In some sense, producing a video for Deerfield Academy represents a full circle between me, my education and The Film Guys. I will try and tell the story without writing a full book.
Robert, February 22nd 2021
A VIDEO FIT FOR A KING
I WAS THIRTEEN, happily at the school I’d been since early childhood. It was a fresh spring day and the football field was the recess news mill.
“It’s only for the really smart kids.”
“Is it real? Like does it actually exist?”
“I think it’s just a concept idea.”
“No it’s real. They’re opening soon.”
“When?”
“Is it like the Queen’s school?”
“I don’t think so. It has like thirty buildings”
“For a school?”
“Yeah”
“I think this year actually”
“What do you need thirty buildings for?”
“I don’t know. A lot of them are dorms though.”
“Dorms?”
“This year?”
“Is it a boarding school?”
“I think so.”
“In Jordan?”
“…Why?”
“I guess so that internationals can study here?”
“Maybe it’s somewhere far away?”
“It’s in Madaba.”
“That’s a half hour max”
“Why would anyone want to sleep there?”
“I don’t know… it’s kinda cool.”
”Would you?”
“…Maybe.”
Construction in 2005
The rumours of a boarding school simmered for weeks. It felt distant, unapproachable, definitely out of my academic reach, but I was in the search for a new school and this was one of the options on display.
King Abdullah II of Jordan, when he was just known as Abdullah, spent four years of his early life at Deerfield Academy. He was a strong wrestler and an engaged member of the community. By all accounts, those were magical years for the young prince. Years that he carried with him so fondly and so gracefully into the obligations of the Monarchy that he knew he had to share the opportunity with his country.
Just as there is no Hogwarts without Dumbledore, Deerfield’s long serving headmaster, Eric Widmer was to be the lynchpin for King’s Academy. The success of the endeavour, as seen by King Abdullah himself, hinged on Dr. Widmer’s wisdom and experience as the founding headmaster of King’s Academy in 2006. Widmer, although deeply flattered, was committed to Deerfield until 2007. As the story goes, the memo came back from the office of the King.
“Okay. 2007.”
Dr. Eric Widmer (left) and King Abdullah II of Jordan (right) during King’s Academy's opening ceremony.
So in the summer of 2007, to my surprise I was fitting for my navy King’s Academy blazer. The school was looking for pioneers to leap into the untested, unknown but thoroughly impressive King’s Academy. I guess I fit the bill, along with about ninety other kids from all over Jordan and the region.
The concept of a boarding school was so foreign to the region that in order for King’s to get a grip on its own identity, Deerfield Academy stood as a watchful guardian. Experienced faculty and staff from Deerfield took positions in Jordan to usher the school into a vibrant existence. As one of the first recipients of the experience of King’s Academy, I saw as Deerfield’s traditions and standards held us upright while the sapling of our own little olive tree of knowledge emerged from the earth.
Suhayb taking in the view at “The Rock” that overlooks Deerfield
On my first day, I met Suhayb. Whom I will introduce later in this story.
For four years, I experienced something that I believe King Abdullah would be proud to hear about. I don’t think he gets this perspective very often. I’m sure from his side, it’s all business. It’s the sacrifice parents make for their children. If his time at Deerfield was characterised by unbreakable lifelong friendships, mind-opening subjects, resolve-challenging athletics and a precious coming-of-age in a small community of extended chosen family, then he has succeeded in sharing it with his people.
Ten years on, King’s Academy remains a punctuating point of my life. There is something about boarding school friendships that seems so elusive to describe to those on the outside. It just can’t be put into words. We were in the same soup. We laughed together. We struggled together. We woke up early together. We ate together. We danced together. We ran together. We protested together. We traveled together. We mourned together. We cried together. We sang together. We performed together. We went bananas for feeds together. We grew together.
There is nothing on this earth that to my knowledge can compare to the completely encompassing experience of boarding school. A three hundred and sixty degree experience, more immersive than anything else out there for the messy and complicated passage into adulthood.
King’s Academy was indeed a messy experience. The growing pains were everywhere. But in my short tenure, the school grew from that young sapling to a strong tree ready to weather the winds.
The King’s Academy clocktower as you approach it from Madaba.
After developing and fostering a passion for photography and filmmaking as a student, I was asked to produce a video as an alumnus. I channeled the same youthful silliness and effervescence of my projects with my King’s Academy friends, so much so that I replaced my now employed and unavailable long-time lead actor with the next best thing, his older brother, Omer. The video caused waves in the boarding school community, and before long the career path was carved ahead of me.
So when Deerfield Academy contacted us in January of 2020 to produce a video for them, the honour was not lost on me. To make something that pays respect to the school that King Abdullah II took with him to shape the place that shaped me, and brought me to this very place, came with a healthy pressure of self expectation.
Early in the life of The Film Guys, somebody at a conference asked us how we’re going to keep it fresh. It was a great question, almost hauntingly. The youthful hubris of a wide eyed director (who only ever made one video for a school which happened to be his alma mater) in me answered, “That’ll be no problem, there are infinite ways to tell a story.” The problem is, I begrudgingly admit, I was sort of correct.
Not too long ago, the thought dawned on me that there are no other teams on earth doing anything quite like what we’re doing. In fact, this holds true through all of history, without trying to be heavy handed. From the nature of the product to the process we have made, there just isn’t something like it. So I had to ask myself,
“If there isn’t anything like it…well…why isn’t there anything like it? What is it about our filmmaking that works that nobody else can or is willing to do?”
The job of a filmmaker is rich with interesting tasks
I think pride plays a big role. We spent the first two years living in the shadow of our one big trick, Omer the Admissions Guy. We had to keep it fresh, to keep it interesting. The ghost of our previous work goaded us into outdoing ourselves each time. I was sixteen when Dr. Eric introduced to me and my peers the word recidivism. A word that has stuck with me ever since. Under no condition would we allow recidivism in our house. So we designed a process that looks a little like this:
We show up at a school, with no plan, no preconceived notions. We are an uncarved block waiting to be etched into. We have two weeks to write, re-write, plan and film a video that has to (in no order):
be different to all of our previous work, i.e. be original despite telling a very similar story
be the video, rather than a video
satisfy client’s expectations relative to our reputation
be memorable
be ‘actually’ authentic
be entertaining
craft a compelling argument
be family friendly
be feasible given the timeframe and scheduling limitations
be inclusive to those who want to participate
demonstrate a healthy image of diversity
say everything in under three minutes
be of the highest production value
be loved (hopefully) by teenagers.
With these fourteen commandments in hand, it begins to make sense why more people aren’t doing this. It’s an unrealistic set of expectations to put on anyone. Yet for some reason, we were cut from the school of go for it anyway. I could write a whole book about why it works. It would be called, Alesi. Anyone who has worked with us will know exactly what I mean.
The reality of 2020 began to seep into our auspicious project with Deerfield. Yet in the midst of a wave of client postponements, Deerfield held firm. It took a couple of zoom calls with the admissions team, but it seemed as though we felt that if The Film Guys built a name for being creative with whatever circumstances they’re given, then certainly this is no different. We really believed this, but had little understanding of the creative and production limitation covid would have on our work. It’s a classic case of one step at a time. Habbeh habbeh as we say in Jordan.
Filming one of the more symbolic lines of the video
The project was penned to happen anyway, and Suhayb, who has remained among my closest friend-brothers since the first day of King’s Academy, joined Alesi and me to tackle the challenge of the month. We assured Deerfield that we are not in the business of making excuses. We were there to outdo ourselves, covid or not. As I like to paraphrase, “limitations are the lifeblood of creativity”. This is one of the beliefs that has kept us afloat.
The landscape in Deerfield, MA
In the book, Alesi, you’ll encounter many passages of my ceremonial breakdowns under an old tree in the dead of night with Alesi pulling us out of it. The pressure of the fourteen commandments gets to me almost every time. The pressure that is mostly self inflicted by our own uncompromising relationship with quality. The pressure that in this case was made much heavier by the “unprecedented circumstances”. The pressure that in this case was made even heavier by our acute awareness that King Abdullah may see our work. The work two of his dear alumni produced for his dear alma mater.
We typically have three days to come up with the full, completed script of a video that will meet the commandments. Three days, otherwise we make Alesi’s job much harder. Each day we take for writing takes one day from her production planning. The relationship has a perfect pressurised balance. Pressurised, indeed, because each day I don’t deliver a script is added pressure to the creative process that is already drowning in expectation.
Six days in and what we had was not working. We poured our soul into making it, but had to face the facts. We had to ‘kill our darling’, which happens more often than not. Three days overdue, the pressure building, it culminated into a night under the stars in the quiet pasture of Deerfield Massachussets. Suhayb and I, leaning up against our rented minivan, stood in the cold November breeze looking up at the universe.
“It has to be worthy of King Abdullah’s experience.”
“Of course man. He has to be proud of it.”
“He has to be.”
We listened to the nearby river.
“It could be a love letter to the days you experience at Deerfield.”
“Have you read the lyrics of their Evensong?”
We pulled them up and found the tone of the story: The Deerfield Days, the four years of being at Deerfield. We were hot on the trail without a second to lose to get to writing, we quickly stepped into The Parsonage, where the teaching assistants were housed, to play a game of celebratory virtual soccer. Best buddies since high school, what would you expect?
Our new idea didn’t satisfy all of our commandments, the third in particular. The concept was considerably more nostalgic and gentle than what we were known for. Something in our gut told us that it was the right way to go, and that the rules we made ourselves were made to be broken.
We try to break out of the box during our writing processes, listening to music that is unfamiliar, anachronistic and often very foreign to us. In this case, we were listening to early 1950s doo-wop music, which presented us with the same idea at the same time.
“What if we reimagined the Evensong in this style?”
Alesi managed what was probably the most complicated set of production restrictions she’s ever had to deal with. Of course, she managed with enough time to leave thank-you-sorry notes to all the people who stretched themselves thin for us during our hectic week of filmmaking.
I do dream of what the video would look like had it been a normal day at Deerfield. A normal day with no masks, social distancing, quarantines, packaged lunches, alternate schedules and stressed energy everywhere. But as I said, we don’t make excuses. Here is what we make:
What do you think, Abu Hussein?
