A Unique
Experience For Exchange Students
Quiet on the set and Play Ball!! The
filming of a documentary was a unique
experience to learn about America's favorite pastime: baseball. On October 18, 2015, foreign exchange students
at Rossville Junior/Senior High School joined the volunteer “extras” for the
documentary ‘Town Teams: Bigger than
Baseball. The exchange students who were movie extras were Aom Yoksiri from
Thailand and Gabriela Miele from Brazil from AYA, Academic Year in America:
Iana Catana from Moldova and Artur from Kyrgyzstan with FLEX, Future Leaders Exchange
program through the US Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural
Affairs.
Joe Campbell Stadium became the set
for the 1919 baseball game; Model A and
Model T Fords were parked along the outfield fence, the baseball team
wore pinstriped uniforms and the spectators were dressed up for the games.
Artur said, “Seeing all the old cars
and talking to the owners was his favorite part.” Lisa Thornburg of Rossville
PRIDE redesigned the scoreboard to look
like the board from the original game. Rossville Rattler volunteers
Craig Thornburg, Perry and Allan Foster
completed the 1900’s look and removed the
advertisements from the outfield fence. Many volunteer hours made this exciting day a success.
The scene was near El Dorado, Kansas in
1919 during the oil boom. The teams of
Midian and the Oil Hill Empires were facing off to be the champion of the oil belt in the Midwest. It
is estimated that over 2,500 fans came
to watch the important game and three ringers were brought into play, including Casey Stengel, Hall of Fame New
York Yankee manager and Fred “Dad”
Bramble, a pitcher who played in the minor leagues. A thrilling part of the reenactment was the brawl that started
from a hard slide into second base. The
extras reacted with cheers and boos to the imaginary plays on the field. Iana
said, “It was my first time taking part in shooting a film, I was one of the girls who were supposed to be
cheering for the boys playing in one of
the scenes, all the cameras were focused on us while we were giggling.”
The documentary is by DHTV Digital, a film production company
from Kansas City. The production
director in Mark Honer spent the day adjusting cameras, moving the extras for
the scenes and directing the action. Aom said, “We were there for five hours
and it was fun, but I was glad to have a hotdog at the baseball stadium.” It
was long day of shooting the action and then repositioning the cameras and then
doing it again. ‘Town Teams; Bigger
than Baseball is set to be released in Spring 2016, just in time for another
season of baseball. Gabriela said, “It was so much fun and I can’t wait to see it.”
Left to Right: Aom Yoksiri, Iana Catana, Artur Alimzhanov, Gabriela Miele
