It's how he got noticed by Kostek, and it's part of the hustle Moy has implemented to get to where he is.

“All my connections, from the start, it’s all built through cold calls, cold messages on Instagram, reaching out any way possible,” he said. “Anything I can do to get a hold of these people, that’s what I’ll do.”

sbarrett@newportri.com