Laurens Grads Generating Buzz on Festival Circuit

By KRISTIAN CONNOLLY
LAURENS

Academy Award-winning director and global movie star Mel Gibson spent three of his childhood years in the Town of Laurens before the Australian beaches and Pacific waters of Sydney became his home.

Now, two Laurens Central School graduates are beginning to create some waves of their own as up-and-coming filmmakers.

Spencer Sherry and Ryan Jenkins, LCS Class of 2012 and friends since the second grade, are behind the short-film “Anomaly,” which in May had its world-premiere showing at the Coney Island Film Festival in Brooklyn. After New York City-area showings to end the spring and begin the summer, “Anomaly” was one of five nominees for “Best Short Film” at this month’s Long Island International Film Festival.

Written and directed by Jenkins and produced by Sherry—both now living near Albany—”Anomaly” clocks in at 15 minutes and tells the story of The Great Van Alden (played by Eric Mead), a magician whose final performances gain the attention of a federal government agent (played by John Romeo) whose specialty is the inexplicable.

“The agent confronts [Van Alden] after the show, demanding to know the method; what ensues is a cat-and-mouse conversation in which both men’s ulterior feelings slowly become revealed,” said Sherry via e-mail.

The film will continue on the festival circuit later this summer, at the Lonely Seal Film Festival in Arlington, Massachusetts, on August 25, and the North Country Short Film Showcase in Glens Falls on August 31. Sherry hopes to have an Otsego County showing on the calendar at some point.

“We’ve gotten into some film festivals and have been rejected from plenty as well, but every time we screen it the reception is overwhelmingly enthusiastic,” said Sherry, before adding that he hopes future screenings may one day lead to being able to explore a feature-length version.

In developing the story, Jenkins tailored his lead character to his perception of real-life magician Mead, whom Jenkins had recently seen perform for renowned illusionists Penn & Teller on national TV. Jenkins reached out to Mead in Colorado to thank him for being an inspiration, and to see if Mead wanted to read the script.

In a twist befitting a man practiced in surprising turns, Mead not only responded enthusiastically, but he also offered to take on the lead role, in spite of not ever having acted in a movie.

“The fact that the role was written for me, making it pretty easy to play without acting chops, is lucky, because I’d have played any part in the movie,” said Mead via e-mail.

Sherry and Jenkins were thrilled, and after more than a year of working out schedules and rehearsals over Zoom, the shoot itself lasted three days in March 2023.

Jenkins intentionally set “Anomaly” in an unnamed place and time, and Sherry came up with a unique idea to connect the project to their community. To have a crowd for the performance scenes in the film, Sherry thought that rather than hiring extras, the filmmakers could fundraise for the production by selling tickets to a full evening of entertainment at the Cohoes Music Hall. Filming Mead—performing as The Great Van Alden and executing the magic act central to “Anomaly”—would be part of the evening’s show.

Sherry also serves as president of the Capital Region’s 518 Film Network, which has the mission “to connect local filmmakers so that they may learn, grow and create together.” So how did his attempt to connect his local community to his film project work out?

“That night [is] the most brilliant and insane event I’ve ever attempted,” said Sherry. “But everything ended up coming together: We ended right when we meant to, 140 people were thoroughly entertained, we got all the shots we needed, and we raised almost half the film’s budget in one night.

“And when we premiered it locally at the Music Hall, those people came back and got to see themselves in the film. That’s the kind of relationship I want to build with our audience—a symbiotic community where people want to support what we’re doing because they know we want them to be a part of it. We wouldn’t have been able to afford (literally) to do this any other way.”

After his experience working on “Anomaly,” Mead found it easy to conjure up a successful filmmaking future for Sherry and Jenkins.

“They are good creative problem solvers, with a strong sense of visual storytelling,” said Mead. “I expect to see great things from them as they grow in experience and confidence, and maybe they’ll let me be a part of something else down the road.”

That road is the site of a journey for Sherry and Jenkins that began in Laurens. Both were active in the LCS drama club, performed in school plays, and took part in chorus and band at different times. How does Sherry see Laurens in his work today?

After first mentioning his parents, whom he said gave him and his three siblings the “freedom to explore” and “never once told us that anything we wanted to do with our lives was impractical or unreasonable,” Sherry cited the passion, seemingly limitless options, and support provided by the LCS community.

“[School leadership, and] the teachers and staff really gave the kids a sense of community that I don’t think would have been possible in a bigger school district,” said Sherry. “I wouldn’t have wanted to grow up anywhere else.”

Surely it has to be considered an anomaly for a rural town in the middle of New York to have once been the childhood home of an Oscar winner. So if both the writer/director and the producer of “Anomaly” allowed themselves to dream for just a moment, can they envision a day when Laurens is known as the former home of multiple Oscar-winning filmmakers?

Said Sherry, “We both just want to beat the ‘Mel Gibson went here in 2nd grade’-level of fame in the Laurens community.”