While most New Englanders were lazily sunning themselves on the beach one
particularly steamy summer weekend last July, there was a flurry of activity
and excitement just outside of Boston, in Brookline’s Grigg Park as
director/producer Peter Rhodes led his ACT YOUR AGE feature cast of close to
one hundred kids and sixteen senior citizens ranging in age from 70 to 90
through a pivotal scene in the film. It was an amazing and largely unknown
event in moviemaking - two generations, set apart by many years, interacting
and having fun together on a film set. This unusual intergenerational film
collaboration based on Rhodes’ earlier ambition to bring together young
children and elderly adults in some kind of creative project had finally
become a reality in a movie which features among other things; a giant magic
show, an evil nurse, a book of ancient spells, and a group Charleston dance.

If Peter Rhodes’ name seems familiar, it’s undoubtedly because you’ve seen it
listed in the credits of any number of notable television documentaries
produced in the last seventeen years. As one of the area’s most respected
film editors, British expatriate Rhodes has been working steadily since first
arriving in Boston with his American born wife, artist Shelley Reed, back in
1986.

With a resume that included assistant editing at the BBC, Rhodes was soon
hired by WGBH and thus begun a long ongoing career that includes working on
such acclaimed PBS series as FRONTLINE, NOVA, and THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE.

While Rhodes clearly loves his documentary work, he also says that regularly
working with such serious subject matter moved him to find an idea altogether
different when looking to develop his own creative project several years ago.
“Editing had become somewhat of a second nature and I was feeling like some
of my creativity was being drained,” he says. “I was looking for something
new, something maybe more lighthearted for my own project.” With his ready
smile and engaging sense of humor, it’s no surprise that Rhodes’ was looking
for something less somber to satisfy his personal, creative needs. He
soon found the inspiration he was looking for right in his own home.

By 1999, as the parent of two young children, Rhodes would sit on their beds
every night and make up stories to tell them before they went to sleep. He
recalls the experience as being quite wonderful in developing his ability as
a storyteller. Around this same time, Rhodes and his family moved into a new
neighborhood, which had lots of friendly families and a strong sense of
community. It was during this time that Rhodes started thinking seriously
about making a children’s film. “Initially, it wasn’t going to be very
ambitious, just a little film shot on video,” he says. But when noted local
cinematographer Boyd Eustis expressed interest and offered his services, it
suddenly became a “real film.” “I realized then that I wanted to take it
further...beyond what I had originally come up with,” says Rhodes. That first
film, the short whimsical, fantasy sci-fi inspired, AN ALIEN SNEEZED ON BROOK STREET, consisted of a four-day shoot, a tiny crew, a few props, and a group of non-professional child actors that Rhodes says he literally found on the
street when he walked out his front door. Although somewhat limited by its
miniscule budget, the ALIEN film was an important breakthrough for Rhodes in
a number of ways; it established his Brook Street Productions in the
community and it forged important creative partnerships with individuals
Marcy Goldberg and Jeremy Solomons, who together with Boyd Eustis, would each play a vital role in the much more ambitious ACT YOUR AGE.

With the positive buzz that surrounded ALIEN, Rhodes screened the film for Denise
DiIanni, head of local programming at WGBH, who discussed with Rhodes the
possibility of a series of similar kids’ themed films to be shot in and
around Boston. While nothing actually came of that plan, the series concept
had given Rhodes ideas for several more story ideas, one of which he just
couldn’t get out of his head. “I had this idea stuck in my head about kids
turning into seniors and seniors turning into kids, the two groups switching
roles,” he says. “I lived by this park, and I would observe large groups of
children and elderly people in the park together, but they’d be having no
interaction with each other. It made me sad, thinking about the seniors
looking wistfully out at the kids having fun, while they sat apart and had no
contact with them. I started thinking, wouldn’t it be great to put together a
film project that would include both age groups? I wanted to create something
that would move beyond the “Grandpa and Grandma” relationships, which is
basically the only relationship most kids know regarding elderly people. I
wanted the seniors to be seen as interesting, viable individuals in their own
right, who also want to have fun.” says Rhodes.
With no script yet written, but clearly energized by his idea, Rhodes went
ahead with his plan to recruit a group of seniors to take part in the
project. After a presentation at the Brookline Senior Center, a group of
seniors enthusiastically signed on to be a part of the project. While Rhodes
worked on developing the script for the film, he turned to his ALIEN cohort,
Jeremy Solomons, to conduct a series of acting workshops for the seniors.
Solomons was a fellow British expatriate with a background in community
theater who was teaching drama in the Brookline public schools. He had lots
of experience with actors while I had very little,” says Rhodes. “The
workshops were actually quite amazing,” says Rhodes. “Jeremy and I introduced
people to the idea of acting, and working collaboratively with each other and
the kids in the cast. You could see the relationships start to develop...it
was wonderful.”

The workshops also proved invaluable to Marcy Goldberg, Rhodes’ co-director
and the writer of ACT YOUR AGE. Goldberg had first met Rhodes when they were both working at Ben Loderman Productions. “I was working as a researcher on a documentary about apocalyptic thinking,” says the ever-gregarious Goldberg. “It was very difficult material to work with,” she says. “I remember
thinking, how did I end up here? I just want to work with kids, puppets, and
the letter E,” she says ruefully. After realizing they shared similar
interests and humorous sensibilities, Rhodes asked Goldberg to help with AN
ALIEN SNEEZED ON BROOK STREET.

After moving to New York a few years ago to work in children’s television, Goldberg hadn’t heard from Rhodes until he contacted her one day in 2001. “Peter e-mailed me out of the blue and asked if I was interested in helping out on his new film project,” says Goldberg. “As soon as he described the project to me working with the kids and the seniors, I signed on.” Rhodes gave Goldberg lots of free rein with writing the script as long as she adhered to a handful of pre-set guidelines. “He was very firm about it,” she says. “He told me, we have three locations to use; a park, a senior center and an apartment; we have sixteen kids and fifteen seniors in the primary cast, and oh yes, we need a scene that will include one hundred kids! Now go write it.”

Working together Rhodes and Goldberg took a unique approach to writing the
script and developing the characters. “Peter would send me videotapes of the
workshops with Jeremy and the seniors,” says Goldberg. “I would then develop
characters and story lines based on certain personality traits or simply strengths of the older folks as I watched them on tape.” This unusual approach apparently worked, since the seniors appear so natural in their roles.

In addition to working with Eustis, Solomons and Goldberg, Rhodes was able to
attract a number of seasoned film professionals to the production, including
gaffer Guy Holt of ScreenLight and Grip and production designer Katha Seidman
of WGBH. High Output was also very generous with donations of equipment to
the production. Color corrector Dave Allen and soundtrack composer Peter
Bufano also made important creative contributions to the film. And numerous
families throughout the Brookline area supported the production with
volunteering their time to appear as extras or drivers for cast members and
even helping out with craft services.

As Rhodes’ completes the final edit of ACT YOUR AGE, he seems pleased by the result. The film not only tells an entertaining story, it also successfully
accomplishes his original goal -- by working together, the kids and the older
adults clearly see each other in a new, more positive way. ACT YOUR AGE was
an enlightening experience that really brought the local community together.
And let’s not forget - everyone got to do the Charleston.

ACT YOUR AGE premieres at the Coolidge Corner Theater on May 18th at 1:30pm. Additional screenings will take place in Sept. For more information on AYA, go to www.communitymovies.com.

Rebecca Richards was the first Executive Director of Women in Film and
Video/New England. She has served as Guest Editor of the “Women’s Issue” of
Imagine since 1999. She is currently the director of the Children’s Film
Festival for Belmont World Film. She worked as a second AD on ACT YOUR AGE. She can be reached through BelmontWorldFilm.org.