Schools reap benefits from use as locations in movies
11/25/03 -- When the directors of an upcoming movie about life in small-town Maine wanted to shoot scenes at a high school, they turned to the Waterville school district.
As a result, the football field at Skowhegan High School and the interior of Waterville High School will appear in the upcoming movie "Empire Falls," which is based on a Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Richard Russo.
Waterville High School Principal Scott Phair says the community was selected as a location because "it reflects the look and the feel of the book." Russo was a professor at nearby Colby College, and one of his daughters attended Waterville High.
The movie, produced by HBO, stars Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Ed Harris, and Helen Hunt.
Under a location contract signed by the Waterville school district, the district received $8,500 a day for four days of shooting and preparation.
Waterville High also received $23,000 -- most of it going to the school's booster clubs -- for getting the football team, band, and cheerleaders to participate in a scene involving a high school football game.
Waterville's football field had been renovated with new bleachers and thus "wasn't gritty enough," so the football game was filmed at Skowhegan High, Phair says.
Other scenes were filmed in the cafeteria and a classroom at Waterville High, including a scene involving a student who shoots a teacher and classmates in the art room. The director complied with the school's request to film that scene at a time when students would not be in school.
The whole experience was "a tremendous learning experience" for students, Phair says. An open casting call was held in the summer, and nearly 400 local residents, including some students, were used as extras.
Phair says some of the young actors prepared for their roles in the movie by visiting the school and talking to students. Students learned that actors are "normal, hardworking people," he says. "The mystique of the movies was lifted from peoples' eyes."
"Elephant," a recently released film about two high school students who go on a murderous rampage, was filmed at a now-closed school in Portland, Ore.
"Elephant" director Gus Van Sant is from Portland and has shot several previous films there. He used regular teenagers rather than professional actors in the film, which won the best picture award at this year's Cannes Film Festival.
Van Sant told the Associated Press the film is a "poetic interpretation," rather than a factual retelling of the shootings at Columbine (Colo.) High School in 1999, which left 19 students and one teacher dead.
Before district administrators approved the use of the school for the movie, "there was some concern about the subject matter," says district spokesperson Lew Frederick. In the early 1990s, the district refused to let schools be used in teen slasher movies.
The Portland school district gets requests to use schools as movie locations "several times a month," Frederick says. Schools also have been used in commercials and TV programs.
Among the movies shot in Portland public schools are "The Hunted" and "Mr. Holland's Opus." The latter netted Grant High School, where it was filmed, a renovated band room, auditorium, and classrooms.
Filming is usually done when students are not in the building. "Elephant" was shot at Whitaker Middle School (the former Adams High School), which was closed two years ago because of mold problems.
The Portland school district plans to tear down the school and use the site for a mixed-use development to include a new middle school, district administrative offices, condominiums, stores, and possibly a community library, Frederick says.
School district leaders in Walterboro and Anderson, S.C., are pleased with their schools' participation in the filming of the recently released movie, "Radio."
"Radio" is based on a true story about James Robert Kennedy (played by Cuba Gooding Jr.), a mentally retarded man known as "Radio," who has been a fixture at T.L. Hanna High School in Anderson since the mid-1960s and his relationship with football coach Harold Jones (played by Ed Harris).
Because Hanna had been remodeled, most of the school scenes were filmed at the former Hampton Street Elementary School (now a preschool), in Walterboro, which has been fixed up to look like a high school and had previously been used in "Forrest Gump."
The producers paid for field trips for the preschool children while the filming was going on and provided new playground equipment. A few scenes were also shot at Colleton County High School.
The Colleton County school district received about $60,000 to $65,000, says Superintendent Charles Gale, which will help the district's bottom line. The district suffered a $3 million cut in state aid last year and had to cut 30 teachers.
A scene at the very end of the movie updating the story to the present day was shot just before an actual football game at Hanna, says Bill Baker, spokesperson for Anderson County School District 5.
The movie studio donated money to Hanna's special education department and bought new jerseys for the football players, says Principal Mike Sams.
Baker says the movie does a good job of portraying what really happened. "The basic arc of the story is true," he says, "but some events and plot lines were fictionalized."
Many people from both Anderson County and Walterboro appeared in the film as extras, including students and teachers, and at least one school board member. "The movie people were very accommodating," Gale says. "It was a really good thing for the whole community."
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| Reproduced with permission from the 2003 issue of School Board News. Copyright © 2003, National School Boards Association. Opinions expressed in this newspaper do not necessarily reflect positions of NSBA. This article may be printed out and photocopied for individual or educational use, provided this copyright notice appears on each copy. This article may not be otherwise transmitted or reproduced in print or electronic form without the consent of the Publisher. For more information, call (703) 838-6789. |