Open Forum

Hey friends! I am so excited and blessed that we actually got to do a spring musical this year! We've been working on this project since November and we are in the home stretch, the premiere is March 17th! Below is a little bit about our process, I'm happy to answer questions, and I'd love to know what other folks have been doing with film this year!
If you'd like to join us for the show, tickets are on sale at Timbergriffen Theater Company and you can check out our trailer here: Prodigy Trailer

YouTube		remove preview
Prodigy Trailer The Timbergriffen Theater Company presents Prodigy, book and lyrics by Jenny Stafford and music by Willem Oosthyusen. Ecarvada.booktix.com Featuring students... View this on YouTube >

 

We had always planned to do the musical Prodigy, written by Jenni Stafford and Willem Oosthyusen who are local to our area in Denver. I'd seen a production of the show at the college Jenni teaches at and knew some day I had to do it with HS. It's a powerful story about mental health in artists, with a stunning score. We've been so blessed to worked with them to adapt this beautiful stage play to a movie format. It's literally taken a village to get here. My co-music director from our sister school helped with recording, my co-director did all the staging and blocking, my husband did all the filming and now editing, I've been doing a little bit of everything from location scouting to costuming to sound mixing, it's been a wild ride.

This year we had very low turn out for auditions due to coronavirus, so when we had no guys audition we had to get creative. We were able to bring in community members to fill a couple rolls. One gentleman who played our Dad is a regional actor who loved the story and wanted to be a part of the project, so we brought him in as a volunteer guest artist. We also invited an alumni back to play a love interest. Then, we invited other community members and stepped in ourselves as cameos throughout the film.

I never thought that I would love making a movie so much. It's been a steep learning curve but it's been a rewarding one to be able to tell this incredible story.


------------------------------
Kelly Bidstrup Graham
Performing Arts Teacher
TimberGriffen Theater Company
------------------------------

Hi! Congrats on the production. Quick question. How did you maneuver all the Colorado restrictions? In DPS we are not allowed to sing unless it is outside.. And all actors have to be masked the entire time? we are trying to Do Working The Musical, but i am worried about all the restrictions!

------------------------------
Megen Gilman
Theatre Director
North High School
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-04-2021 10:27
From: Kelly Bidstrup Graham
Subject: How We Filmed a Movie Musical!

Hey friends! I am so excited and blessed that we actually got to do a spring musical this year! We've been working on this project since November and we are in the home stretch, the premiere is March 17th! Below is a little bit about our process, I'm happy to answer questions, and I'd love to know what other folks have been doing with film this year!
If you'd like to join us for the show, tickets are on sale at Timbergriffen Theater Company and you can check out our trailer here: Prodigy Trailer

YouTube		remove preview
Prodigy Trailer The Timbergriffen Theater Company presents Prodigy, book and lyrics by Jenny Stafford and music by Willem Oosthyusen. Ecarvada.booktix.com Featuring students... View this on YouTube >

We had always planned to do the musical Prodigy, written by Jenni Stafford and Willem Oosthyusen who are local to our area in Denver. I'd seen a production of the show at the college Jenni teaches at and knew some day I had to do it with HS. It's a powerful story about mental health in artists, with a stunning score. We've been so blessed to worked with them to adapt this beautiful stage play to a movie format. It's literally taken a village to get here. My co-music director from our sister school helped with recording, my co-director did all the staging and blocking, my husband did all the filming and now editing, I've been doing a little bit of everything from location scouting to costuming to sound mixing, it's been a wild ride.

This year we had very low turn out for auditions due to coronavirus, so when we had no guys audition we had to get creative. We were able to bring in community members to fill a couple rolls. One gentleman who played our Dad is a regional actor who loved the story and wanted to be a part of the project, so we brought him in as a volunteer guest artist. We also invited an alumni back to play a love interest. Then, we invited other community members and stepped in ourselves as cameos throughout the film.

I never thought that I would love making a movie so much. It's been a steep learning curve but it's been a rewarding one to be able to tell this incredible story.


------------------------------
Kelly Bidstrup Graham
Performing Arts Teacher
TimberGriffen Theater Company
------------------------------

I realized I left out the most important part! Our covid procedures. We're a small school and we did film this over a long period of time, over various different levels/restrictions. We worked with out admin, students, their families, and local health dept. to make sure we were as safe as possible. Students recorded their music in a sound booth we created, they could record masked and our engineer could be 6-12 feet away. We fogged our recording and filming spaces every hour, students were getting tested before they came on set, we would only have 1 person unmasked at a time (save a couple moments outdoors) and only for the final take. Everyone else not on camera would be masked and more than 6 feet away. We took frequent breaks outside, everyone had a temp check upon entry and hand sanitized upon arrival and as needed between takes. We also embraced masks as part of the present day narrative. It helped that most scenes for this show only had 2 people at a time so we could record much of it in isolation, just a single actor and our staff.

------------------------------
Kelly Bidstrup Graham
Performing Arts Teacher
TimberGriffen Theater Company
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-04-2021 11:04
From: Megen Gilman
Subject: How We Filmed a Movie Musical!

Hi! Congrats on the production. Quick question. How did you maneuver all the Colorado restrictions? In DPS we are not allowed to sing unless it is outside.. And all actors have to be masked the entire time? we are trying to Do Working The Musical, but i am worried about all the restrictions!

------------------------------
Megen Gilman
Theatre Director
North High School

Original Message:
Sent: 03-04-2021 10:27
From: Kelly Bidstrup Graham
Subject: How We Filmed a Movie Musical!

Hey friends! I am so excited and blessed that we actually got to do a spring musical this year! We've been working on this project since November and we are in the home stretch, the premiere is March 17th! Below is a little bit about our process, I'm happy to answer questions, and I'd love to know what other folks have been doing with film this year!
If you'd like to join us for the show, tickets are on sale at Timbergriffen Theater Company and you can check out our trailer here: Prodigy Trailer

YouTube		remove preview
Prodigy Trailer The Timbergriffen Theater Company presents Prodigy, book and lyrics by Jenny Stafford and music by Willem Oosthyusen. Ecarvada.booktix.com Featuring students... View this on YouTube >

We had always planned to do the musical Prodigy, written by Jenni Stafford and Willem Oosthyusen who are local to our area in Denver. I'd seen a production of the show at the college Jenni teaches at and knew some day I had to do it with HS. It's a powerful story about mental health in artists, with a stunning score. We've been so blessed to worked with them to adapt this beautiful stage play to a movie format. It's literally taken a village to get here. My co-music director from our sister school helped with recording, my co-director did all the staging and blocking, my husband did all the filming and now editing, I've been doing a little bit of everything from location scouting to costuming to sound mixing, it's been a wild ride.

This year we had very low turn out for auditions due to coronavirus, so when we had no guys audition we had to get creative. We were able to bring in community members to fill a couple rolls. One gentleman who played our Dad is a regional actor who loved the story and wanted to be a part of the project, so we brought him in as a volunteer guest artist. We also invited an alumni back to play a love interest. Then, we invited other community members and stepped in ourselves as cameos throughout the film.

I never thought that I would love making a movie so much. It's been a steep learning curve but it's been a rewarding one to be able to tell this incredible story.


------------------------------
Kelly Bidstrup Graham
Performing Arts Teacher
TimberGriffen Theater Company
------------------------------