Behind the scenes

State of the Art

by Peg Aloi

Even for those seasoned cinephiles who know what a key grip or a best boy is and smirk knowingly when they see "Honeywagon Driver" among the end credits, the behind-the-scenes production aspects of filmmaking remain a mystery. So if you ever wondered how a screenplay grows up to be a movie, you can find out from this weekend's Filmmakers' Open Studios, a free event offered as part of the New England Film & Video Foundation's 25th anniversary. You may also be surprised to learn just how much independent filmmaking is happening every day in your own backyard -- no fewer than 17 local film artists and companies, from Allston to Newton to Roxbury, are opening their working spaces to the public for this event.

Sure, Boston isn't Hollywood. It's not even Winnipeg. But, says Michal Goldman, "there is very accomplished work coming out of Boston now that is independent, and it's happening in many genres. This city has really come of age." Goldman, who founded the Boston Jewish Film Festival and is president of the Boston Filmmakers Collaborative (which is sponsoring the event along with the City of Boston Film Bureau), first conceived of the open studios as a way to augment the BF&VF anniversary. Even before the details came into focus, she knew she had to see it through -- "just to see how such a day could work out."

To judge from the diversity of offerings this Sunday, it worked out pretty darn good. At the Long Bow Group in Newton, you can learn about everything from fundraising and distribution to post-production and editing while watching clips from the Tiananmen Square documentary, The Gate of Heavenly Peace, that was produced there. You can wander into Moody Station Studios in Waltham -- a group of young experimental filmmakers with a penchant for puppets and an extensive collection of old cameras -- or hang with DTVGroup, upstarts immersed in the latest DVD and streaming video technology whose motto, says Goldman, is "We aren't on the cutting edge, we're on the bleeding edge." She goes on, "If you walk into Heart Punch [the Boston studio that worked on Next Stop Wonderland], you'll learn all about sound mixing and how sound is doctored and adjusted. And the Film Shack [a brand new one-stop production house built by Squeeze director Robert Patton-Spruill] in Roxbury is having a grand opening party."

Even an old hand like Goldman -- she made the 1996 documentary Umm Kulthum: A Voice like Egypt and is currently working on a year-long documentary study of the Epiphany private-school initiative -- can get genuinely excited about some of the new technology on display. "I was over at Computer Pictures [in Watertown], and they have this amazing computer program that will reproduce any three-dimensional object from any camera angle and with any light source; it's just incredibly sophisticated."

The Filmmakers' Open Studios will take place this Sunday, March 19. Call (781) 536-1540 extension 18 for more information. A full schedule is available on-line at www.newenglandfilm.com/events.