Lights, Camera, Political Action

A Shorewood High School class project will soon be the subject of a documentary film.

But to make it happen took negotiations worthy of a Hollywood movie mogul and the agent of a reculsive celebrity.

Shorewood High graduate and aspiring filmmaker Brian Moore approached the school more than a year ago with an idea that had been many years in the making: He wanted to follow students through a popular portion of a political theory class called the "World Affairs Game."

No dice, said the Shorewood School Board. Officials were concerned about having no editorial control over a film that might portray the school district in a negative light.

Moore persisted, and Tuesday night the School Board relented. Filming will start in the spring of 2012.

"He is a former student, and he has a great passion for a program we have," School Board President Paul Zovic said. "We have to let him go; we have to take the risk that we might not like 100 percent of what he does."

"The benefit to him, to the program, to the school, is great."

The subject of the film will be an innovative simulation game devised by teacher John Jacobson, in which students are assigned roles as leaders of different fictional countries, each based on real world nations.

As the leaders of their sovereign nations, students have to make personal, economic and political decisions over three weeks, facing various challenges. They are graded by how they run their countries.

Moore graduated from Shorewood in 2005 and is also a graduate of the film production program at Emerson College in Boston. He said he had dreamed of doing this documentary for years.

"It has been a long time in the making," Moore said.

Moore said he spent an semester preparing to make this film, including creating a short documentary on why the School Board should allow him to shoot on the high school campus.

A contract has been drafted between the school district and Moore's Quote Unquote Films LLC that calls for background checks for members of a film crew, liability and automobile insurance, signed consents and liability waivers from students and parents, and allowing the School Board to make suggestions before a final product is created.

Moore will retain total editorial control over the film. He said that the $50,000 he thinks it will take to make the film has already been raised.

Moore lives in New York, where he works at an advertising agency.