Open CallRough Cut Review
1. Pitch | 2. Rate Pitches | 3. Production | 4. Rough Cuts | 5. Completed Productions
You’ve entered the WGBH Lab screening room, where our Open Call producers are ready to screen their works in progress. Re-explore our five filmmakers’ pitches, read their bios, and follow the progress of each film by using the links beside each video. Then join in post-production by adding your thoughts and opinions (via the comments link) to our virtual screening room!
- War Games, Heather Arment - Seattle, WA
- A Clearing in the Fog, Noah Harlan - New York, NY
- Oh Johnny, Ellen Lake - Oakland, CA
- Sonny's Letters From the War, Alex Rapp - Cambridge, MA
- The Birth of War, Elizabeth Wood - New York, NY
Final versions of these shorts can be seen in the Lab Archive.
War Games
Heather Arment - Seattle, WA
Original Pitch:
Several months ago I was sifting through some old family slides when I came across an image of me (age 3) sheepishly hiding behind my two older brothers. What stood out to me in an otherwise stereotypical family photo was that all three of us had play pistols strapped to our tiny prepubescent waists. "War" was as American to us a baseball and apple pie. This quirky, animated narrative explores my childhood's obsession with guns, heros and villains and how one accident introduced the reality check that made my brothers and I retire our weapons.
Producer Bio:
Editor/designer Heather Arment has a decade of experience in both documentary filmmaking and motion graphic commercial work. She has a growing interest in mixing both of these worlds by crafting a breed of animated documentaries. Having been raised in the farmlands of Lancaster, PA, she tends to wear a lot of black, which, some people assume is an “art thing.” “But really,” she says, “it’s probably closer to an Amish thing.” Heather currently freelances out of her home studio in Seattle, WA.
A Clearing in the Fog
Noah Harlan - New York, NY
Original Pitch:
My grandfather, Irving Sarot, was an Army surgeon in Europe during WWII. He directed a front line hospital for three years and in that time oversaw the treatment of tens of thousands of soldiers (allied and axis) and even had his hospital captured by the Nazis twice. He was chief surgeon at the fall of the Remagen bridge and the freeing of Buchnewald and the following experience happened around the time of the Battle of the Bulge in the Black Forest in Germany.
His hospital had been receiving wounded steadily for days and were treating both allied troops and some locals injured in shelling. A German officer showed up at the hospital, surrendering, with an injured young girl in his arms. He asked to see the head of the hospital and when my Grandfather appeared he explained that this was his daughter, he was a surrendering German officer - also a surgeon, she was injured and would the hospital please treat her. My grandfather, who maintained a strict policy of treating the most injured first, evaluated her and agreed to take her in for surgery right away. The German thanked him profusely and as he went to introduce himself my grandfather interrupted and said: "No, I know who you are. I was a medical student in Germany ten years ago and you were the doctor that supervised my rounds." After surgery, while the daughter recovered, my grandfather and this German officer sat outside during a lull and talked about what had happened in each of their lives during the past 10 years that led to them being on opposite sides of such a brutal war.
I would like to tell the story using the enormous number of original photographs my grandfather has of his hospital during the war, digitally manipulated to create a sense of motion and lyricism. This piece should be like a poem.
Producer Bio:
Noah Harlan is the co-founder of 2.1 Films, a New York production and development company through which he has produced or co-produced five feature films and numerous documentaries, television and branded content projects. Their latest film, Tehilim, is an Official Selection, In Competition at the 60th Cannes Film Festival. Noah’s other features include: Apartment #5C (Cannes Film Festival 2002 – Director’s Fortnight), the multi-award winning Avanim (Berlin Film Festival 2004 – Panorama Special) and two films currently in post-production, the French feature Ce Que Mes Yeux Ont Vu and the French-Japanese TV feature for Arté, La Pluie Des Prunes. After premiering as a Panorama Special selection at the 2004 Berlin Film Festival, Avanim won the France Culture prize for Best Director at Cannes in 2005 was nominated for best actress at the European Film Awards. Upcoming projects include the American features Return, Red Hook and The End Of A Primitive.
Noah has appeared on numerous panels discussing International Co-productions. He is currently on the faculty of NYU teaching film production, has been a film festival juror and is a published author. A graduate of Williams College, he also studied media at The University of Melbourne (Australia) and acting & directing at The British Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Oh Johnny
Ellen Lake - Oakland, CA
Original Pitch:
Combining 16mm films from the 30s and 40s with digital video from today, Elizabeth Patterson tells the story of the loss of her husband Johnny, killed when the Ticonderoga was bombed at the end of WW II. Using home movies from Elizabeth Patterson's closet (I recently discovered two ammunition boxes filled with 16 mm reels) as source material, this short will examine ideas about war, romance, place, memory, time, and technology.
Producer Bio:
Ellen Lake received her MFA from Mills College in Oakland, California in 2002, where she studied film & video, sculpture, and installation. She is currently creating a new body of work incorporating images from cell phone and other digital media with clips from 16 mm films from the 1930s and 40s. Her first piece from this series, “I was never glamorous, I was just around” has been shown at Heaven Gallery in Chicago, Aurora Picture Show in Houston, and the 2007 Boston CyberArts Festival. Additional work has screened at film festivals, art museums, and micro-cinemas around the world. She is the recipient of Bay Area Video Coalition’s 2005 Mediamaker Award.
Sonny's Letters from the War
Alex Rapp - Cambridge, MA
Original Pitch:
Pvt. Walter “Sonny” Pyrih, as remembered through his sincere and touching letters to family. Born in 1923 in Ansonia CT, son of Ukrainian immigrants, Sonny was just turning 20 when he was drafted into the army. As s devoted family man, he wrote home as often as possible, sending a wonderful collection of letters filled with anecdotes, and personal reflections about family, friends, and of course, the war. Consistently upbeat, he was more concerned with reassuring his worried mother than with his own plight. Sadly, this outlook proved overly optimistic. He died in action on October, 1944 in northern Italy, leaving just his letters behind.
Producer Bio:
Alex has 10 years experience in the local film and television business. He has written, directed, and produced hundreds of TV commercials and marketing videos, and several short films. Alex received his MBA in 2003 from Boston University, and during this time helped organize Investing in Media that Matters, a groundbreaking conference which brought together investors and media professionals at the Sundance Film Festival, to discuss socially responsible media. He also helps organize the Woods Hole Film Festival each year. Alex began working in Boston at WHDH-TV 7 and New England Cable News, where he eventually served as the On-Air Promotion Manager. Alex drives a Toyota Prius and has an unhealthy obsession with recycling everything in sight.
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Birth of War
Elizabeth Wood - New York, NY
Original Pitch:
The idea of war is so essential to the history mankind, yet is so foreign to the innocence we experience as children, or is it? I propose to create a three minute film from serious interviews with children, exploring their concept of what war is, and why we go to war. This will be intercut with scenes of the children playing, fighting, learning. This three minute film will provoke the viewer to question their own ideas of war, and how that may or may have not been influenced in the process of growing up.
Producer Bio:
Elizabeth Wood is the co-director of the feature documentary, Wade in the Water, a film created with students in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, which will premiere Autumn '07. She is also the co-director of Ruth, a feature documentary-in-progress, about the life of Ruth Nussbaum from pre-WWII Berlin to Hollywood. Her short films include Chaste, Three Guns and Drums and Saffron Limited. Elizabeth studied film, design and creative writing at Parson's and Eugene Lang in New York City.