Sag Hampton

Pierson High School in Sag Harbor comes in for a fair amount of criticism from the Sag Hampton community, some justified. Standardized test scores aren’t always what they might be, per-student costs are very high, course offerings are sometimes too limited for the brightest students, and questionable administrative decisions are known to have been made from time to time. But, often Pierson does things right. I want to tell you about one of its successes for which I am personally grateful.

My wife and I have three children, all Pierson graduates. To varying degrees, we think that the Sag Harbor School District did well by all of them, although I often think that Lauren, our oldest, suffered a bit for being just a year or two ahead of some significant changes at both Sag Harbor Elementary and Pierson that made them better schools. Well, as I said: “varying degrees.” Each of our children has his or her own tale to tell about going to school in Sag Harbor, but as I write this on an airplane coming home from a long weekend in Portland, Oregon, it’s our son Alec’s Pierson story that I’m thinking about.

Back around 1994, give or take a year, Pierson introduced what I believe was a first-time program, which involved inviting a local artist to teach an elective at the school. In this case, the artist was the now deceased award-winning documentary filmmaker Richard Kotuk. The elective was the art of documentary filmmaking. My son Alec and his friend Jonathan Nastasi, sophomores at the time, enrolled in the  class. Although we weren’t sure what to expect, what actually occurred vastly exceeded our expectations. When I say “our,” I’m speaking of my wife and me. I’m not sure what Alec’s expectations were, or even why he took the class. To my knowledge, he had not expressed an interest in film prior to enrolling in the course.

During the course of the school-year, the first-time student film makers, working in teams, were able to create their own complete short films. They were surprisingly good first efforts. For Alec and Jon, this began a (so far) decade-long enchantment with films and and the art of film making. A few years after graduation from Pierson, Jon and Alec collaborated on a self-financed documentary film called Ni Una Mas about the U.S. Naval bombing range in Vieques, Puerto Rico, and the local inhabitants’ desire to have it shut down, which led to protests and to civilians occupying the range in an effort to halt the bombing runs. Their film received much acclaim, several local showings here in Sag Hampton, and invitations to several film festivals. Part of the film was even shown on French television. Alec also found occasional work locally at LTV’s East End Studios where he functioned as a camera operator for several locally-produced TV series.

After this initial success, Jon and Alec decided they needed to be closer to the action, so to speak, and moved their budding enterprise to Portland, Oregon, which was, and is, cultivating a very active community of independent film makers, and small production houses. “It’s the new Seattle, which was the new L.A.,” Alec said at the time. O.K., he probably didn’t say exactly that, but I remember hearing something like that, at some point. It may have had more to do with affordability, though. So off they went to Portland, where they made some good industry connections, and gained some valuable experience. Eventually, Jon moved back to New York City where he continued to pursue a career in film and TV, and Alec enrolled in the Art Institute of Portland’s Digital Media Studies program.

Over the next five years, Alec worked his way through AIP, creating many interesting short films, while simultaneously working professionally on independent films and television commercials. One of Alec’s student projects, a music video, was awarded the grand prize at the Portland International Short Short Film Festival (PISS Fest, for short). At the same time, Jon was developing a reputation as a talented camera operator, director of photography and documentary film maker.

As regular readers of this blog already know, Alec and his fellow students Uli Beutter and Kurt Nishimura also entered a film in the Tropicana Fresh Take on Portland film contest which won the grand prize of $12,000 (incorrectly reported here earlier as $10,000) and a year’s supply of orange juice. Just to set the record straight, because many readers assumed that Alec was that film’s director:  Alec acted as art director and editor on the Tropicana film, which was written and directed by Uli Beutter.

So, we’ve now taken the long way around to the events of this past weekend, which made me realize how grateful I am to Pierson High School, and its artist in residence program. (I’m not sure that’s what they call it, but it will do for now.) On Friday, Alec, Uli and Kurt graduated from from AIP, and on Sunday, announced the official launch of their production company, SandyMontana; reason enough to celebrate, but there’s more. At the SandyMontana launch party on Sunday night, the trio were also able to announce that their newly formed venture would immediately become a division of Portland’s Red Door Films, and that they would be creatively involved not only with their own projects and clients, but also with the projects of the parent company. Zowie!

Jon meanwhile, has been very successful in New York, and now holds down the position of camera operator on TLC’s hit show, What Not to Wear, in addition to other work he takes on in film and TV through his company, Moving Films. Happily, Jon and Alec have not lost touch, and even find occasion to work together from time to time. Most recently, Jon took on the role of director of photography  for Alec’s senior project, I Got Shot With a Bullet and performed the same function for Uli Buetter’s video installation White, on which Alec worked as set designer. White also had its world premier this weekend at a gallery in Portland. Both Jon and Alec were there to help Uli celebrate; three successful members of Portland’s (and New York’s) growing film community, two of whom just happened to get their start thanks to Pierson High School in Sag Harbor.

Although I have not followed developments at Pierson closely, I do know that the program I have been referring to as “artist in residence” did not end with Richard Kotuk’s film making class. In fact, my younger daughter Corinne also benefited greatly from this program several years later when she was able to take class with fine artist Peter Solow (before he became a full-time teacher), and, I’m sure there have been and will continue to be other instances of this fine program making a difference in the lives of Sag Harbor students.

Postscript: Since returning home, I’ve read in the Express that contrary to the recommendation of the District Budget Committee, and strong opposition from several School Board members, the Sag Harbor Board of Education voted to add an additional art teacher to the staff at Pierson, and include the amount of his or her salary in the budget they will put before the voters this May. Just a thought, but might they not achieve the same result using one or more “artists in residence?” It’s worked before…

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Currently listening to: N
il Na La by Solas.

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