THE MUSIC INSIDE Sneak Previews November 2009

Sneak previews of THE MUSIC INSIDE, independent feature film by HSU professor David Scheerer made partly in Humboldt, will be screened on Friday, November 13 and Saturday, November 14 at 7:30 PM in the Van Duzer Theatre on the HSU campus in Arcata. Tickets are $10, $8 students and seniors, with a limited number of free seats to HSU students for each performance, from the HSU Box Office (826-3928) or at the door. Photo: Theresa Ireland. All production photos by Matt St. Charles. Click photo to enlarge.

THE MUSIC INSIDE: Updates

Director David Scheerer and other participants interviewed on KHSU Artwaves with Wendy Butler: 1:30 pm. Tuesday Nov. 10.

Story on THE MUSIC INSIDE front paged at Humboldt State Now.

THE MUSIC INSIDE

It’s a movie about a man with a secret in his past, which a young female journalist urges him to reveal. The secret involves a woman who became the love of his life, now lost to him forever. It is a story of fear and intolerance, and ultimately of hope and redemption. And it all begins on a sun-burnished beach at Trinidad.

The Music Inside is an independent feature film directed by HSU professor David Scheerer, which the public will see for the first time in two sneak preview screenings on November 13 and 14 at the Van Duzer Theatre. About a third of the movie was filmed at HSU and on the North Coast, and it was completed with the participation of HSU students and faculty.

Photo: Director David Scheerer and Script Supervisor Margene Scheerer on the set.

“Thematically, this film deals with the stigma and prejudice associated with mental illness,” director Scheerer said, “and how love can be a source of strength in overcoming that stigma.”

Award-winning San Francisco actor Kurt Kroesche plays a university professor with the past he has kept hidden, and Theresa Ireland plays a young journalist who confronts him. It turns out that she has her own secret.

These were the scenes filmed at HSU and other North Coast locations. “These scenes comprise the part of the story that takes place in the present,” Scheerer explains, “but like movies such as Slum Dog Millionaire, much of the story is told in flashbacks to the past.”

Photo: Kurt Kroesche

The flashback scenes were filmed in 2005, when Scheerer taught at Montana State University. He enlisted professional actors, some of whom he met while working at what became the Sundance Film Festival. These sequences star Amy Redford, daughter of Robert Redford. Her screen acting credits include Maid in Manhattan (directed by Wayne Wang), The Understudy and other independent films and television series episodes. Also starring are Mary Ellen Trainor (Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, Ghostbusters) and Brian Wimmer (Nightmare on Elm Street, House of Fears, China Beach.)

Photo: Amy Redford in 2008.

Theresa Ireland is known on the North Coast for theatre roles at North Coast Rep (Jake’s Women, Pirates of Penzance) and Ferndale Rep (Bus Stop, Anatomy of a Murder) as well as local commercials and independent films.

“We have a tremendous ensemble for the whole movie,” director Scheerer said. “There are performances here that are as inspiring as any you’ll see this year on the big screen.”

The two sneak preview screenings at HSU provide an opportunity for the public to participate in this film’s future. “This is still a work in progress,” Scheerer said. “Since we are still able to change things, we are eager for audience feedback.”

Scheerer is not the only one interested in that feedback, or in the future of The Music Inside on the festival circuit or on television and DVD. So are the many HSU students, faculty members, and members of the North Coast community who participated in making the film. That's partly because some are now among the owners of this movie. (More on that in posts below.)

THE MUSIC INSIDE: The North Coast Connection

When his HSU faculty colleagues in the Theatre, Film & Dance department said they wanted to include a film screening in the year’s production schedule, David Scheerer saw it as a way to take care of some unfinished business, as well as to provide some unique opportunities for HSU students.

The unfinished business was a feature film, shot in 2005 when Scheerer taught film at Montana State University. Using professional actors, some of whom he’d met during his years working on what became the Sundance Film Festival, he directed the script of a former screenwriting student, Michael Van Wagenen. But test screenings revealed some problems, and the project was shelved.

Scheerer and Van Wagenen discussed a solution—a different way to frame the story of a mentally ill young man and his relationship with a young woman who was interning as a social worker. But the new version required a new character, and new scenes amounting to about a third of the complete film.

So Scheerer asked his HSU colleagues “if they would be willing to support me in shooting these new scenes. Much to my joy, the season selection committee agreed.”

So last fall, students who took a pre-production workshop became involved in making what essentially is a new movie. “They looked at the first cut, and helped me identify what worked and what didn’t work. They helped me in rewriting the script, casting the new scenes, and doing all the pre-production work.”

This included building a set in the Studio Theatre: the office of a professor of theology, who has a secret past. He is confronted there by a young woman journalist, and is compelled to tell his story. That story, which goes back some twenty years, reveals him to be that mentally ill young man in the first version. The new version includes a twist, which casts a surprising light on what’s gone before.

Students helped build the set, which had movable walls so that director Scheerer could shoot from any angle. Students were also among the crew when the scenes were shot in January, between the first and second semesters of the HSU school year.

In fact, the set became something of a community effort. “Since our professor’s field is theology, we wanted to have artifacts from all religions in his office, so a lot of people across the campus helped to collect them,” Scheerer said. “These artifacts are important to the story, because part of his mental illness had been his belief that he was a prophet.”

“ To do the shoot, I brought in Brian Wilcox, a professional cinematographer and a friend of mine,” Scheerer said. “And Panavision gave us the Super 16 film package, so our students got experience working with a high-end professional film package, and with a professional cinematographer.”

Other interior and exterior scenes were also shot on the HSU campus (“though we never say in the script what university it is”), and the crew journeyed up 101 to Trinidad to film a key scene—in fact, the first scene of the movie.

“We were going to shoot the opening on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, because of its iconic quality,” Scheerer said. “But Luffenholtz Beach in Trinidad turned out to be so beautiful and so appropriate. We filmed at sunset on a gorgeous January day—it’s such a striking and impressive opening sequence that it won out over the bridge.”

HSU students then helped edit and finish the film, in a post-production workshop last spring.

Theatre, Film & Dance faculty also participated in the new scenes: Jody Sekas designed the set, Rae Robison designed the costumes, and James McHugh worked on the lighting with cinematographer Wilcox.

Scheerer also enlisted Music Department professor J. Brian Post to write new score elements. Art Department professor Wayne Knight created the storyboards for the new scenes, and designed the titles and poster elements. Knight died in October of complications from the H1N1 virus. “We’ve added a title to the film,” Scheerer said, “dedicating the screenings at HSU to Wayne.”

THE MUSIC INSIDE: The Cooperative

The participation of HSU students and faculty who worked on the film doesn’t necessarily end with the sneak preview screenings. While in Montana in 2005, Scheerer had created a cooperative ownership of The Music Inside, with the help of lawyer John Frohnmayer, former director of the National Endowment of the Arts. Essentially, everyone who worked on the film owns a piece of it, and shares in any future profits.

“The reason I’m pioneering the cooperative approach is because of my background at Sundance,” Scheerer said. “I really believed in the independent film movement in the 80s, and I could never find a way that the producers didn’t end up owning the work and making all the money. We’d rather divide the profits with the people who made the film.” Because of the North Coast shoot, HSU students are now among those people.