Huot Tech students get close-up of making of Mel Gibson movie

Five Lakes Region high school students studying multimedia communications at the Huot Technical Center at Laconia High School have a little better understand of what making a feature film is like after spending a day watching the filming of a scene from Mel Gibson’s newest project, “Edge of Darkness.”

The opportunity arose because a scene was recently being shot at the home of an old friend of teacher Jill Lessard who lives in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts. The friend invited Lessard’s class to the shooting and the students said the crew was very kind and accommodating.

“It’s based on an old English TV series,” explained 18-year-old Joslyn Laflam of Belmont, of the film’s story.

Laflame and her cohorts — Steven Smith, 17, of Laconia, Emmett Collins, 18, of Canterbury, Caleb Timmins, 16, of Laconia, and Brooke Perez, 17, of Gilford — agreed the trip gave them significant insights into how big-budget movies are made.

The young people watched only a scene in which a man falls down a flight of stairs in the mansion and Gibson, in his character as police detective Thomas Craven, puts his foot on the man’s chest and demands he say something.

Smith said there were two “fake” Mel Gibsons at the shooting. One was a stunt double and the other was a “stand-in” who would replace Gibson in certain less-distinct shots.

Perez said the stand-in looked so much like Gibson that their tour guide mistakenly initially identified him as the actor.

One of the aspects of the procedure that most impressed the students was how many people were in the space during the filming of the short sequence and how cooperatively the crew worked together.

“There were so many people and they were all doing something,” said Smith. “What amazed me was in the area where we were that several acres that was taken up by the cast and crew. There were three of four trucks in the front yard. They had to bring so many people with them… Even a few blocks away there were trucks with equipment in them.”

“There were more people involved than we imagined, a couple of dozen right in there,” said Timmins. “And it (the scene) was only 20 seconds.”

“You all have to work together,” noted Perez. “They had this light that went off that meant ‘quiet on the set,’ and then there was this loud buzzer (before they started filming). And everyone was quiet.”

Laflam noticed a make-up person who came in between takes and used a spray can to put fake sweat on the actors’ skin.

Timmins was intrigued by the stunt work and the “choreography” needed to make it work. He said the director, Martin Campbell, originally wanted Gibson to put his foot on the other actor’s torso but Gibson, who was having trouble moving his feet in that direction, suggested instead putting his foot near the actor’s throat.

The young people said the change actually added to the tension of the sequence.

Lessard said she was glad to see what her students learned from the field trip.

“First, it was so gratifying to observe their reactions to seeing what was going on and comparing it to what we do here with our very limited budget. It’s just like that but it’s a small scale version,” she said of the high school studio. “And they got to see all the same equipment (we have here), but bigger and more expensive. It was fun to see their reaction to that — and also the attention to detail. I always tell them, it’s the details that matter.”

Most of the students agreed they could see themselves someday working on a Hollywood movie as either a director of a director of photography.

“It made me want to do that,” said Perez. “It definitely made me more motivated, more determined.”