Brian Ouellette Has Passion for Visual Arts

When Brian Ouellette was about 9 years old, a friend of his had a Polaroid Land camera that produced photographs instantly. Ouellette wanted one, too.

He asked for—and received—one for his birthday. With it, he took pictures of “mundane things.” He climbed a tree to photograph a bird’s nest, cradling three blue eggs you couldn’t see from the ground.

“My mother wasn’t going to climb the tree,” he said, so the only way for her to see the eggs was in a photograph.

Next he got a 35 mm camera; then, when he was about 15, a movie camera from his grandfather.

What was neat about the movie camera, Ouellette said, was that it could take still images. He began to do stop-motion animation. He made a race car film by painstakingly moving a small car by hand around his room and filming it in many positions.

He never intended make a business of photography and filmmaking.

In school, he was always interested in science. He wanted to become a biologist, a marine biologist. He took a job at a small laboratory in Stoneham. He moved to a larger lab, did more sophisticated tests, using a machine called a plasma spectrometer that breaks down substances into their elemental properties to see, for example, how much lead might be in a sample of water.

He met a fellow scientist, a microbiologist—“I say, ‘She’s a micro-manager’ at home,” he joked—and Woburn native. They married on Nov. 7, 1998.

When you marry and go on a honeymoon, “you must buy a video camera,” Ouellette quipped. So he did, and taught himself to edit video.

He started a videography business in 2006. Its name, Plasma Films, comes not from a kind of television but from the lab machine he once worked with.

This past Jan. 31, he took a new job:  executive director of the .

Two awards sit on his desk there.  One is a 2008 Telly Award for “Woburn:  A Leather City,” that Ouellette made working with the .

The other is a 2010 Telly for “Your Community, Your Library.”

Tellys are prestigious awards, Ouellette said. The Disney Channel has won one. So has actor Morgan Freeman.

He submitted the tannery film with no expectations.

“It actually won,” he said, his voice echoing his surprise. “I was blown away; I just didn’t expect it.”

Ouellette didn’t expect to be executive director of the media center, either. Before the job opened, he said he had talked to former executive director Bill Bishop, but not about his job. Ouellette would bring DVDs from the historical society in for the media center to air.  He worked with the society to make what might otherwise be PowerPoint presentations into films.

When the job opened, he said Historical Society members told him he should apply for it.

At the time, Ouellette was a stay-at-home dad during the week. He and his wife, Elizabeth—Betsy—have two children: Ryan, who will be 10 on April 25 and Lauren, 6, who are now both in school.

Ouellette’s new job is primarily “a desk job.”  He’s had to learn more of the business side of the operation.  He supervises a staff of six plus media center volunteers.

“I love it,” he said.

During a studio tour, Ouellette and media center operations manager Lauren Coleman pointed out the studio, with three cameras; six editing computers, the control room and broadcast equipment. A remote robotic camera in the gym is controlled from the studio, Ouellette noted.

The media center broadcasts City Council meetings live and School Committee meetings on tape, Ouellette said.

They produce a number of shows at the studio, ranging from “Happenings Around Woburn” with Ed Walker and Paul Meaney; to sports shows like “Sports Pit,” and “World of Sports” with Ryan Murphy, a high school junior, and Michael Hiscock, a senior; to “What’s on the Menu?” which visits local restaurants, all the way into their kitchens.

Murphy and Hiscock write their own script and do their own graphics, Ouellette and Coleman noted.

The media center also broadcasts high school morning announcements. They will film graduation in June and sell the DVDs for about $25 each.

Shows run on media center channels (Verizon channels 43, 47 and 45; RCN channels 3, 13 and 15; and Comcast channels 9, 10 and 22) from 6 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., Ouellette explained. During the night, a bulletin board airs, he said.

People, even residents of other communities, send the media center shows.

“We will play anything people send us,” Ouellette said.

To use the media center’s cameras and editing equipment, you must take a class. The camera class is about an hour long; the editing class, about two hours.

The media center started in 2005, Coleman recounted.  It was located at the Senior Center. When the new high school opened in 2006, the center moved to its current quarters.

The center’s new executive director still photographs weddings on weekends. At the media center, occasionally he’ll do some filming. He still does video work with the historical society.

So why take a step away from a camera now?

“It seems like the next logical step,” he said he told his interviewers.

“I always had a passion for editing and visual arts. I like putting things together, like a puzzle:” video footage plus graphics plus music.

Music plays a special part in his life. His father, Ronald, was a jazz drummer in the 1960s and 70s. Ouellette’s brother, Ronald Jr., nicknamed “Buddy” after jazz drummer Buddy Rich, took up the drums, too. So did “Buddy’s” son, Sean, the best drummer of the three, according to Ouellette. They all play jazz. 

Ouellette has done a documentary on the three generations of jazz drummers, a family project, titled, “Three of a Kind."

At the media center, “I’m surrounded by people doing what I love to do,” Ouellette said. “I mentor them. I’m still part of the creative process.”