WORCESTER — Scouting for a mansion where he could shoot some sequences for his movie “Stirling,” Perry Kroll thought he had found an ideal place.Article from the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Thursday, November 4th 2004, Worcester Massachusetts. Page C3 in the “Time Out” Section.
By Richard Duckett
TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
WORCESTER — Scouting for a mansion where he could shoot some sequences for his movie “Stirling,” Perry Kroll thought he had found an ideal place.
Then he talked to the owner of the property, who told Kroll it would cost $800 a day to film there.
“I said that’s more than my entire budget,” Kroll recalled.
Many an independent filmmaker could sympathize.
But in the indie spirit Kroll pressed on and got his movie made. Now comes the premiere at 5 p.m. Sunday at the Bijou Community Cinema.
One day before Kroll’s 18th birthday.
“I think it came together amazingly well, considering the things we didn’t know when we started,” Kroll said of his two-hour murder-mystery-comedy, which is also in DVD form.
“Stirling” was directed by Kroll and co-produced and co-written by Chris Migner. Just about everyone involved in making the film (a cast and crew of 30-plus people) is around Kroll’s age. And most, like Kroll, are home-schooled students.
“When we started it, everyone was 14,” he said.
Kroll, who lives in Worcester with his parents, Suzanne, and Robert Kroll, and brother, Bryce, 13, said he had been interested in movies when he was about 12 but then moved on to other things. However, that changed when he was a given a video camera as a present from an uncle. “I made little movies in the basement, then I got a computer and added special effects.”
Ideas started to expand. “I thought it would be fun to make a big movie.”
Mature for his young years and earnest, Kroll also has a sense of humor. As he developed the story for “Stirling,” he said, the comedy facet of the movie tended to be emphasized more than the murder-mystery. But there is murder.
The plot has to do with the creation of a “Stirling Advance” engine. The original real-life Stirling engine, patented in 1816 by Robert Stirling, was an external-combustion engine. Flash-forward to 2002 and professor Bill Weist (played by Josh Haselkorn) has created the Stirling Advance, which runs infinitely, creating cheap, clean power without burning any fuel. But before the new Stirling gets shown to the public, Weist meets an untimely end. Who did it? Among the last people to see him were his fellow researchers.
Weist also had a rather underhanded competitor...
Kroll also has an acting role in the movie, and is a member of the Boston-based Puddle Jump Players theater group, which is composed mostly of homeschooled students. Several Puddle Jump Player’s actors were recruited for “Stirling.”
In this day and age of digital technology, good quality looking movies can be made fairly cheaply. Still, once the making of “Stirling” got under way Kroll acknowledged that, “I didn’t realize how big a project it was going to be.”
Location shooting was a challenge given that Kroll did not have $800 a day to spend.
“We filmed a good deal in Boston without permission,” he said.
At 7 a.m. on one weekend day in Boston, Kroll set up his tripod across the way from the Exchange Building for an external shot. In the film, the building was to be the fictional headquarters of the underhanded competitor. But then a real life security guard approached Kroll. “He said ‘You can’t film here.’”
Kroll had researched the legalities of public filming and believed he could. “I said, ‘Is there anyone I can talk to?’ He said, ‘Yes. Me.’”
At a Boston subway station Kroll was again setting up for a shot when a voice on the loudspeaker boomed out that the tripod must be dismantled “at once” or it would be confiscated.
“You have to get in and out quickly before people notice,” Kroll said. He found that the further west from Boston he went, the more people in general were cooperative. For example, Kroll did some shooting at the Worcester Public Library, “They were wonderful.”
A technical problem, however, was sound. The microphones Kroll began using tended to pick up unwanted ambient sound, including in one instance the buzz of a chainsaw. “Stirling” is not that type of movie.
“We dubbed lines, but it took months to get everyone collected to dub their lines,” Kroll said.
But with software, digital editing and a computer it can be done. “It’s amazing. I knew nothing about editing when I started.”
The cast of “Stirling” had no older adults save for a woman who acted as a stunt driver in a scene involving a black SUV. It was her SUV. “She wouldn’t let anyone else drive it,” Kroll said.
Looking back now, “the one thing I wish I had done differently was cast people their own ages. But for my first movie, I don’t think people will mind too much.”
The movie was given a sneak preview at a recent homeschool school conference in Peabody.
“They seemed to like it. A lot of people were talking to me about it,” Kroll said. “I see it as an experiment to see if film is what I want to do — and the answer is yes.”
The people at the Bijou were very encouraging because they want to promote local filmmakers, Kroll said. In the future, he would like to arrange some screenings in Boston. And when he applies to colleges to study film, he has a ready-made film to show. “I’m hoping it will open doors for me ... I learned a tremendous amount.”
Currently Kroll is preparing for his SATs, “but I think I want to make another movie before I go to college.”
He helps pay for costs such as the computer and camera by designing Web sites for people.
When he made “Stirling” he asked the cast and crew for donations, which came to about $500. “I spent all of that,” Kroll said.
“So far I’ve done well earning back by selling DVDs. Ticket sales at the Bijou should help. I hope it sells out.”
Tickets to the screening of “Stirling” at 5p.m, Sunday at the Bijou Community Cinema are $5. Tickets can be reserved and DVD copies of “Stirling” can be bought by visiting stirlingmovie.com.
DVDS will also be available at the Bijou on Sunday.