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Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend September 23, 2005 A film crew shoots a scene with Oregon Shakespeare Festival actor Richard Elmore Thursday for a substance abuse feature called �Target Teen,� produced by Tom Monson of Medford. Mail Tribune / Roy Musitelli Crew, actors make anti-smoking film Project stars local actors Richard Elmore and Jim Bowen By BILL VARBLE Mail Tribune Actors, a camera crew, sound and makeup people and a dozen others fall silent as director Finley Rogers calls for action. "Carla, you happy with this?" actor Richard Elmore says. Elmore is wearing a gray power suit. "She hasn’t seen it yet," actor Jim Bowen says. He’s a young man in jeans and a sport coat. Business-garbed people in what passes for a corporate boardroom turn with Elmore to a video monitor where skateboarding teens do their thing to the raucous buzz of speed metal music. A Goth boy in somber black clothes and deathly makeup skates to a close-up. "Hey, dude!" he says. "You know me? I’m Danny Death!" Advertisement Elmore, playing a tobacco executive named Swain, turns incredulously to his underlings. "What is this!" he says. What this is is the climactic scene in a new anti-smoking feature being shot in Medford. It’s the moment when Swain, the picture’s heavy, discovers that Jesse, played by Bowen, has made a film that tells kids the real deal on cigarettes instead of making smoking seem cool, which is what he was paid by Swain to do. "Target Teen" has been shooting with local actors and technicians since Monday in the Rogue Valley. This scene is being shot in a conference room on the third floor of Southern Oregon University’s Hannon Library. Rogers is a Hollywood veteran who specializes in action pictures and also works in television and documentaries. The picture has a budget of $100,000 and a script credited to a writer named Willa Grey. Principle photography is scheduled to conclude today. Executive producer Tom Monson of Medford has produced 10 substance abuse films since 1997. They have been aired widely on television and shown by more than 6,000 organizations, including schools, hospitals and law enforcement agencies. Rogers plans to shoot 26 angles on this scene. For television, a half-hour show might be shot in a day with three cameras and tons of lighting flooding each scene from different angles. Principle photography on "Target Teen" was scheduled for five days, and each scene is being shot over and over from a single camera with different angles and lighting. The result, Rogers says, should look more like a feature film than a TV show. In the story, Carla owns an ad agency, and Jesse makes videos. The moral crisis comes when the two find out that their lucrative new account, Swain, depends on their selling addiction to kids. Elmore is an actor with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. He says playing heavies is usually more fun than good guys. Carla is played by Kate Sullivan, of Ashland, who’s often seen at Oregon Stage Works. Jackson, one of Swain’s underlings, is played by Gentry Smith, another Ashland actor. "This area has a terrific repository of actors and technicians," Rogers says. The next take is to be shot with the skateboarding audio muted. "Carla, you happy with this?" Elmore says. "She hasn’t seen it yet," Bowen says. An ear-splitting blast of speed metal bursts into the room as the Goth boy appears on the screen. Bruce Wallace Hostetler, of Ashland, who’s assisting Rogers, scrambles to mute it, and everybody gets set to go again. "Carla, you happy with this?" "She hasn’t seen it yet." The actors do the scene over and over. Lights are moved around. In the end Swain gives Jesse 60 seconds to get off the premises and ridicules his decision to tell kids the truth. He says it won’t make any difference. Jesse says at least he won’t be part of it. The older man tells him he’s thrown away his career. "Well, Curtis," Bowen says, "you can’t lose them all." Elmore, Sullivan, Smith and others sweep out of the room. "Good," Rogers says. "Good." Tobacco companies have been accused of trying to make smoking seem cool with campaigns such as the Joe Camel character. Monson says he wanted to portray an industry exploiting the need of vulnerable young people to feel accepted. "If you could convince a kid it’s cool to walk around with a nail in the side of your head," he says, "you’d see a bunch of kids walking around with bloody spikes protruding from their skulls." Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. 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