During his 3 decades teaching at Staples High School, Jim Honeycutt helped develop the Media Lab.
It grew from radio and television production into a full-fledged, versatile studio.
Jim and his students recorded TV shows, Candlelight Concerts, and many Staples Players productions.
For several months, Jim — now retired — has been creating “nutshells” from the archives. They’re brief (10 minutes or so) highlights of every show, beginning with director David Roth’s first one in 2000.
It was “Guys and Dolls.”
Jim is sending these nutshells to “06880.” He hopes readers enjoy the shows — whether they were there then or not. Click here or below, for “Luck Be a Lady,” “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat,” and many more classics.
(“06880” covers Staples High School, Westport’s entertainment scene, and so much more — and we do it 24/7/365. Please click here to support our work. Thank you!)
In an age when many Staples High School graduates hope to major in business or STEM, or both — “it’s all about fintech,” one student said recently — is there any room for the creative arts?
Charlie Scott and Oscar Sales sure think so.
The Staples High School seniors just completed their first short film, “Limbo.” It offers a great lens through which to view today’s teenagers, and a ringing endorsement of the power of education to inspire passion and provide purpose.
Charlie is well known at Staples. A track athlete who started his first YouTube channel at age 10, he’s advanced from filming with an iPad to much more sophisticated equipment.
Inspired by teacher Geno Heiter, role models like Devon Jarvis and Zach Brody, and peers like Henry Manning, he’s taken full advantage of Staples’ radio and TV production studios.
Charlie has done everything from announcing Wrecker sports on WWPT-FM to creating videos celebrating team accomplishments. Check out this one he filmed and edited about the football team’s important Thanksgiving morning win at Greenwich:
Oscar has been inspired by English instructors Brian Tippy and Kim Herzog, who helped hone his storytelling skills. In Herzog’s Reading and Writing Fiction class, a recent assignment focused on crafting a story through dialogue.
Oscar realized a therapy session would be perfect. Then, he thought: “What if the character is dead? How could he reconcile with his past?”
He and Charlie discussed how to turn Oscar’s idea into a film. Oscar headed to YouTube, watching tutorials on how to write a screenplay.
Then they met at the Westport Library, to storyboard it. “It didn’t look very professional,” Charlie admits. “But we had a plan.”
He enlisted actor Cameron Mann. It was an inspired choice. The fellow senior has serious credits, including playing the killer on HBO’s “Mare of Easttown.”
Charlie was joined by Staples Players stars Imogen Medoff and Josy Pitaro (whose mother is actress Jean Louisa Kelly).
Charlie Scott (left) and Oscar Sales.
Filming took 2 days, earlier this month. There were the usual obstacles — Compo Beach was crowded on a beautiful afternoon, making it tough to create the “afterlife” affect they were looking for — but Charlie and Oscar got the shots they needed.
Then Charlie began editing. He used Premiere Pro, Adobe’s robust software. Whenever he needed a new effect or skill, he searched YouTube tutorials.
The result is a film that, in just 4 1/2 minutes, conveys a range of teenage emotions with subtle power and intrigue.
“I get locked in when I’m editing,” Charlie says. “It all comes together.” He hopes viewers feel the same way.
“Limbo” is not headed to Sundance. Right now, its only distribution is online.
But viewing it, you understand that not every Staples graduate will go into hedge funds or fintech.
The arts continue to live in Westport. They clearly are not in limbo.
(“06880” proudly reports the achievements of Staples High School students. Please click here to help support our work. Thank you!)
There’s a lot to see and hear in Westport. No one can do it all.
But if you missed 2 recent Staples High School-related events, YouTube can help.
A couple of weeks ago, the music department presented a fantastic concert: “The Art of Folk Music.” One audience member said “it equaled or surpassed many a NYC production.”
To hear Luke Rosenberg’s superb choral groups, click below:
Last week, David Roth’s Theater 3 acting class and Jim Honeycutt’s audio production class collaborated on a WWPT-FM live radio broadcast of “Dracula.” It was just like 1939: the Orson Welles Mercury Theater original script, period commercials, sound effects, the challenge of conveying a story completely with actors’ voices and sound effects.
Nine minutes of Lady Gaga might not be your cup of tea.
And — unless you’re a certain age — you probably have no idea what a lipdub is. (It’s a music video that combines lip synching and audio dubbing. Duh.)
But you should still check out Emerson College’s Lady Gaga Lipdub. It could be the best in the entire who-even-knew-it-existed genre?
You won’t be alone. It’s already been viewed over 850,000 times. That’s right up there with the little kid who acted high after visiting the dentist.
Staples graduate Ariana Sigel — a member of the high school Media Lab‘s Wall of Fame — had a hand in the now-gone-viral dance video (and a bit role — you can see her at the 1:36 mark, with a camera).
She had plenty of help. Scores of students worked on production. Hundreds of others — sorority girls, athletes, quidditch players, gay activists — danced, jumped and gyrated through the streets of Boston, on campus, and at random other sites in that well-choreographed, uber-enthusiastic, “Fame”-style way.
A scene from the Emerson College lipdub.
Emerson is known for its communication department, and this lipdub shows how skillful Ariana and her classmates are. It was shot over 2 weeks, in many different locations — with the usual endless production problems — but the editing is so seamless it looks like one long, perfect, 9-minute take.
(It even fooled an ABC newscaster, who shook his head in wonderment at “one take — pretty impressive!”)
The idea was to use the video to advertise the Evvy Awards — a college-wide show in which student work is judged by industry professionals. It’s the largest student award show in the country.
It created a buzz, alright — and much more.
“Imagine what their school musicals are like 🙂 ” someone commented on YouTube.
“I am SO applying here!” someone else said.
And this from Emerson Class of 2013 dad: “Makes the tuition payments worth it.”
Industry professionals loved it too.
Even those who don’t love Lady Gaga.
(Click here to view Emerson College’s Lady Gaga Lipdub.)
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