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By Donna Boen '83 MTSC '96
A pert young blonde balances two boxes of doughnuts and four coffees in her arms as she strides up the walk to the stately front door of Miami's Farmer School of Business.
The sky is a gorgeous deep blue, but the chill still demands winter coats, earmuffs, and gloves. Except for the fleece-lined boots, the woman is underdressed in a white blouse, dark skirt, and blazer, but she'll have to shiver in the cold awhile longer.
Once the director calls cut, actress Evan Rachel Wood will go back to her starting point and carry the doughnuts and coffee up to the entrance several more times before actor/director George Clooney is certain he has what he needs for the shot.
Surrounded by camera and crew, cables and cast, Clooney is hard to see for the growing crowd of spectators. In jeans, leather jacket, and black pea coat, he easily blends in; dark, plain clothing seemingly the uniform of the day for anyone not in front of the camera.
Still students, faculty, and staff, standing a polite distance away, strain to spot him. Several young women count to three and squeal his name in unison, hoping to entice George to look their way.
"My mom is going to freak," another woman tells her two girlfriends, holding up her cellphone to take a picture.
After three weeks of shooting in Cincinnati, "The Ides of March" crew came to Miami during the first week of March, appropriately enough, to film in and around Farmer and Hall Auditorium. Based on "Farragut North," a 2008 play by Beau Willimon, the story focuses on a young press secretary, portrayed by Ryan Gosling, who gets caught up in the seamier side of politics while pitching his presidential candidate, Gov. Mike Morris, aka George Clooney.
The movie adaptation called for several college settings. Kristen Erwin '96, executive director of the Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky Film Commission, was bringing Clooney to her alma mater last fall to scout possible locations when Miami almost lost a second close-up in Hollywood's spotlight, the first being Jodie Foster's "Little Man Tate" in 1990.
"My initial introduction of Miami to George was somewhere around Millville, where he said this is way too far. I kept telling him, wait a minute. Then we got there, and he said, 'This is perfect. Now I know exactly why you drove me this far.' "
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| Communication professor David Sholle (in cap) and his film class observe George Clooney and company in action. |
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Once on the Oxford campus, Erwin helped Clooney and company find locations to meet their needs while trying to keep their visit as quiet as possible.
At Farmer only a few students noticed them, uncertain at first of who they were seeing. By the time the group headed to Hall, several students were texting about the Clooney sighting, and one cellphone photo went viral. Faster than a twitterer's tweet, the scouting team was back in the van and returning to Cincinnati. They chuckled as they saw the news vans heading to campus to track down the rumored sightings.
The one person who the media sought out to confirm the rumors was the one person who could neither confirm nor deny, a phrase on Claire Wagner's lips for months.
"I was sworn to secrecy," said Wagner, director of Miami's news and public information office. She understood Erwin's concern. Too much publicity too soon could lead to bigger crowds, which, in turn, could slow down production and increase costs. A hint of too much chaos might cause Clooney to look elsewhere.
"Claire wanted to make sure Miami secured the contract, and she wanted to do that so students could be part of this experience, and the beauty of Miami would be seen in this film," Erwin said. Erwin wanted this, too. She comes from a family with extensive ties to Miami. Her grandfather, Bill Liggett '39, was board chairman, and her uncle, Bob Cantoni '50, a past member of the national alumni board, is still quite active. Her mom, aunt, and younger sister are also Miami alumnae and her husband, Mike Schlotman, attended as well.
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| Cincinnati TV news crews and Oxford and Miami police played themselves in "The Ides of March" scenes shot in front of Farmer School of Business the first day of filming at Miami. |
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Another Miamian behind the scenes on "Ides" was Greg Matusak '95, like Erwin, also from Cincinnati. A casting director with Dare to Dream, he helped find the extras.
Day three of shooting, which happened to be Green Beer Day, was particularly hectic with more than 800 hopefuls – students, faculty, staff, and others – showing up at Millett at 6:30 a.m. Each was eager to be chosen as one of the audience members who would be filmed sitting in Hall Auditorium watching Clooney's character in a presidential debate.
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| Greg Matusak '95, a casting director with Dare to Dream in Cincinnati who worked tirelessly on "Ides," is proud Miami will appear in the political drama … as herself, no less. |
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For other scenes that required only a few in the background, Matusak was happy to call on students provided by the theatre department. "We had them picked out when we needed small, small groups. It looked good on their résumé, it got them some extra time on screen, plus it was always nice to know these kids could be professional."
Mistaken for actor Paul Giamatti several times throughout the week, Matusak had maybe six hours of sleep during the four days of shooting. "Ides" was, without a doubt, his largest casting gig to date. This was also the nicest crew he's worked with. George gets the credit for that, too.
"We were told that George Clooney spent a lot of time being an extra, and he wanted all the extras treated well. We tried to make it a really, really good experience. Most days the extras ate with the crew or right after, enjoying the same food. You don't see that on every shoot."
One extra Matusak cast was Mr. Miami himself (at least that's what he calls himself in his email address), Dan Szuhay '64 MEd '65. Dan and his wife, Jan Hon. '93, moved to Maineville, Ohio, after he retired from Birmingham Public Schools in Michigan.
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| Kristen Erwin '96, executive director of the Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky Film Commission, knew George Clooney and crew would love the Oxford campus. "We just had to get them there." |
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Actually, Matusak first cast the Szuhays' daughter, Kelly Szuhay McKinley '95, a music teacher for Little Miami Public Schools near Cincinnati. When Kelly asked if her parents could join in the fun, Matusak invited them as well.
They showed up at Millett with their three changes of clothes, were approved for both Thursday's and Friday's shoots, and boarded a shuttle for the extras' short trip across campus to Hall's 103-year-old auditorium.
Their instructions? Don't leave your mouth open, don't stare at the camera, don't do dead eye. No cellphones, no laptops, no talking, at least during filming.
"As luck would have it, we got seats in the first row stage left," said Dan Szuhay, who performed in Hall, then known as Benton, during his undergraduate days. He took actors across the stage as a rickshaw person in "The Skin of Our Teeth" and played a slave in "The King and I."
Although feeling a bit typecast in his third non-speaking role, Szuhay enjoyed watching the presidential debate scene up close. Repeated about five times from different camera angles, actual filming lasted about two minutes. Setting the stage took far longer.
Seeing the cameramen and set crew scuttle about with their earphones, cellphones, and clipboards, it seemed like organized chaos to Szuhay. Friday's filming was more of the same – four hours of setup to film two minutes. The difference that day was that the other stars were arriving sporadically throughout the morning and being introduced to the extras – Ryan Gosling, Paul Giamatti, Marisa Tomei, Philip Seymour Hoffman.
And what about Dan Szuhay and his own rise to stardom?
"One of the angles was filming right behind me shooting up between me and the girl sitting next to me," Dan said. "The cameraman told me how to sit so he could get a good picture. He said they probably would use that angle, and the back of my head would be in the shot. Naturally, I will be getting 8x10 glossies of the back of my head for publicity."
On late Friday afternoon, the crew packed up and headed their semitrailers into the rain for more shooting in Detroit. No more massive cables laid across Campus Avenue, blocking traffic. No more large spotlights being rolled down the middle of Patterson.
The campus seemed to let out a collective sigh of contentment.
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| One of the many extras chosen to sit in the audience for the presidential debate scene in Hall Auditorium takes her turn in the makeup chair at Millett. |
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"A lot of people wrote to me afterward and told me this is one now crossed off their bucket lists," Matusak said.
"This wasn't B Hollywood, this was A+ Hollywood coming to Oxford," Wagner said. "It surely lends some cachet to what we have here. Some people will never have heard of Miami before they see the movie."
Rumor has it that "The Ides of March" will be released
Oct. 14 and premiere in Cincinnati. Rumor also has it that Miami will appear, as herself, in the first 10 minutes … so if you're looking for the familiar red bricks, you might want to settle in with your popcorn before the end of the previews.
Of course, we can neither confirm nor deny.
Donna Boen '83 MTSC '96 is editor of Miamian. Photos by Jeff Sabo and Scott Kissell.
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| The largest prop had to be the presidential campaign bus, parked outside Farmer for the first morning's shoot. |
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