Clinton County News office

becomes a film set for a day

Although there are plenty of occasions that working at the office of the Clinton County News can be interesting, filled with action and far from boring, there are certainly plenty of times when just the opposite are true.

In most cases, Wednesday’s activity inside the NEWS office is pretty boring – to say the least. Packing the printed newspapers from the delivery truck, “stuffing” the advertising circulars inside and separating the finished newspapers into stacks either for distribution to one of the many local newsstands, or preparing them to be taken to the Albany Post Office where they will be delivered to subscribers’ homes by mail carriers.

Still, it was that most boring of days – last Wednesday – that saw the office transformed last week from a dimly lit local newsroom, into a brightly lit movie set complete with an electronic marker board, 16 mm film cameras and a five man film crew that was on the set for several hours.

For a brief period last week, two Clinton County News employees, Stacy Shelley and Sonja Carrow, were “film stars” as the crew shot a segment of a short subject film titled “Paperboy”.

The director of the project, Eli Kleinsmith, is a student at Western Kentucky University, and the Paperboy film project is his senior thesis project.

Kleinsmith has been working on the project for over a year with the small film crew and an actor who portrays “Billy”, the young paperboy who is also hoping to become a writer.

The fact that Wednesday’s newspaper stuffing routine is the most boring day for the Clinton County News staff played right into the plans of Kleinsmith and his Paperboy storyline, as Billy was to be portrayed on this day as a newspaper delivery boy who was overly board with his current duties and was hoping to land some more exciting duties with the newspaper – perhaps that of a reporter.

“Paperboy is a film about Billy, a young paperboy and aspiring writer. He is obsessed with a homeless poet named Sandy who lives under the State Street Bridge,” Kleinsmith said. “After Billy discovers Sandy dead at the bridge, he has a fantastic nightmare in which he is confronted by Sandy, and Death itself, and must overcome his writer’s block.”

Several mock Clinton County News front page layouts were designed for Kleinsmith to use as props in the film, with banner headlines and photos that matched some of the events that “Billy” would be reporting on in the Paperboy feature.

Kleinsmith said he wasn’t exactly sure where his idea for the Paperboy storyline first came from, and added the plot and story had changed considerably since its original inception.

“I chose a paperboy mainly because I think it’s very wholesome and symbolic. And also I just like hearing stories about the job from older folks I know who have been one,”he said.

The short subject feature is being shot on actual film in 16 mm format, which he noted was more intimidating than using digital equipment, also pointing out that the project was being filmed in black and white.

He added that there were about 10 people other than himself who were working on the crew and helping to make sure the process went as smooth as possible.

Kleinsmith got in touch with Clinton County News Publisher/Editor Al Gibson a few weeks earlier about possibly using the Clinton County News location as a set for a portion of his film project, after learning from Gibson’s son, Joe Gibson, about his family’s newspaper business.

Kleinsmith and Joe Gibson work together at a downtown Bowling Green restaurant, Mariah’s.

The crew was on the scene for most of the morning last Wednesday.

Above, Clinton County News employee Stacy Shelley listens to instructions from Paperboy director Eli Kleinsmith, far left, as film crew members prepare to film one of the segments that was completed last week at the Clinton County News.

Below, Shelley, left, and Sonja Carrow, right, work through stacks of Clinton County News while Kleinsmith films the scene from behind a 16mm camera.