Producer John Kelly, left, and director John Maher have a laugh during a break in the filming of a Bluecoats drum and bugle corps practice.
John Thomas Kelly taught medieval literature for most of his 43 years at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. Then he saw the writing on the wall.
"I discovered that the cultural place that medieval literature had occupied was disappearing and there were other things that the university wanted to do, with more of a multicultural emphasis," he said.
So Kelly, 69, turned to his interest in film and helped establish a film theory and criticism center, reshaping a career but remaining with the college until he retired 2004.
The transition set the stage for Kelly's retirement. He has established his own film production company, John Thomas Kelly Productions Inc., and is creating a documentary about a drum and bugle corps from Canton, Ohio, and its grueling 80-day summer tour and competition. The film is titled "Throw it Down," and is scheduled for release in the summer of 2007.
So far, Kelly has spent more than $100,000 of his own money and expects he will need to spend another $40,000 for editing. He hopes the film will be ready in time for several film festivals next year.
Looking for retirement pastime
When Kelly retired two years ago, he immediately thought about filmmaking, but didn't have a project in mind. Then a university colleague invited Kelly to see his son and daughter perform in a drum and bugle corps. Kelly, who once played in what he calls a ragtag marching band from western Oklahoma, was impressed.
"I was astounded by how excellent the precision was," he said.
He contacted a friend from graduate school, John Maher, 59, a New York cinematographer, and invited him to join the newborn production company. Maher accepted, and took on the role of director.
"My strength is that I can write the checks," Kelly says. "I'm a bachelor, so I don't have somebody else spending my money for me."
Most of the $100,000 he has spent has gone to hiring Maher and his film crew. A package - director, assistant camera operator, and sound person, with their expenses for travel, food and lodging - can cost close to $2,000 a day.
Bluecoats of Canton, Ohio
To gain permission to film the documentary, Kelly and Maher created an eight-minute promotional film to pitch their idea to the board of directors of the Bluecoats, the Canton-based drum corps. Kelly and Maher were invited to film tryouts for new members at the campus of Rio Grande University in Ohio in May. About 600 musicians competed for 50 openings.
Later, when the corps began regular practices, the filmmakers showed members about 20 minutes of the footage they had shot during the tryouts.
"The kids like it a lot because it showed pictures of them," Kelly said. "We found them all very spontaneous, energetic and enthusiastic."
That created opportunities to film members close up and interview them throughout the tour. Several of the young people are featured throughout the film, their voices becoming so familiar that viewers will know who is speaking before the face reappears on the screen.
Maher and his crew filmed the drum corps during competition and also at dress practices, where they could move among the musicians to capture sound and video that would otherwise have been impossible to record. The scenes were shot in high definition, widescreen video with stereo sound.
Coming of age stories
As impressed as Kelly was by the precision and discipline of the drum and bugle corps, he was especially intrigued by the fact that members "age out" and must quit the corps when they turn 20.
The title of the film, "Throw It Down," is a drum corps expression that means to leave one's best effort on the field. The term becomes a metaphor for corps members who are performing in their final season of competition before aging out.
"I did not just want to shoot a documentary about a drum and bugle corps that struggled and competed, as exciting as that would have been," Kelly said. "I wanted the film to reflect upon what it means for these young people as they are coming of age in this world so different from the one that you and I knew."
Starting in mid-June, the drum corps, with its 135 musicians, extras, chaperones and cooks, criss-crossed the country on an 80-day bus tour, competing against a dozen of the country's elite corps in Indiana, Illinois, San Antonio, Dallas, Arkansas, Tennessee and Ontario, Canada. The tour ended at the national championships in Madison, Wisconsin, in August, with the Bluecoats taking fourth place, the highest finish in the corps' history.
Out of his hands now
Kelly admits to experiencing an emotional letdown since the crew stopped filming in August. Maher has the digital video and is doing the editing while Kelly waits to see a rough cut, maybe some time in January.
He's starting to think about his next documentary project, this time about retired people who go on gambling trips for the excitement. The idea comes from his own mother, who into her 90s traveled regularly to Nevada to gamble.
But for now he is staying focused on the film at hand, hoping viewers will be as impressed as he was with the young people he met this summer.
"The biggest thing I wanted to show was how standup and wonderful these kids are," Kelly said. "They are really, really good people who are under enormous pressure, and they manage to do very well and thrive," he said.
"When people see this film I think it will give them some hope about the way the world is going to go forward."
For more information about the film, visit John Thomas Kelly Productions Inc's Web site www.throwitdownthemovie.com
