Film on Frederick Douglass Features Work of Westporters

Westport News
Friday, October 17, 2008

Director Chris Campbell gives direction to Jamie Hector (center), who plays Frederick Douglass, and Jeff Greene, who plays a sailor who helps Douglass escape to freedom. The film, Frederick Douglass: Pathway From Slavery to Freedom, is the first in the Young American Heroes series of productions.

On Oct. 22, at 7 p.m., parents, students, teachers and film aficionados are invited to gather at the Avon Theatre Film Center at 272 Bedford St. in Stamford to preview Frederick Douglass: Path way From Slavery to Freedom, a new film on the life and times of the young Frederick Douglass.

The film marks the launch of Young American Heroes, a series of films for tweens (and their parents).

The first film tells the tale of the young Douglass and his escape from the honors of slavery at the age of 20.

The basis of the film is Douglass' own classic autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave Writfen by Himself. The film makes extensive use of Douglass' words in telling his story.

In the lead role of the young Frederick Douglass is Jamie Hector, best known for playing Marlo Stanfield on the HBO series, The Wire, and a leading player on NBC's, Heroes. The film was shot entirely on location in Connecticut - taking advantage of the state's new tax credits for film and television production.

Several Westporters are involved with this production. Scott Bryce and Colleen Murphy are associate producers of the film. Murphy,along with local actors Marion Mason and Ryder Chasen also appear before the camera.

After the film is shown, the director, Chris Campbell, and scriptwriter, Tim Smith, and production executive Larry Rifkin of Connecticut Public Television will be on hand for a post-screening question-and answer session. For ticket information and directions, go to www.avontheatre.org. Students will be admitted free of charge.

Next year, the 30-minute film will be broadcast statewide on CFW for Black History Month and nationally on PBS stations. It was underwritten in part by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and their American History & Civics Initiative.

The film was edited at Palace Digital Studios in South Norwalk. Executive producers are Campbell and Smith. Campbell is managing partner for Young American Heroes and owner/creative director of Palace Production Center.

The state of Connecticut is also a star of the show. Scenes were shot aboard the Mystic Whaler off the coast of Bridgeport, at Mystic Seaport, the Essex Steam Train, the Denison Homestead in Mystic, Warrup's Farm in Redding, and the streets of South Norwalk (transformed into New York City circa 1830), Roton Middle School in Norwalk, as well as on the soundstage at Palace Digital Studios. Behind-the-scenes photos of the film shoot can be seen at www.youngamericanheroes.com

Scott Bryce and Marion Mason, both of Westport, are shown on location during the filming of Frederick Douglass: Pathway From Slavery to Freedom, The tilm will be shown Oct. 22 at the Avon Theater in Stamford.

The film also features Hamden middle school student Kendall Jones as the 8 year old Frederick and Norwalk elementary school student Malik Goethe as the 6-year-old Frederick.

Other featured actors include: Farmington resident Charly Alvarez, Milford resident Mary Ann Wasil Nilan, Norwalk's Teresa Teed and Danbury's John Halas. Most of the extras and production crew are also Connecticut residents.

The film and Web site are just two elements of a larger Young American Heroes multi-platform content project, which is the brainchild of Campbell and Smith.

Young American Heroes' strategy is to tell compelling stories by using an innovative peer approach - relying on primary documents and diaries about ordinary kids doing extraordinary things during seminal moments in American history.

The producers plan to film four more programs on other "young heroes and heroines," and eventually up to 52 programs for the series. In addition to the half-hour television shows, Young American Heroes is producing a classroom DVD, retail DVD, and a graphic novel based on each of the TV shows; a 2.0 website with games and links to historical archives, and a teacher Web site.

To produce this pilot project on Douglass, Palace Production Center and Docere Palace Studios have teamed with Connecticut Public Television, leading Web developer, eduweb.com, Fairfield University Graduate School of Education, and an advisory board of leading historians from Yale, Princeton and other universities and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

Young American Heroes is one of only seven projects to win a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's American History & Civics Initiative specifically to develop break-through ways of teaching history and civics to middle school students. This CPB Initiative drew more than 80 entries from leading public television stations and production companies.

In addition to producing the TV show and Web site, Docere Palace has created a fiveday Frederick Douglass classroom curriculum designed around key choice points in his young life and using critical scenes from the TV show in a digital storytelling activity that requires students to review primary documents online at the Young American Heroes Web site. The curriculum was field tested last June in social studies classes at three Connecticut middle schools: Tomlinson Middle School in Fairfield, West Side Middle School in Waterbury and Scofield Magnet Middle School in Stamford.

As a lead up to filming the TV show, a Young American Heroes Web site invited middle school teachers and their students to give their creative input and suggestions on the television script, locations, casting and help in designing the activities and content of Web site as it was being built. More than a dozen Connecticut students were cast as extras in this production.

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