Silence filled the Athol-Orange Community Television studio as actors Vajra Spring and Kevin Patterson stood poised on opposite sides of a table. When Spring turned his head to catch the camera’s profile, Director Connor Mabius cut the scene, calling for a quick retake.
This was just one of more than 30 scenes captured on a recent Friday afternoon the studios for the upcoming film “VINA.” It marked the second-to-last of a 16-day shooting schedule, with three cast members on set taking direction from Mabius, a recent Frontier Regional School graduate.
While “VINA” marks Mabius’ first venture into feature-length filmmaking, the 18-year-old is no stranger to the director’s chair. At 16, he previously partnered Frontier Community Access Television (FCAT) in 2024 to direct the short film “Averted,” which debuted at the Greenfield Garden Cinemas the following year.
“This project, it went through phases,” Mabius said. “It was supposed to be a western, and then it was a war story, and then I figured that I don’t have the credentials to talk about something so historically important from the perspective of people who have been traumatized.”
Without giving too much of the movie away, Mabius said that the inspiration for his art style, dialogue and direction came from a multitude of sources. One of these, he said, was the futuristic, dystopian setting of Ridley Scott’s 1982 film “Blade Runner,” while another source of inspiration came from a dream he had after falling asleep during an episode of “Twin Peaks,” created by David Lynch and Mark Frost.
Kevin Murphy, FCAT’s community outreach director as well as a digital literacy, computer science teacher and instructional technology specialist at Frontier Regional, said he wouldn’t dedicate this much time to just anyone. For him, it was Mabius’ unique passion and vision that made the feature-length project worth the effort.
“We did these short films and he says, ‘Hey, I want to do a feature,’ and I’m like, oh my God,” Murphy said. “We brainstormed and thought about it, and kind of planned out when it would happen. … We’re very excited; I would never do this for anybody but him. With his record with the other short films, I thought, ‘Definitely.'”
The actors in this film shared a similar sentiment, with Patterson sharing that one of the first questions he asked Mabius was, “What was it like to grow up extraordinary?”
Spring shared a slightly different anecdote for how he got involved in the project.
“I forgot I made a backstage account, and then I get a message from this random person with no profile picture asking me to audition for something,” Spring said, referencing Backstage, a professional networking and audition platform for actors. “It felt kind of sketchy, I Googled his name, and it was like some 16-year-old. … I got a phone call, and [Mabius] was like ‘are you available?’ And I said yeah, and he was like ‘you basically got it.'”
Though “VINA” marks Mabius’ first time working with Patterson and Spring — who portray a father and son on screen — it also features a familiar face. Harford-based Cynthia Lupo, who balances her creative work with a career as a computer numerical control machinist, returned to the set after appearing in Mabius’ previous film, “Averted.”
While filming on set can sometimes be a stressful environment, Lupo believes that coming into each shoot with a positive attitude can positively affect the mood of everyone else on set, regardless of how they’re feeling. She shared an anecdote where a boat kept interrupting their filming, and she suddenly burst into song while the crew was waiting to finally get to work.
“We were waiting for a boat to pass, I wasn’t interrupting a shot,” Lupo said. “But we could not film until that boat was gone because we were picking up the audio and the lights, and I was like, ‘We are having a long day here.’ I think it was a Friday night shoot, so I had been up since 6 a.m. working in the factory. My thought process … is I can help control the mood on set.”
During the recent shoot, Mabius and Murphy were backed by a dedicated crew on set, including FCAT Production Assistant Kai Nieto Gonzàlez and Frontier Regional students Austin Nguyen and Ronen Carnes. Carnes operated the boom mic while Nguyen assisted Murphy with the camera. Meanwhile, Nieto Gonzàlez kept the entire operation running smoothly and on schedule.
Once the film moves into post-production, Nieto Gonzàlez will lend his expertise to the visual effects. However, Mabius will continue to spearhead the project, taking the lead behind the computer just as he did behind the camera.
“[Mabius] is going to be spearheading that. I’m happy to work on the stuff that I have expertise in with visual effects and that side of things,” Nieto Gonzàlez said before wishing the director luck in post-production.
“The entire point of a video or a photography camera is to capture light,” Mabius said. “I’m going to edit the sound, the clips, put everything together and color grade it. I think I’ll definitely need help with color grading, but I’ll figure that out. We’re going to set times and dates, and I talked to Murphy about this, like having all the visual stuff ready by this date.”
Mabius and Murphy said they were hoping for the movie to be released in two years, with a teaser to be released during the spring.
The movie has launched a fundraising campaign, with the proceeds going directly toward providing meals for the actors and crew, as well as covering transportation costs to various filming locations. Community members can support the project by visiting tinyurl.com/34nfbn55.
“I come from a musical theater background, so I find it disappointing that I don’t get to hang out more with the group,” Spring said. “[Mabius] is fun, he’s always doing last minute changes. … You don’t know what’s going to happen, but it’s always fun.”
