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Indie Film: Documentary looks at Fenway using stories, emotions of fans

By DENNIS PERKINS

My wife and I have this plan for when I die.

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The Fenway Four: Jacob Ouellette, executive producer; Luke Fraser, executive producer; Kelsey Doherty, director of marketing; and Kyle Brasseur, director of baseball research.

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COMING TO LOCAL SCREENS

GENO'S ROCK CLUB

(625 Congress St.)

Monday: The Geek Chorus presents "The Babysitter." Portland's own Mystery Science Theater 3000 takes out their boozy film-geek rage at this sleazy exploitation non-classic about what I can only assume is a very unethical child-care specialist. The Chorus brings in local funnyman Sean Wilkinson for comedy backup this week!

ROBERT FLAHERTY FILM SEMINAR

The prestigious New York film organization has announced a March 1 deadline for applicants for its LEF New England Fellowships. Four New England-based filmmakers will receive an all-expenses-paid invite to the seminar in June. Application materials can be found at: flahertyseminar.org/the-flaherty-seminar/fellowship-information-2012

After I'm cremated, she will smuggle some ashes into a Red Sox game and sprinkle them onto the field at Fenway. Sure, she'll probably be Tasered for throwing a mysterious white powder at a sporting event, but I'm sure she, as the forbearing wife of a Sox fan, will understand. That's what Fenway does to certain people.

Just ask Sanford native Jacob Ouellette, one of a quartet of Emerson College sophomores planning a documentary about the venerable Boston landmark, which will celebrate its 100th birthday in April.

"With Fenway, every time I walk in there is like the first time," Ouellette said. "It's like it's new all over again. I'm a diehard Red Sox fan, so being in a position where I can do something like this, it's combining a passion for both."

Ouellette and his three partners in Red Seat Productions (Biddeford's Kelsey Doherty and Massachusetts natives Luke Fraser and Kyle Brasseur) share that passion for the Red Sox and Fenway Park and a personal history with the venerable stadium. Together, they write the Sox blog "Red Seat Nation" (redseatnation.blog spot.com).

"The first time I met Kelsey was when I saw online that we were both coming from Maine to go to Emerson -- and that we were going to be at the same Red Sox game," said Ouellette. "And the first time the four of us ever met in person was at Fenway. That's the thing about Fenway, how it brings people together. Everyone has a story."

That shared fan experience is the basis for Red Seat Productions' so-far unnamed documentary on the park, which the four are preparing to coincide with Fenway's centennial this year and which Ouellette hopes will set their film apart from other Red Sox docs.

"We're planning to avoid the standard chronological approach of most documentaries," he said. "Instead, we'll chronicle events in a different way -- through the experience of Red Sox fans."

Ouellette envisions the film as an oral history built from the shared experiences of those (like me) who trace some of their most joyful (and painful) memories to that emerald oasis in the gray Boston Fens. "This is going to be an emotional documentary," Ouellette said, "told through the memories of the most passionate fans in all of sports."

That emotion comes through in the brief trailer that Red Seat Productions has produced, where one narrator says of Fenway: "Every seat, every brick, every spot has got stories," and another, asked what Fenway means to him, simply says, "Home." (Anyone looking to share their stories should contact the filmmakers at redseatnation@gmail.com.)

Like many aspiring filmmakers, the Red Seat crew has turned to the website Kickstarter to get the movie off the ground. But Ouellette stresses that, while actively securing interviewees, they're pursuing various other funding options -- a "Plan B." That may be necessary, because their campaign has only raised $232 of their proposed $5,500 goal as of this writing (with a Feb. 10 deadline).

But that shouldn't be a problem. We Red Sox fans learned, long ago, to live in hope.

Dennis Perkins is a Portland-based freelance writer.