Sneak Peak: Scenes from the Schoolhouse

Curious to see more of the project?  Here's a sneak peak of some scenes of the schoolhouse.

 

Local VT Extras on the set of Northern Borders

All Photos Courtesy of Willow O'Feral

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Team Puts Together a Staged Reading of Northern Borders Script at Brattleboro Museum

The Northern Border's Production Team headed over to the Brattleboro Museum this evening for a staged reading of the Northern Borders working script.  Lead by veteran theater and film actor Munson Hicks, Marlboro College Theater Professor Brenda Foley and Marlboro student Logan Smith the reading went smoothly.  Brattleboro High School student, Irene Shamas, also participated, playing both Cleopatra Kittredge and Hettie Hill, the role she'll be playing in the film.  Cast members also included Film Intensive and Marlboro College students.  Professor Jay Craven, who read the stage directions, explained that the purpose of the staged reading was not only to give the community a better sense of the project but also to examine how fluid the language of the script is when actually taken off the page and put into a characters mouth.  With only a rare stumble in the reading the script seems to be in good shape.  The Film Intensive team will meet today (February 16) to review script notes and further expand the dialogue.

Stay tuned.

Photography taken by James Brad Heck

All photographs courtesy of Jeremiah Davis.

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Garret Keizer visits the Northern Literature course at Marlboro College

As part of the Marlboro Film Intensive curriculum, students read Garret Keizer’s 1996 book-length essay, No Place But Here: A Teacher’s Vocation in a Rural Community.  Keizer is a respected essayist and contributing editor to Harper’s magazine. He also appeared on the Colbert Report recently to discuss his work.  Essayists are usually pretty adept at stimulating passionate dialogue, so our class was fortunate to have him attend our class and lead discussion on his book and related topics including “noise,” the subject of his latest book. 

Our group struck up an intimate and energetic conversation about Mr. Keizer’s experiences in public education. Students offered stories about their own experiences in the schools. After the session Mr. Keizer agreed to share his thoughts on the class and he sent us the following note.

After the close of my visit with the Northern Borders film project class, I was asked if I might write a paragraph or so summarizing my responses to the experience.  Hoping I understood the request accurately, I am providing the following observations.

First, I was gratified to find the class so friendly and attentive.  This was by no means a case of “warming up” to the visitor, but rather a predisposition to see that the visitor was made to feel at home from the start.  As a result I found that I was able to direct all of my energies to the questions posed to me and little or no energy to matters of personal presentation and rhetorical strategy.

Second, I was delighted by the range of questions.  I have been in book discussions where a single issue or exchange winds up predominating, not always with the greatest relevance to the overall purpose of the gathering.  In this case, the open agenda seemed to enrich the discussion rather than permit it to go astray.  To the best of my recollection, most of the questions fell into one of the following categories:

• Questions of clarification relating to “Getting Schooled” or No Place But Here
• Questions relating to education (with several sub-categories such as classroom management, parental involvement, personal experiences with school, home-schooling, etc.)
• Questions relating to the social and cultural context of the Northeast Kingdom and of rural communities in general
• Questions relating to the “writing life”
• Questions relating to characterization in Northern Borders

That’s an impressive range, I think, and I’ve probably failed to account for one or two questions that elude classification.  In retrospect, I feel I can stand by the answers I gave, though I wish that some of them had been more succinct.

Finally, I left the campus impressed by the sense that the issues raised by the reading and discussion, as well as by the filmmaking project, actually matter to the students.  That certainly contributed a great deal to making the experience matter to me.  And I had fun.

Garret Keizer

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Visiting Artist: Costume Designer Sarah Beers Spends 3 Days with the Film Intensive

Photo courtesy of Lu Zhang

Sarah Beers is the first in a series of visiting artists and professional mentors coming to Marlboro College to assist students and post-graduates in the making of Northern Borders. Attending the first full week of pre-production, Sarah played an instrumental role in kick starting the production's costume department. Not only did she discuss the department logistics in both the pre-production and the filming phases, but she gave everyone a great boost of confidence and excitement at the beginning of the project. 

Sarah Beers is a professional film, television, and theater costumer designer in New York. Her work includes films Maria Full of Grace, The Aspern Papers, Stranger in the Kingdom as well as TV series Rescue Me and In Treatment.

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