Students star in King’s View-Northwood film

By Joel Jacobson GREAT KIDS
Sun. Oct 5 - 5:21 AM CHRONICLE HERALD

ERIN BARTLETT and Matthew Power are SO glad to be attending King’s View Academy. Erin, in Grade 12, and Matthew, a Grade 10 student, appreciate that participation in the arts is one of the main focuses of the small private school in central Halifax.

At King’s View, which serves grades 7 to 12, they have freedom to develop their creative and educational skills in personalized programs.

Art, music and drama are important parts of the curriculum. Students spend at least a couple of hours a week on those disciplines. It’s not unusual for a student to leave class to attend a private music or dance lesson elsewhere in the building, which is shared by the Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts.

With about 30 students in the school, Erin has only five classmates, and often finds herself in school study programs with students from other grades. “Your motivation to work depends on the individual student,” she says. “You have to do the work because people won’t come after you to do it.”

Matthew has been at the school since Grade 7. “You’re not pulled by the hand by the teachers. It’s possible to sink or swim, depending on whether you have your priorities straight.”

English teacher Sandra MacLeod notes Matthew is just well-organized, while principal and school founder, Rena Otero, says: “He worries too much about things. He’s a perfectionist yet confident about who he is.” She calls Erin exceptional and insightful “and talented when she puts her mind to it.” One thing on which Erin and Matthew are concentrating is their roles in Opus For a Miracle, a film written and directed by one-time full-time (now occasional) King’s View drama teacher Gregory Heyn.

Matthew has the lead role as a teenager who cannot stand by and watch his comatose mother die. In an attempt to help her, he turns to his grandmother, a former concert pianist. With assistance from his musician friends and his grandmother’s senior’s group, Matthew’s character creates a piece of music for his mother, an opus he hopes will lead to a miracle.

Shooting the exterior scenes of Opus is just about complete, with inside scenes ready to go. Matthew and Erin have been told the release goal is the Atlantic Film Festival in 2009.