Golden Oldies

The films on this page are from my early days: as a teen in the 1960s, at college, and then as a young producer in the 1970s. The technology was crude and my skills still developing. But they are still a fun glimpse at some very diverse subjects.

MODEL ROCKETRY

In the mid 1960s, 3 teenage boys were enamored of the space program and filmmaking. They were also avid model rocketeers, building and launching many rockets made by Estes Industries. They created this film to document their space-age hobby. And then pitched it to Estes industries. It’s a charming look at kids using their ingenuity to make a film back in a day when technology was not very sophisticated. Here is their story.

The TELLTALE HEART

In 1974, my senior year at Harvard, for a filmmaking course, I decided to make a film adaptation of the Edgar Allen Poe story “The Telltale Heart.” Teaming up with my roommate Sheldon St.Clair (who was pre-med), we made the film. With an almost non-existent budget, we used what resources we could scrounge up. We solved many challenges of props, location and effects. Actors included friends and a willing staff guy to play the “old man”.The Department of Visual and Environmental Studies liked the film so much they kept a copy in their archives as an example of an outstanding student project.Though it was one of my very first projects, now, a half-century later, I am still proud of the film we made. Little did I know the long career I had ahead of me creating media.

Note: Over the years, the film has gone through many iterations from 16mm to video to DVD to digital, so the quality has been comprised a bit.