It was while on a field trip downstate last spring that a student gazed out the window of the Caribou Tech van, at Quoggy Joe and asked, “Mrs. J. why can’t we make a film about Aroostook State Park?”
Contributed photo
Presque Isle High School senior, Jeff Johnson, a student in the Viking Video Production class at the Caribou Technology Center films South Peak in Aroostook State Park.
Instructor Brenda Jepson’s reply to Presque Isle High School Junior, Jeff Johnson, was “Why not?”
As a result of this conversation, since the start of this school year students in Viking Video Productions have been filming in the park, as well as from the air.
Over the Labor Day weekend, the students camped out at an Aroostook State Park group-site in order to film scenes from the park at various times of the day and night.
According to Jepson, some of the many activities they’ve recorded include camping, canoeing, fishing, hiking, kayaking, swimming and cooking. The aspiring filmmakers even shot some scenes of Echo Lake under the moonlight.
“I was very happy that the class was going to work on my idea of a documentary this year.” said Jeff Johnson, now a senior. “This year we now have a bunch of talented people to make my dream come true,” continued Johnson, “if it wasn’t for my classmates, this show would have never had a chance.”
Not only have the film production students filmed camping scenes, they also returned to the park several times to go up North and South Peak to get vistas from higher elevations. To get even more dramatic footage, the students boarded an airplane over harvest break to get breath-taking aerial scenes over the park in a bush plane piloted by Kimberly Harper.
According to Aroostook State Park officials, who paid for the students to use the plane, this may very well be some of the first aerial footage of Aroostook State Park.
“I felt pretty good about getting up in the airplane,” said Anthony Woods, a senior at Caribou High School. “I felt like I was able to show people what the park looks like while the leaves change color. At first I thought about the typical bad things that could happen, but once I got in the plane, I realized how lucky I was to do this,” Woods continued.
More recently, the students went to Aroostook State Park on a Saturday night to film “Haunted Walk”, an event attended by 1,400 people over two evenings.
During the winter, the students hope to film Boy Scouts building igloos and spending the night at Aroostook State Park in February.
“When we started work on this film, we thought there would be interest in the show.” said Jepson, “and over harvest break when I had a meeting with Maine Public Broadcasting, I was thrilled to learn that they are very enthusiastic about transmitting this show statewide.”
For anyone wishing to have a preview of the documentary the students are making, a clip of the footage is available at Viking Video’s Web site. www.vikingvideoprogram.com
For more information please contact Brenda Jepson at 493-4270.
