Spotlights traced through the sky above Keene Friday night as a sold-out crowd waited in line outside The Colonial Theatre, anxious to take their seats for the world premiere of a locally-filmed movie featuring an Oscar-nominated actor.

The Sensation of Sight, a full-length movie shot in Peterborough in 2005, generated quite a buzz among locals as well as out-of-towners and brought an air of Hollywood excitement to downtown Keene.

The movie follows the steps of an English teacher turned encyclopedia salesman as he deals with tragedy, mid-life crisis and searches for meaning.

Main Street shone for the event, with strands of lights were strung through the trees lining the middle of Main Street, the red carpet was rolled out in front of The Colonial Theatre and the shining display was topped off with a spotlight that could be seen for miles.

"We like the lights," Jaffrey resident Debra Decicco said. "This is the real red-carpet treatment. It's very exciting to have a world premiere in Keene."

As moviegoers chatted in line, Oscar-nominated actor David Strathairn and the cast and crew of the movie sipped champagne and enjoyed hors d'oeuvres during a private party inside the Monadnock Fine Art Gallery adjacent to the theater.

"I don't think the movie's been seen by this many people in one setting," Strathairn said. "This is home for the film."

Strathairn, who began his acting career in North Conway, said filming in Peterborough was "amazing" because of support from the community.

"Peterborough is so embracing and supportive of all this," he said. "They basically turned the town over to us. ...It's evidence that the community has embraced this."

All 888 seats inside the theater were filled for the premiere, Box Office Manager Beth Eldridge said.

"We sold out at noon," she said while walking past the long line outside the theater. "It's great. It's exciting. It's a big production in a small town."

Strathairn's co-star Ian Somerhalder boarded a plane in Los Angeles Friday and flew into Keene for the premiere, but he didn't have a seat in the theater because they were all reserved.

"That tells me that 900 people are sitting there watching the movie, which is pretty cool," he said. "I didn't think there were going to be that many people."

The film's executive producer, Buzz McLaughlin, said it was a "once in a lifetime night" and seemed nearly as giddy as the moviegoers.

"It's a little bit of Hollywood in Keene," he said. "The support from the community has been overwhelming. It's been tremendous. ...I frankly didn't expect this large of a turnout."

Susan Colby drove two hours from her home in Randolph Center, Vt. to be a part of the premiere, and maybe to run into Strathairn.

"I'm a big David Strathairn fan and the movie looks wonderful," she said. "He's an amazing actor. I'd drive to New York City to see him."

Richard Fredrick said his boss, the owner of Harlow's Pub in Peterborough, had a role as a bartender in the movie.

"It's pretty exciting. It will be the only world premiere I ever go to," he said. "Part of the movie was shot in Harlow's. I wanted to come out and see my boss in a movie."

Filmmaker Magazine (Fall 2006) - photo copyright © Filmmaker Magazine

In Focus: Racing Daylight
Filmmaker Magazine
Fall 2006
By Mary Glucksman

"It's a ghost story, a murder mystery and a love story that collapses time," says Nicole Quinn about her first feature, Racing Daylight. David Strathairn (Good Night, And Good Luck) and Melissa Leo (Homicide: Life On the Street) star in the three-strand tale as both civil-war-era lovers and their contemporary incarnations encounter each other on a rural farm. "It's Rashomon-like in its distinct points of view," says Quinn. "I wrote it over a four-year period when my mother, brother and sister were dying. In my need to process that, I wondered, 'What if time were maleable and you could cross back and forth and undo the wrongs of a lifetime?'" Quinn grew up in Southern California and attended UC Berkeley. "I intended to go to law school but I discovered drama, and one of my professors told me I should be on the stage," she says. "I ended up getting an [acting] job and moving to New York. I started to write because I became a mother and I wanted to stay home with my children. I'm a woman of color, and I wanted to write the histories that were not represented in what gets put on the screen." She wrote Stormy Weather: The Lena Horne Story and Volunteer Slavery for Showtime and has also written projects for John Singleton and Egg Pictures. Quinn says she and producer Sophia Raab Downs got Daylight made on a six-figure budget after implementing lessons learned at the 2005 Sundance Independent Producers Conference. The HD Daylight shot four weeks this July in New York's Ulster County. Commericial cinematographer Stephen Harris was the d.p. "Being a first-timer is an opportunity for genius because you don't know what can't be done, so you think outside the box," Quinn says. The film's cast includes LeClanche Durand (Awakenings), Giancarlo Esposito (Smoke), Sabrina Lloyd (Dopamine) and Jason Downs (Hairspray) plus civil-war reenactors the Camptown Shakers, who will also appear on the soundtrack.

The Weekender (Fall 2006) - photos copyright © The Weekender

"From here with love": Oscar nominee Strathairn, television star and local resident Leo to star in upcoming film that is homage to our area
The Weekender
Fall 2006
By Alison Sickler

Author Nicole Quinn was pausing to reflect beside a babbling brook near her home in Accord when an idea hit her for a story. "I would go to my creek every day and breathe," she says. "Then it came to me."

That story is now the screenplay for Racing Daylight, the new independent film starring 2006 Academy Award nominee David Strathairn and NBC's Homicide veteran and local resident Melissa Leo. The film is set for major release in early 2007.

"It's a ghost story, a murder mystery and a love story," describes Quinn, who is also directing. "It defies genre, and intentially so."

Quinn could think of no better place to shoot the film than in the very same landscape which helped inspire the tale. The crew just recently wrapped up filming on location in Accord, Stone Ridge and in downtown Kerhonkson, which will pose as the fictional "Cedarsville". Local folks will be able to recognize the old jumble shop, the fire station and a local body shop.

The film tells the story of Sadie (played by Leo), who, after returning to the family farm to take care of her grandmother, is haunted by an ancestor, Anna Stokes (also played by Leo). Strathairn is Henry, the farm's handyman and Civil War buff, Sadie's object of affection and--mysteriously enough--Anna's too.

The script premiered in 2002 at a reading with Actors & Writers in Olivebridge, a local company of which Quinn, Strathairn and Leo are long-time members. At that reading, Leo read the part she now performs for the camera.

"It was the role of a lifetime," she says of her double character. "I got to play both an old-fashioned girl and someone in the present day, dealing with real human issues."

Having known the script for so long allowed Leo to identify with this role as never before. "Rarely do you know something so deeply," she says.

Strathairn performed the character of Henry at another reading soon after. "If I lost [David or Melissa], I couldn't have made this film," said Quinn. "I couldn't have recast them. You start writing for people you know you can attach. These are two of my favorite actors in the whole world and there's a comfort there. I know they know what they're doing."

Quinn opted for a relatively low-budget production, which, according to Leo, turned out to be "a gift".

"People were willing to work from their hearts and not for a paycheck," Leo says. "There is a level of filmmaking that has its eye on the individual film and not the market for which it's produced. You feel like you're part of something, and it brings out a work ethic that is the best of moviemaking."

The crew relied on creativity and cleverness to give the film high-quality texture despite the limited budget. Numerous scenes were shot with a Cabletrack jib, a 40-foot camera arm mounted on an off-road vehicle to give a sweeping motion to the picture. Taking advantage of natural light, the crew had to make the most at each shoot, but the day, of course, could only last so long. "I'd say, 'Hurry, we've gotta race the light!'" Quinn recalls. "We were literally racing daylight."

Strathairn, who after being cast as Henry enjoyed a Best Actor nod for his performance in George Clooney's Good Night and Good Luck, would not back down from Quinn's project. "He's an actor first; the accolades are second for him," said Quinn. Strathairn's humble dedication made for good memories on the set. "He would be carrying bags and drink coolers and fixing pipes," Quinn remembers.

Jason Downs, actor and recording artist (who happens to have a giant following in Britain for his music) is Edmund/Billy, the third point on a love triangle that transcends time. "I think that the dream is for more and more films to be shot here," Downs said of the picturesque area. Certain interior shots were filmed at Downs' home in Stone Ridge. "It just felt so right, so homemade, so homegrown."

Such is the tone that Quinn was aiming to capture in the film. "For me this was a way of celebrating the small towns that are the bane of American existence," she said with a laugh. "They are the backbone of everything we do. We lose sight of the individual communities that work because they are communities."

Racing Daylight is set to premiere at the Rosendale Theater early next year. Quinn extends her gratitude to the local officials who granted the crew the freedom to film on local streets and byways.

"The film is really a postcard to this area," she said.