Spring Break
Lights, Camera, Action! Movie filming comes to URI campus
Christopher Barrett
Issue date: 2/20/08 Section: News
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![Director Michael Lembeck [right] confers with an assistant during filming of the movie](http://media.collegepublisher.com/media/paper366/stills/kd02jr38.jpg)
Here to film the direct-to-consumer movie "The Clique," its director, Michael Lembeck, said he searched the state looking for a school campus that would resemble an elite private girls prep school. He looked at or called about 60 locations in the Ocean State that either didn't work out or turned down the request to host a film crew.
In a brief interview after shooting a scene on the steps of Green Hall, Lembeck said he chose the building that houses the university's administration for its historical architecture.
"It feels like a very special place," he said. "It doesn't feel like a school just any girls would go to."
In the movie, Green Hall will become Octavian Country Day School, and the lawn outside a setting for exterior walking scenes. The university administration even allowed the crew to use the walkway as a driveway for a scene where the girls are picked up from school in a chauffeured car.
Also outside, Lembeck said if necessary he would swap out the backgrounds of scenes that catch views of modern looking buildings, such as Independence Hall and Morrill Science Building, and replace them with views of Green Hall.
But Lembeck promised that the University of Rhode Island campus will still be identifiable in the final edit and a crane stood by ready to take a full aerial shot of Green Hall.
Later, the cast planned to move inside and film scenes in the President's Suite that includes offices of some of the university's highest-ranking officials.
Keeping a promise to interfere as little as possible with the university's day-to-day operations, Lembeck said if administrators happened to walk down the hall while the cameras rolled, they would end up in the scene.
Lembeck hailed the university for its cooperation with blocking off roads and parking lots and rearranging traffic patterns to make way for the production that filmed yesterday and today.
"The hardest thing about shooting in Rhode Island is people saying 'no,'" he said, adding that he had no such issues at URI.
It was the first time on campus for Lembeck, who directed "The Santa Clause" movies, and many of the crew traveled from afar to partake in the movie.
During a lunch break two cast members said URI appeared a welcoming and friendly place to shoot a movie.
"It seems like the administration is welcoming to our group," said actress Nancy Sadsad, who plays a parent in the film. "We're fortunate they've opened up their facilities to us and allowed us to be here."
Leading actress Ellen Marlow said it was her first time in Rhode Island and she called the Kingston campus beautiful and welcoming. Over lunch in the Memorial Union, Marlow said she wasn't surprised that curious students stopped by to peek at the action.
"It's really fun because you see actual people just walking around and going to classes," Marlow, 14, said. "It's really fun to see how people react to the film industry. I'd know I'd flip out if someone was filming at my school."
In the movie, Marlow plays Claire, a new girl in town trying to fit in at the prep school as well as into the group of popular girls.
The film, based on a book series by Lisi Harrison, has been shot at several other locations around Rhode Island, including Portsmouth Abbey School and a private residence in North Kingstown.
And though the movie will never be seen on the big screen, the unit's publicist, Scott Levine, said it wasn't a reflection on the quality of the movie scheduled to be released later this year.
"A lot of times something that is going directly to DVD has kind of a dark quality about it, as if it were not as good," said Levine, who is also a part-time URI instructor. "This is being designed for DVD, because it is being made for younger girls and there is a market for it."
"The Clique" is one of a handful of movies to film in Rhode Island after the state passed a law in 2006 that gives motion picture companies a 25 percent transferable tax break on all Rhode Island spending. Many companies sell those credits to wealthy individuals who use them as write-offs on their tax returns.
At URI, administration agreed to host the "low-budget" film free on the condition that the crew reimburses the school for incidental expenses such as electricity and overtime costs for building technicians and security personnel.
Ultimately the administration hopes to build goodwill and receive good publicity from the arrangement.
Next week, Richard Gere is scheduled to film scenes on campus for the movie "Hachiko." Plans call for some scenes to include URI students cast as extras.
News Staff Reporter Jess Medeiros contributed to this report.
