PARIS – The auditorium at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School was taken over by a small film crew Thursday night to shoot a short movie titled “Music of the Night.”
The movie was not a first for lead actor and director Matt Nelson, 21, of Lovell, who studies acting at Emerson College in Boston.
“This is my sixth project, but it’s like my biggest one as of yet,” he said, stepping down from a scene on the auditorium stage Friday morning to take a break between shots.
Nelson spent $200 to rent the auditorium, and said the entire budget for the five-minute, 12-second film was expected to be $1,500.
That wasn’t bad, he said, considering the cost of most music videos and other films. “We’re being pretty thrifty.”
The best way to get into acting is to cast yourself, Nelson said.
That’s part of the reason he has been making movies, which he hopes to compile into a collection on DVD.
“Music of the Night” will feature Nelson and a young woman named Jade Catta-Preta. “It’s about a pretty lady who crawls out of a piano,” he said.
On Friday morning, Nelson and a crew of seven friends helping with the production were busy doing everything from shooting brief scenes with the piano to making runs for Red Bull energy drinks.
Nelson said he works 75 to 90 hours a week during the summer to support his film interests. His hours don’t seem much lighter during the school year.
Nelson and his friends drove up from Boston after classes Thursday and didn’t begin filming “Music of the Night” until almost 3 a.m. the next morning.
He was scheduled to leave Paris at 2 p.m. Friday and be back in Boston in time to appear in a play.
He was then scheduled to make two more acting appearances in the same play Saturday, and appear in a play of his own Sunday.
On Monday, it was back to the books.
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