By Heather Matthews
Staff Writer

She speaks with the experience and confidence of a seasoned filmmaker, but Lily Hallett, of Bow, isn’t like most of her kind. Instead of attending posh premiers and after-parties, Hallett prefers to climb trees and spend time with her dog, Buddy. After all, she is only 13 years old.

Hallett will present her first film, a 20-minute-long piece called “Jazz It Up,” alongside some of the best independent films in the country at the fourth annual Somewhat North Of Boston Film Festival to be held Nov. 11 and 12, at the New Hampshire Technical Institute’s campus in Concord.

Hallett was 12 years old when she began writing “Jazz It Up.” For her, screen writing was just something to try out, another activity to add to her list of extracurricular activities and hobbies, to help her expand her involvement in the arts.

“I guess I had tried everything else, and this was one thing I hadn’t tried,” she said.

Lily Hallett, 13, said she wanted to try screen writing because she does “everything else,” including writing poetry, climbing trees, baking and knitting. Although Hallett has never taken a dance lesson, she choreographed all of the dancing for her film, “Jazz It Up,” which is about a dance team.

Hallett, an avid writer of “every genre” including poetry, essays and plays, had always been intrigued by filmmaking. In early 2004 she enrolled in a screenwriting workshop at Southern New Hampshire University. While she intended to learn and work on just a screenplay, through the writing process, Hallett said she became determined to make a script into a film. Borrowing a camera from a teacher at Bow Memorial School, Hallett embarked on the four-month process of securing locations, finding actors, filming and editing.

“I’m pretty ambitious. When I do something, I want it to go somewhere,” she said.

Hallett shot the film, about a young girl who choreographs her own dance for a team competition, in her home, at the Bow Community Center and in her school, using her classmates, parents and friends of the family as actors. Hallett choreographed all of the dances, though she had no formal dance training.

“I was intrigued with the dance idea,” she said. “I really liked the way it looked on film and the movement of dance. My mom kept telling me that I couldn’t do it since I wasn’t a dancer. I just danced. Everyone can dance.”

But for Hallett, the dancing was one of the easiest parts of making a film.

“The hardest part for me was directing,” she said. “These are real people. They aren’t characters in a book that I have to move around. They are more difficult to control and that was hard to do without being rude or bossy. I had much more far-fetched visions for the film (when writing it). Those were contorted completely once we got to the locations."

Hallett, whose film will be screened on Friday, Nov. 11, at 1:45 p.m., is not the first young filmmaker to be featured in the festival's schedule, but she is one of the youngest, said festival director, Sherry Young.

“We’ve had student filmmakers in the past,” she said. “We encourage young filmmakers. It’s not a formal goal, but it is one of our interests.”

Ian Clement is a senior at Concord High School. His film, “Flat Line Pulse,” will be screened at SNOB on Saturday, Nov. 12, at 4:45 p.m. An adaptation Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell Tale Heart,” Clement’s film is a high contrast black and white piece that updates the classical tale into a modern day crime drama.

This year’s festival will also feature a film by Concord High School senior, Ian Clement. According to Young, the SNOB committee was impressed by the maturity of the films.

“Both films were very well done considering the age of the filmmakers,” she said. “It was clear they both had something to say and we were very impressed by that.”

Clement, 17, of Concord, will screen his short film, “Flat Line Pulse,” an adaptation of the Edgar Allen Poe classic, “The Tell Tale Heart,” on Saturday, Nov. 12, at 4:45 p.m.

Although the film is an adaptation, Clement said the updated, more modern tale of “Flat Line Pulse” barely resembles the original.

“The other one was set when they didn’t even have electricity,” he said. “The killer didn’t have to hide DNA because the cops didn’t know to look for that. He is a much more meticulous killer. There is also a little back story that will help people understand why he is killing in the first place.”

Clement has been making films since he got his first camera in eighth grade, but filmmaking has always been something he was interested in. In first grade, Clement and his friends would write scripts, performing them for fun. But, it wasn’t until he made his first horror film, a 30- minute piece screened at Concord High’s first film festival three years ago, that Clement became serious about the art.

“That inspired me to keep going,” he said. “After you put so much effort into something, you want people to see it.”

“Flat Line Pulse” is the fourth movie by Clement to be publicly screened, but the first to make it to SNOB. Clement said he credits his acceptance to SNOB to a more technically pleasing filmmaking technique, namely the use of high contrast lighting and black-and-white film for the 17-minute-long piece. Filmed over the course of several weeks, it was lit by one single lamp, creating dramatic shadows.

For Clement, his acceptance to SNOB validates him as a filmmaker, separating him from other high school students.

“I’ve been accepted as an actual filmmaker, an independent filmmaker,” he said. “That is a real big deal for me.”

For more information on SNOB, visit the festival’s Web site at snobfilmfestival.org.

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