Beverly Student Filmmakers Tell Story Of 'A Century On Sohier Road'

BEVERLY, MA — More than five months of work, nearly 60 interviews, and at least a thousand hours of a collective effort among nine recent Beverly High School graduates will come to life on screen at the Cabot Theater Tuesday night and live on in perpetuity for the generations of city residents who walked the hallways of the former Briscoe School.

The students set out in January to chronicle the history that began when the Briscoe's doors opened in 1924 until it closed on June 22, 2018 in "A Century on Sohier Road" — a massive effort that became a 101-minute documentary finished days before its initial Cabot screening to almost 300 viewers in attendance in May.

The theater will show it again at 6 p.m. Tuesday night with a question-and-answer session with the filmmakers to follow. The documentary is also available via BevCam's YouTube educational channel.

"One reason we are having the second screening is we has such a great response from the community at that first event," recent graduate Stewart Moran, who was the film's director, told Patch. "One thing, specifically, that I was really happy about was that response from the community and how often we heard about how important that building was to everybody.

"That made the whole process worth the effort."

Moran said he and his eight classmates began working on the senior project so early because they knew they would need the time to truly reflect the perspectives of generations who grew up in the Briscoe classrooms as part of the final glimpse into the past before the building is transformed into senior affordable housing.

He said the students conducted 35 interviews with dozens more researched from BevCam footage from "Beverly Times Past" from the 1990s and early 2000s. He said the crew put in between 20 and 60 hours per week throughout the winter and spring with an exhaustive final push in the final few weeks before the Cabot debut.

"It was really nice," he said of the first screening. "I will admit that we finished it somewhat down to the wire so pretty much for all of us it was the first time seeing it all together that night. Obviously, I was very proud that we were able to pull off something this ambitious and especially in that short timeframe."

The rest of the filmmaking team consists of Hollace Colby, Olivia Garcia, Matthew Lee, Kathryn Manzo, Daniel Pratt, Arber Rami, William Sousa and David Vozzo. Eight of the nine attended the school through seventh grade before moving on to the new building down the street.

Each member of the team had specific areas of responsibility but Moran said all contributed to most aspects of the planning, interviewing, writing and producing the film.

"The whole process honestly was stressful and was honestly really fun at the same time," said Garcia, who was the head of communications on the project and coordinated the interviews. "To see the final product on the screen was insane. It was amazing.

"Briscoe is such a big part of Beverly's history because it was around for so long and so many people went through it for either high school or middle school. The film is almost a goodbye."

The team got to come as close as nearly anybody to saying an actual goodbye to the school when the filmmakers were on-site collecting footage of the building that was partially demolished but in some ways remained a time capsule at the time with old posters still on the walls, dodge balls still in the gym rafters and personal items still on some of the desks.

"We went in for the last time and right after that they tore out everything," Garcia said. "There was construction going on but there was a lot of stuff that was still left behind.

"It was definitely memorable. I don't know if I would say it was an honor but that's kind of what it felt like at the same time — not only was I walking through that building one last time, but I was also one of the people doing this documentary and putting it in front of viewers."

The enduring impact the filmmakers hope the documentary will have is something they said fills them with a great sense of accomplishment.

"Honestly, this time (at Tuesday's Cabot screening) there will be fewer nerves and I am going to be less stressed because I know the documentary is amazing," Garcia said. "I feel like people are going to talk about the documentary. It will be watched and talked about for years.

"People who have no idea what Briscoe was are going to find this documentary. Going back and watching all that stuff will be watching a piece of history."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)