(Hollywood, CA) StoryMakers Studio (http://www.StoryMakersStudio.com)
What’s it like being on-set watching a movie based on an important part of your life as it’s being filmed by an acclaimed filmmaker and an Oscar winning actress? This was a recurring theme during the lively post-film conversation featuring Gruwell and Freedom Writer Maria Reyes who was the real life counterpart for the character “Eva” in the film.
From the filmmakers side, writer/director Richard LaGravenese (THE FISHER KING), cast members Deance Wyatt and Pat Carroll and casting director Margery Simkin reunited with Gruwell and Reyes and had the overflow house riveted both with some of the true events that inspired the film and the unusual way the big screen version of FREEDOM WRITERS was developed and filmed.
Strongly committed to telling their story as honestly as possible, LaGravenese conducted extensive interviews with Gruwell and her former students in addition to scrupulously studying their book, “The Freedom Writers Diary – How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them.”
“The thing that struck me about the process was the fact that Richard extended an open invitation to Erin and the Freedom Writers to visit the set and get to know the actors who would be playing them on screen,” explains Gordon Meyer, StoryMakers Studio’s host. “Erin and the Freedom Writers had an exceptional amount of input and influence on the way the movie was made. In fact, one of the things I found most fascinating while interviewing them was the way the Freedom Writers and the cast bonded.”
It wasn’t an accident. LaGravenese talked about how he deliberately had the cast re-create many of the Freedom Writers’ experiences before a frame of film was exposed in order to get them to bond together.
For example, just as the original Freedom Writers had a profound experience when they visited the Museum of Tolerance, Hilary Swank and the sixteen young actors who played Gruwell’s students had a comparable reaction to the experience when they visited during the rehearsal period of production. LeGravenese also discussed how he chose to film the story more or less in chronological order so that the ensemble’s growing sense of family would parallel what the Freedom Writers experienced over ten years earlier.
At the end of the evening, grateful audience members came up in droves to thank the panelists for providing such an inspiring evening. According to Ronn Campbell, one of StoryMakers Studio’s producers, that kind of reaction is par for the course. “We are truly blessed with guests who regularly inspire our audiences. In fact, they are so inspiring we constantly get requests from people who either attended one of our shows and want to relive the evening or people who couldn’t make it and want to see what they missed. That’s why, starting with FREEDOM WRITERS, we’ve decided to make our shows available to the public through the Internet.”
Viewers of the online streaming media broadcast of StoryMakers Studio’s FREEDOM WRITERS event will actually get to see even more than members of the live audience in the form of bonus green room interviews with casting director Margery Simkin and a group interview with the Freedom Writers themselves.
“The idea behind our subscription series is to enable movie lovers everywhere to recreate a StoryMakers Studio event in the comfort of their own home by combining watching our webcast immediately after viewing Paramount’s DVD of the film,” explains Meyer.
“Our subscribers will get advanced notice about upcoming shows as well,” adds Campbell. “This way they can email us their own questions for our guests. We’ll pick the best ones for Gordon to use either on stage or as part of our green room interviews. And of course our online subscribers will get preferred seating any time they’re here in Hollywood and want to be part of our studio audience.”
