Lancaster college on 'Lockdown'

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LANCASTER -- An independent film titled "Lockdown," in which a psychopathic college student holds several students and staff hostage in a library and goes on a shooting spree, is currently being filmed at Atlantic Union College.

According to director and Princeton resident John Stimpson, the film is inspired by the 2007 Virginia Tech and 1999 Columbine High School shootings and other similar events, and he hopes to shed some light on the difficult subject matter.

"With anything like this, you hope to bring awareness to a real problem, and in this case, it's a real mental illness, a real problem that people fight with and have to overcome and that our legal and penal system has to deal with," Stimpson said.

The lead

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character of the film, Suzanne, played by Katee Sackhoff, of "Battlestar Galactica" and "24" fame, is a psychology professor at the fictional Gambles College, the location of which is never revealed. When Suzanne was six years old, her mother shot and killed her father, and Suzanne worries she will also become a psychopath. She has been studying and working with a troubled young student named Connor, played by Grant Harvey, of the ABC Family series "The Secret Life of the American Teenager," who becomes obsessed with her.

"When she tells him he's gone too far, he essentially falls off the deep end," Stimpson said.

Stimpson said the timing of the filming coinciding with further shootings at Virginia Tech was somewhat incredible.

On Thursday, 22-year-old Radford University student Ross Truett Ashley, who had no known previous ties to Virginia Tech or his victim, shot and killed Virginia Tech police officer Deriek Crouse before taking his own life. That day on the set, Stimpson says, they were filming a scene in which students were gathered around a memorial constructed for the 12 students Connor killed.

"We were shooting a scene where everyone's come back several months later and were having a moment around

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this memorial. I gathered everybody together and let them know what happened, because they hadn't heard yet," Stimpson said. "It makes me feel like we're doing something important here, that we're telling a story that needs to be told."

Stimpson is grateful to have Atlantic Union College available for filming, as the scenery lends itself very well to the film, though he does feel bad the school is not up and running.

"The whole idea was it's a rural campus, a small college that was in a rural area that was an hour or more from big cities, so the SWAT team couldn't come, so we could keep our story small so that it's a small town cop who has to manage this horrible situation and that struggle is a big part of it," he said.

Stimpson said he worked very closely with writer Adam Weissman to develop the script from its conception, and tries to provide a fun, vibrant atmosphere for everyone involved.

Also starring in the film are married couple Bart Johnson, of the "High School Musical" film series, and Robyn Lively, of "Twin Peaks" and "Savannah" fame. Johnson plays Suzanne's boyfriend, Logan, a Marine who ironically saves the life of Lively's character, Caroline, a mother who went back to school. The scene was the first the couple have ever filmed together, he said.

Johnson celebrated his birthday on the set on Tuesday, with the entire cast surprising him with cake and birthday hats; Johnson said he's not used to this type of "community" atmosphere while filming and said it was a welcome change, as was tackling something much different in subject matter.

"The last time I shot a scene in a school cafeteria, kids were jumping out from behind things and getting on tables and dancing," Johnson said of his experience with the "High School Musical" trilogy. "It's a nice break to do something a bit more actor driven."

The crew working on the film has been primarily local, with college students from Fitchburg State University, Clark University and Assumption College working as production assistants.

Katie Wilson, a 19-year-old Fitchburg State sophomore from Hubbardston, has been helping to find extras for the film and creating props, her first experience working on a movie. Ironically, Wilson recently switched her major from psychology to film studies, and copied her own psychology class notes into a notebook used in a scene by one of the student characters.

"It has been really fun," Wilson said of assisting with the film. "It's really opened up my eyes to what else I can do, and it's widened my interests."

Stimpson said he is not sure when the film will be finished or where it will go, but he has a good track record. His "The Legend of Lucy Keyes," set in Princeton and Westminster around Wachusett Mountain, has been airing on Lifetime for about five years, and "Shattered Silence," a film he directed last year about bullying and teen suicide, is set to premiere on the channel in February; "A Christmas Kiss" aired on the Ion Network Dec. 11 and will be running again on Christmas, he said.

Follow Alana Melanson at facebook.com/alanasentinel or at twitter.com/alanamelanson.

Source: http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/ci_19544581?source=rss_viewed

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