Tiverton High School— movie set for a day

Students star in production about hazards of pot

By Tom Killin Dalglish
Posted 7/7/17

TIVERTON — And ... action! For a few hours last Wednesday three locations in Tiverton High School were live film sets. A 30-second PSA (public service announcement), dealing with the hazards of marijuana for youth and intended to be shown in area movie theaters including at Providence Place and Warwick Mall, was being filmed in the school using Tiverton student actors.

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Tiverton High School— movie set for a day

Students star in production about hazards of pot

Posted

TIVERTON — And ... action! For a few hours last Wednesday three locations in Tiverton High School were live film sets. A 30-second PSA (public service announcement), dealing with the hazards of marijuana for youth and intended to be shown in area movie theaters including at Providence Place and Warwick Mall, was being filmed in the school using Tiverton student actors.
In each of the three locations — in the library, in a hallway lined with lockers, and in a third room with curtained windows and a couch made to simulate a home, student actors spoke their lines. The filming, of necessity — it was a one-day gig — was largely unrehearsed.
In one scene, clusters of student actors crossed paths in a hallway, past a wall of school lockers, talking their lines as though chatting between classes.
"Hey, you guys hear about what happened to Scott," says one. "No what," says another. "Dude, he was in a major car accident," replies a third. "Word is he was driving high, guess they found pot in his system," another student says.
Behind a camera filming these exchanges was Larry Minick, 34, of LM Productions of Cranston. He wore several hats — script-writer, editor, cameraman, director, and producer.
Mr. Minick, who estimated he put in 20 to 30 hours on the project, earned $600, including the full day of shooting and editing afterwards.
The basic script was written by Mallary Bileau, a student assistance counselor in Johnston.
The 11 young actors, nearly all of them from Tiverton, each got paid $40 for the day. The less-than-one-day, low-budget shoot was a challenge.
"One of the things I like to do is tell stories," said Mr. Minick. "There's a story in everything. When there's a bigger budget you can work with the actors beforehand, and rehearse. With this, you've got to work on the fly."
The entire production was put together under the leadership of Patricia Sweet, the coordinator for the Johnston Prevention Coalition. The coalition has been operating under a five-year $300,000 grant (approximately), she said, which included a small amount for filming the PSA.

The roots of the Tiverton connection
To make all the arrangements for filming the PSA, Ms. Sweet had engaged the consulting services of Chris O'Toole from COT Design, a Little Compton company. Mr. O'Toole specializes in marketing, communications, and graphic design.
But still the crucial pieces had not fallen together. "We had problems getting young kids as actors," said Ms. Sweet.
"We needed actors," Mr. O'Toole said. "We didn't want to use kids from Johnston," evidently because that's where the coalition was based.
Being from Little Compton, Mr. O'Toole said he knew of Gloria Crist, an actor, director and arts advocate, who had directed productions with the Little Compton Community Theater some years back, and more recently has directed productions such as "Hair" at Tiverton High School. So he contacted her.
"We put out a call for actors outside of Johnston. Gloria got right to it — she was all over it. 'Tell me what you need, the ethnicities, the whole nine yards,' she told me," Mr. O'Toole said.
Eleven students were recruited — two boys and nine girls. One student was from Mt. Hope High School, another from Bishop Connolly. All but one were from Tiverton.

On the set, the filming, the message
The young actors got to the high school at 8:30 a.m., and were there most of Wednesday morning, into the early afternoon.
The story line revolved around a student involved in a car crash who may have been high on marijuana, and the effects of marijuana on the individual student, his friends, and the family.
The message of this particular PSA was to convey the hazards of marijuana for youth.
Another PSA targeting parents, entitled "It Starts With You," has previously been produced," said Ms. Sweet.
Marijuana can be and is hazardous, Ms. Sweet said, a fact that is somewhat veiled by its legalization in the neighboring state of Massachusetts, and by its use for medicinal purposes.
"These developments — legalization and medicinal use — are causing the perception of risk and harm of marijuana to be seen as extremely low," she said.
Ms. Sweet said, however, the possible hazards are real, especially for youth: marijuana can lower IQ, can distract from driving, can be a gateway drug, and can cause psychotic episodes, all possible outcomes you don't want to have with youth.

Student actors, about their craft
After the filming of the hallway scene, it was lunchtime, paid for by the prevention coalition, and the actors gathered in the library. As they ate, scattered about on chairs and on the floor, they were asked about what they liked about acting and this opportunity.
For the 11 student actors, it was more about the acting than the message.
"I liked most the experience, the hands on feeling," said Ryder Ferris, 16, a junior at Mt. Hope High School in Bristol. "It's been very interesting. The hardest part is getting used to the repetitive nature of filming, unlike theater which is continuous."
"I was just in 'Chorus Line' last year, and like most I've been doing dancing and acting almost my entire life," said Sarah Mello, 17, a rising Tiverton High School senior. "I'm kind of a weird kid, and I like expressing myself to get a reaction from the audience. I'm in the coalition. I think it's really important that people are safe and make good choices. We have as long life ahead of us and we don't want to mess it up now.
"The hardest part was the scene in the hallway, with the class bell ringing during filming, and three different conversations all happening at one time." said Aiden Furze, 17, from Tiverton.
For Lila Crosby, 9, "meeting famous people" was what she likes most about acting. She appeared in the home scene as a younger sibling, and — beyond the walls of Tiverton High School — had had a role as an extra in "Daddy's Home 2," starring Mark Wahlburg.
"I like to make people happy by entertaining them, and finding parts of myself to be in other characters," said Gwyn Hallman, 14, a rising freshman at Tiverton High School.
Kelsey Kusinitz, 15, who lives in Tiverton and is a rising sophomore at Bishop Connolly High School in Fall River, has liked acting her whole life. "It's fun being other people and wearing costumes you wouldn't ordinarily wear, and putting on a whole other person." Kelsey had appeared in a production of Cinderella, as a step-mother, last year.
"What I like is getting out of your normal character," said Lelani Williams, 15, a Tiverton High School rising sophomore. "Getting comfortable with the character and the choreography was easy. The hardest part was staying in character."
Funding for the PSA filming came from the impossibly-named state agency known as the Rhode Island Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals (referred to and pronounced as "Budda" for BHDDH, said Mr. O'OToole).

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