"A Moving Picture" circa 1970

THE THREE YOUNG FILMMAKERS, ages 13-16, captured in an uncanny way the spirit of MLC in its first years. Not only did they precociously exercise their shared interest in film in completely independent fashion, but they organized the entire social setup, peers and adults, in service to a clever political satire commenting on the times in a sophisticated way. The voiceover by Lee Gordon was, unfortunately, lost, but the film holds its own as silent storytelling.

Chris and Jeff were childhood friends, Jeff's dad a director at local station KPTV, giving Jeff access to a whole library of films his family would watch—and which later Jeff would borrow to show students in his Friday MLC film classes !! Chris and Jeff grew into avid cinema fans. Lee, younger, looked up to them and after taking a Summer 1970 film course from (professor and MLC parent) Tom Taylor at PSU, wrote the Moving Picture script, reflecting the times and shared political proclivities. He persuaded Chris and Jeff to come on as savvy camera-operating collaborators. The trio remember devising one tracking shot with two of them pushing the third down the hallway on a table.

The film was lent for copying by Lee Gordon and graciously uploaded to YouTube by Chris Paynter, along with nine other short films and videos spanning 27 years of MLC history.

The result is magnificent. The film features Emil Abramovic as the classroom teacher, Manny Bernstein as the librarian, Abe Bialostosky as the negotiator, John Angell as the gym teacher, Mary Milestone as the secretary (not Jolynn Gentile as stated in the credits), and Ehrick Wheeler as the school psychiatrist. It stars, as the takeover masterminds, Pete Lowry and Deon Reynolds; as the rest of the takeover gang, Nolan Hibbard, Tim Hill, Margo Kaeser, Jason Lynch, Kevin McDevitt, and Jess Spray; and it also features Mike Brooks, David Chelsea (Celsi), Matthew Galaher, Ricia (Smith) Parcher, Bridget (Snell) Roth, David Svitavsky, Stuart Taylor, Jevan Williams, and—as the filmmakers put it—anybody else who got in the way.