NewEnglandFilm.com

A team of college students in Boston joined together in the pursuit of making a movie. However, unlike others before them, they succeeded. After much hard work, time, and a few obstacles, they completed the feature length film, A Work of Fiction (AWOF). The film will be screened for the first time on December 6th 2006 at 7 pm, at the Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline, MA. It’s especially unique in that it was made solely by college students from different schools without the help of their respective colleges or outside sources. Students did everything from shooting the scenes to composing the score.

It all started about two years ago when executive producer Nathan Larson and writer/director Daniel Faneuf began to figure out how they were going to make a film. The two, who are cousins, had been thinking about making a film together for years, but they had not seriously pursued a project until now. After putting a posting on Craigslist, Faneuf and Larson got a lot of feedback from other Boston-area college students who were interested in collaborating to make a movie. The people that contacted Faneuf and Larson were students from BU, Northeastern, Emerson, Suffolk, Berklee, and Wesleyan. The students came from diverse backgrounds. Some had experience with film, while others had little or no filmmaking experience.

AWOF producer Doug Shineman, a film student now in his senior year at BU, learned about the project through fellow students that were already involved. At the first meeting Shineman attended, Daniel Faneuf played the song that inspired him to write the script. Faneuf told Shineman "he had a lot of interested students from Boston schools, a budget of $5,000, and the passion needed to see this project through." Faneuf’s words inspired Shineman to join the team. In the following months, Shineman worked on SAG contracts, coordinated production schedules, managed funds, and organized post-production.

Before filming began, the production team held casting sessions by posting ads on Craigslist. The team started casting for the film two years ago and found most of the supporting cast, but they did not find the two lead actors they were looking for in the first rounds of casting. One year later in early 2006, they held another casting session at BU and finally found the male and female leads. "Luckily we found two actors that were willing to work for $500 for one month of fulltime shooting," says Nathan Larson. Among the talent at the auditions, Larson came across an interesting set of characters via Craigslist. One man showed up at the auditions and offered to give him boxing lessons, but Larson explained that he was only interested in actors at the time.

Once the production team was assembled and started shooting, they worked a few 7-day weeks and 12-hour days. They tried to break up the shooting and have a few days off, but they were on a tight schedule. "People got stressed, but we made it," says Larson.

Without funding from outside sources or universities, the production team funded the project completely on their own. In the beginning they tried to get access to equipment from universities, but considering the amount of equipment they needed and the extended time period they needed it for, the schools would not let them borrow any equipment. Some of the students involved in the project had some camera equipment of their own, but they needed more for the project. During the project, producer Nathan Larson graduated from Northeastern University with a degree in computer science and put some of his earnings into the film. He and his colleagues contributed out of pocket to purchase cameras and equipment needed to complete the filming. The only sponsor they did get was a local pizza parlor in Allston, First Bite Café, which gave them a discount on food.

The film was shot at several different locations around Boston. Locations included Boston Common, Huntington Avenue, Boston Billiard Club, an elementary school in Allston, and various apartments around the city. The apartments they filmed in belonged to the crew or people they knew.

During production this past summer, the crew ran into a few obstacles. On two separate occasions, they arrived at a location only to find a team of N-Star trucks repairing a power outage. This occurred at a location on Mission Hill and at a location in Allston. Both times, the entire street block lost power. They couldn’t shoot because of the lack of electricity, so they had to postpone.

The screenplay for A Work of Fiction is the creation of writer/director Daniel Faneuf. The film is a romantic thriller about a writer trying to get inside of the head of a murderer. The main character is a young writer who receives an assignment from his publishing company to write a murder mystery. Initially, he struggles with the assignment because he cannot imagine how someone could murder another person. "Through a romance that develops he realizes that there is something worth killing for," says Nathan Larson. Shane Delaney and Erin Cole will play the lead roles.

For many involved, the film was a great opportunity to learn and do something they loved to do. Doug Shineman values his experience with AWOF because of everything he learned. "I had done short films for classes in the past, but I had no clue when signing on to this project how much more work it would be. And it was worth it," says Shineman.

What is most striking about this film is the commitment of all those involved. In addition to school coursework and jobs, these students and recent graduates were making a full-length film. We weren’t "thinking it was possible until we got halfway through, but we figured we might actually be able to pull this off," says Larson. The crew and actors worked well as a team throughout production. Larson admits that there were a few heated arguments, "but that’s what happens when people want to see this film done to the best of their abilities."