The Oympian
Saturday, January 29, 2000

Student writes, directs movie on school violence

The Associated Press

THOUGHTFUL:
A Seattle teen explores the lessons learned from the Columbine High School shooting rampage.

SEATTLE-The Columbine High School massacre has prompted calls for stronger gun control legislation and stricter school security. It also inspired a Washington state teenager to make a movie.

Paul Gordon, 18, wrote, directed, shot and edited a 32-minute movie about school shootings. He recruited classmates to help as a project for the fledgling film class at Mount Si High School in Snoqualmie.

"I got the inspiration to write something that would really make a difference," said Gordon, who was concerned at first that school shootings would be "a touchy subject." His principal shared the concern. "At first I was very hesitant," Principal George Ilgenfritz said, "because our country is, going though a time where people feel very raw and sensitive" about school violence.
But Ilgenfritz liked the script. "It's kind of a story about people helping people to make our world better."

The film, titled "Silhouettes of Time," follows the tormented fortunes of a loner named Dawson, whose run-ins with the school bully trigger in him an overwhelming urge to kill the bigger, more popular student.

But the parallels with Columbine - where the hatred felt by the two teen gunmen apparently was fueled in part by school athletes teasing them - end there.

There are no trench coats, no plans to commit mass killings - and no tragic ending.
In fact, the plot would not be out of place in an episode of "Touched by an Angel." Dawson does get to act out his plan for revenge, but the shooting takes place in a dream. And Dawson's only friend - a student who reached out to him earlier in the story - ends up taking the
bullet.

Finally, an angelic being shows Dawson a preview of what his life will be like if he acts out the shooting in waking life - then Dawson wakes up.

"He has a chance to undo it, to redo his day," said Gordon, who spent three months shooting the film at the school, at nearby Snoqualmie Falls, and at the local police station and graveyard.
"He realizes how important the one kid was who reached out to him."

A private screening of the movie is scheduled for Monday at the school.

Gordon shot the movie on highdefinition digital video mostly using school equipment. His mother, Elaine, who doubles as his media rep, chipped in $500 and did what she could to pay the student cast.

"I had to buy the actors lunch and their hair cuts," she said. Gordon's favorite movies include "Star Wars," "Jurassic Park" and - for its special effects - the stylishly violent "Matrix."
He has no prior training in filmbut said the experience of making "Silhouettes" has inspired hint to study film at the University of Washington or the University of Southern
ifornia.

The movie is "one of the first films done at school on a school shooting by a cast and crew of students," Elaine Gordon said.

At least one play dealing with school violence and performed by students - titled "Bang, Ban , You're Dead" - has been produce. It was written by playwright William Mastrosimone days after Kip Kinkel, then 15, killed his parents and two classmates in a 1998 shooting rampage in Springfield, Ore. Kinkel is serving a 112-year prison term for the attack.