Longmeadow News - August 25, 1992
By Karen Crosby
Staff Reporter
Longmeadow News: August 31, 1989
Before he began volunteering at Channel 8, Mr. Setian made his own movies and showed them to family and friends while he was in middle school. He began volunteering for the station midway through his freshman year at Longmeadow High School, shooting hockey games and other local events.
"When I got here I was ready to do anything they asked," he said. "But after awhile I got bored with that. I used to always hear people joke about Channel 8 and I used to joke too. Then I thought, what would make me not joke about the station was if there was an interesting program. That's how I got the idea to do VALLEY OF THE SHADOWS."
Mr. Setian began production for VALLEY OF THE SHADOWS during his junior year. He said the first episode which aired in October of 85, didn't have much of a plot and he had to use his cousin and a neighbor in the show. He ended up making four shows that year.
"Then, during the Summer of 86, we went crazy shooting material. By that September, we had a show on every Friday night."
New Show Each Month
Mr. Setian said that a new show would air each month and last about 15 to 30 minutes in length. "We made about eight or nine movies that year." He said.
His favorite VALLEY OF THE SHADOWS episodes have been; HEADS OR TAILS, a show about a cursed coin which could buy you into heaven or hell, and ILL FORTUNE, "about an obnoxious guy who gets on the wrong side of a gypsy."
Mr. Setian said that all in all, he has produced and directed 14 of the current 26 episodes of VALLEY OF THE SHADOWS. "The thing that was rewarding about the whole experience was that we put in our own time and created our own projects. We wouldn't have had a creative outlet if it weren't for channel 8."
He said that last summer was, "our last real time of production." He and some others worked on a project called REDMEADOW, which depicted a communist take over of Longmeadow. "That was big! The response was huge!" he said.
Produced Tour Show
Also while at Channel 8, Mr. Setian served as the executive producer of monthly tour shows. "We went to the Big E, museums, and the Springfield Food Festival," he said. He also is the associate producer of ASSORTED COMEDY BITS, a show which airs every Thursday evening.
Mr. Setian said that many of the shows can air over and over again, "I think that my main audience is high school students. And because there is a new bunch coming in every year, the show always appears new to some people. I wanted to install some kind of creative program that stays with the station."
Setian Great Asset
Joyce Rosati, station manager at Channel 8 comments, "Garo has always been somebody we can count on. He has been a great asset to the station. He has a lot of talent and discipline."
After graduating from the high school in 1987, Mr. Setian continued to volunteer for the station in the Summer and on breaks from NYU. He recently transferred into the film school at the college, which is known as one of the best film schools in the country. As for Channel 8? "I figure I'm at the point where I should stop now."
He said he hopes that someone in high school will, "see the shows and say, 'Wow, I would like to do that.'" Ms. Rosati is also hoping, "now that Garo is leaving, some new ones will come along."
This summer, Mr. Setian spent six weeks in Toronto working as an intern in special effects for the nationally syndicated television series, FRIDAY THE 13TH, "I felt that the one thing I lacked was actual big studio experience. I really liked the show so I called them over and over again until they took me into their special effect department."
Mr. Setian said that he is ready to walk the ladder after graduation and start at the bottom. One of his dreams is to "do something that is action packed and fun, a perfect summer movie."
And Ms. Rosati of channel 8 has faith that he will. "He is extremely talented," she said. "I know that there will be a day when we see his name on the big screen."
Longmeadow News - August 25, 1992
"I never considered what I do as being an artist so much as a storyteller," Setian said recently. "The films that really hit me were the STAR WARS movies…The best movie I've seen in years was THE LITTLE MERMAID. It had a lot of heart and drive." His all time favorite, he said was the original version of KING KONG. Noting it's "honesty."
"It's a great adventure," he explained. "Todays films don't seem to want to be fun anymore. There seems to be more concentration on style than what's actually going on on the screen."
A 1987 graduate of Longmeadow High School and a 1991 graduate of New York University Film School, Setian, 22, already has a strong portfolio behind him. He began playing with a Super-8-millimeter camera at the age of 8 (when he made his first film, a claymation short). He than volunteered at Channel 8, the local public access station, by his middle school years, and camera-experience of sporting events led to his own cable series by the end of his freshman year in high school.
VALLEY OF THE SHADOWS, a TWILIGHT ZONE type of series that became a cult favorite with local students, allowed for a variety of story lines and casts, and the young filmmaker realized his forte early on.
"Fantasy and horror were more fun to do…horror is kind of the closest thing to being out of the ordinary as you can get."
A fifteen minute segment of VALLEY OF THE SHADOWS became THE TRAVELLERS, a horror piece produced and directed with the high tone of suspense, chills and final plot twist that rates it with the best of the genre. The camera work is as skilled as any to which an avid consumer of video is accustomed, never interfering with the viewers understanding of what unfolds between the two characters, a deceptively free spirited woman and a homicidal man. As is the case with the best horror films, the plot is relatively simple and beautifully presented: The two cross paths and shake the corner of their universe with as much fundamental terror as any viewer could ask for. The work took essentially a day to film (on the town's Dump Road), but considerably longer to develop.
Setian has made dozens of short films in several genres over the past dozen years, including comedy, science fiction, spoofs, horror, animation, promotional filmed tours of local places and events, and combinations of live action and claymation. He said that the years at NYU brought experience with a 16-millimeter camera, and the ability to "expand on what I've been doing all along." He has interned with the FRIDAY THE 13TH series in Toronto, and had a stint last year with JIM HENSON PRODUCTIONS.
He wants to direct and produce, "to come up with the idea and then put it on the screen." He's working on a sequel to REDMEADOW, a feature length tongue-in-cheek film about a communist takeover of Longmeadow.
He has a talent for animation, and has sold a 6-minute work, combining clay animation and live action to SHOWTIME. THE BLOB DIET which Setian made in an advanced animation class at NYU, features a man who sends away for a diet kit, and receives a piece of clay that consumes everything on his plate.
The film's sale won't make him rich, "Lets just say it'll eventually pay for itself," Setian said, but it's a great start. His natural directorial style is a commercial one, and shows a passion for action/adventure and special effects. He'll be moving to California this summer, "where the industry is."
Setian eagerly credits co-workers, such as writer Aram Sarhadian of Wilbraham, now at the University of Georgia, and Ed Cervany, the well known area composer who composed the music for THE BLOB DIET.
"It's a collaborative effort, definitely," he said. "…a matter of surrounding yourself with the right people. I think it's important as a director not to have a big head about it. That doesn't make sense."
The young filmmaker considers his Channel 8 training ground invaluable, and would like to see local talent take advantage of it too.
"It was just a really enthusiastic place. It would be nice for people to make use of the facilities around them…it really propelled me."
Longmeadow News - August 31, 1989
Residents willing to join a talented local filmmaker in a stretch of the imagination can find out on Thursday, June 25, at 8:00pm., when Cable Channel 8 will air Garo Setian's action-adventure epic REDMEADOW 2.
"All the acting is over the top, and the action gets out of control once and awhile," as a good action adventure should, Setian promised.
"We were able to throw together an 84 minute feature length movie right here in town." Setian said.
It's predecessor, REDMEADOW, aired locally in 1988, and Setian planned a sequel for months. A lot of local landmarks and faces can be glimpsed in the film which has more than 20 main characters and about 30 extras. Shooting began in the summer of 1990, and the script changed midway. The final scene was shot just a few weeks ago.
"We were adding things up until the last day," Setian said recently, and explained that a particularly major and unappealing character, The Evil Boris Mendenkoff, was an inspired afterthought. The character plants a special transmitter at the channel 8 station and broadcasts subliminal messages to comfortable, unsuspecting Longmeadowites.
"Everyone loves Boris," Setian said, grinning. The character is played by his friend Glenn Hiltpold. "Glenn and I have a real chemistry on screen. It was a real wild ride."
Friends since their sophomore year in high school, Hiltpold has acted in several of Setian's productions.
"It's a lot of fun," Hiltpold, a recent graduate of Wocester Polytechnic institute who would like to attend graduate school to study theater and writing, said. "It's a dream for me to act and write."
Not entirely straight faced, Hiltpold described what he has enjoyed about working with Setian.
"How my acting has flourished, how I've grown as an actor through this role. I play a half-man half-machine" who manipulates a bionic arm and drools plain yogurt - robot blood - in the film, he said. "And I'm trying to get in touch with my human side. So it's a very deep character."
Other local actors include John Lin, Aaron Silverman, and Jana Byrdd. The film was created by Setian and Steve Scibelli, written by Scibelli and Hiltpold, and was produced and directed by Garo Setian. Scibelli, who also appears in the film, thought the concept of the TV mini series AMERIKA was good but poorly executed, thus, REDMEADOW and it's sequel were born. Both are anything but boring. The final scene is a scorcher, as Setian and Mendenkoff battle to the death all over Longmeadow.
"By the way folks," Setian added, "this is just a spoof. And this 84 minute feature was made with no money."
Setian, who has been making films since he was a child, graduated from New York University Film School, and will visit California this summer, where he plans to move. He hopes residents will come for the ride Thursday night.
"How many times have megalomaniacs tried to take over this town?"