By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The students in Bowling Green State University’s film production class are getting ready to deliver their newest movie.
The short film “Well Born” will premiere Friday, April 28, in the Donnell Theatre in the Wolfe Center for the Arts on campus.
The film is the culmination of a three-semester Studio Experience. Through that time students worked with Lucas Ostrowski, who taught the course, refining his concept and script, then actually filming it, and finally editing and promoting it.
The production is run like a professional union operation. Each member of the class has an assigned position.
“You have your specific job and that’s what you’re going to do,” Ostrowski said.
Students must apply to be in the course. That involves a written statement, and then an interview with Ostrowski. Their experiences are important and, as in workplace, their attitude. “Arrive on time, have a good attitude and ask a question only once.”
“Well Born” is a science fiction story set in a dystopian future where reproduction is carefully controlled. Cynthia Stroud, an adjunct instructor in the department with a doctorate from BGSU, plays a reproduction specialist who has a say in who gets to bear “the presidential seed.” And she’s one of those selected.
The president is played by David Engel, a Toledo chiropractor and actor. Theater students Sarah Drummer and MacKenzie Baumhower also have roles. All are donating their services to the film.
This is a society with no crime and violence, but cracks appear in its façade.
While there are certain echoes of “Handmaid’s Tale,” this focuses more on the “science,” and the process, Ostrowski said. All insemination is done artificially, all tubes and needles. No sex.
Ostrowski decided to shoot “Well Born” using 16mm film rather than digital. He felt that medium best captured the story.
“By learning on film you learn to be a disciplined filmmaker,” said Matthew Henkes, who has worked all three semesters on the film. “You don’t get a ton of takes that you can just delete them off a card.”
Instead each scene gets shot at most twice. “Every single shot is appreciated,” Henkes said.
The sound of the film going through the camera, the film stock. It’s really kind of magical,” he said.
Digital offers a chance to review what’s been captured immediately. But film must be processed.
Instead of a bunch of people huddled around a small screen, they see it at the end of the day, Ostrowski said. “It’s pretty neat to see it on the big screen.”
Brandon Beining has filmed his own projects in film. “It is very exciting, yet terrifying experience. It takes a certain delicacy to make sure everything is done properly.”
Beining, who has taken two semesters of the production class, served as set dresser for “Well Born.”
In that role, he was responsible for all the elements in the scene. What seems like a small job is important in making sure the director’s vision is realized. And leaving something in that doesn’t belong can distract the viewer and pull them out of the fictional world.
For post-production, Henkes is doing marketing for the film, not just for its debut but with an eye toward future screenings at festivals. During production, he was an assistant camera operator. That’s experience that will come in useful after in graduates in about a week and heads to Los Angeles.
He’ll be working for BGSU graduate Jay Ellison’s Shadowcast Pictures, a camera rental and production company.
Henkes and Beining credit Ellison as being one of the students who pushed the BGSU to establish a film production program.
Students are still busy producing their own movies, just as Ellison did in his day. The lessons learned in the production class bleed into their work.
Carlie Merlo is working on sound for “Well Born,” but during production she was in her preferred role, assistant director. That’s the person, she said, who makes sure everyone is where they’re supposed to be and when.
The class is as close to a real working shoot as you can get, Merlo said.
She also appreciates the talks from outside professionals who bring their perspective into the classroom.
She works as assistant director and producer on a number of her peers’ projects. The production class “has changed way I approach my job. Now I really strive for a union atmosphere,” she said.
Though when crunch time comes on a student movie, those rules can go by the wayside.
“I’ve seen things ramped up,” Henkes said of student productions, and he attributes that to being able to try things out in the classroom setting.
Now students may have 25 people in their crews.
Beining said that the production class also gives him a sense of abilities of his peers, and whom he may want to work with on his projects. “You watch how everybody does in their position. It gives you a good idea what their strengths are.”
All that will come together when “Well Born” finally projects on the Donnell screen Friday.
The trailer can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjEkSXIJ6_8
