Thomas Jefferson would not approve

Kraxberger students awarded for short film about the Patriot Act

By Ellen Spitaleri

The Clackamas Review, Jul 28, 2010

ellen spitaleri / clackamas review

Michael O’Brien-Haun and Trevor Browning display the “Oscars” that they were given for winning first place in the best film category of the YOUthFILM Project.

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What would Thomas Jefferson think if he could travel through time and witness the Patriot Act in action?

That is the question that Trevor Browning and Michael O’Brien-Haun asked themselves, as they prepared to write a script and make a film to enter in Portland's YOUthFILM Project. The two imagined a scenario where Jefferson would encounter a Muslim man and get arrested right alongside of him; they recruited three other Kraxberger Middle School students to play the roles of Muslim women; filmed and edited the project; entitled it “Constitutional Right,” and entered it into the competition.

And in early May the students were delighted when they won first prize for best film at a screening ceremony at the Hollywood Theatre in Portland. Oregon Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul DeMuniz presented the young filmmakers with Oscar-like statuettes, and each was given an iPod Shuffle.

“Ours was the first video shown [that night] and we were kind of excited, and then when they were handing out prizes we realized we might have won,” Browning said, while O’Brien-Haun added, “We were very excited” to win first place.

Requirements

Back in February, O’Brien-Haun’s mother, Lisa O’Brien, told him about the competition and said he should enter. He and Browning looked at the five different possible topics, and chose “how a founding father would react to current events. We came up with the Patriot Act and how the act goes against our Fourth Amendment rights,” Browning said.

The film depicts a “very confused” Thomas Jefferson popping up in a small Oregon community and making friends with a Muslim man. As the two walk down the street, a policeman harasses them, and ultimately follows them to the Muslim’s home, where he searches the house and arrests the two men in front of the women in the family.

Browning added that they had other requirements to incorporate into the film, and they chose to include a garden gnome in the cast and they came up with a team logo, SS BOB productions, that uses the initials of all five cast members’ last names. The gnome was also arrested as a suspected terrorist.

A final requirement was that the film could be no more than five minutes long, and their film came in just under the wire at 4 minutes and 59 seconds.

Research

Although the boys studied constitutional amendments in class at Kraxberger, they did all their own specific research about the Fourth Amendment.

They also contacted a prominent Portland civil rights attorney, Elden Rosenthal, interviewed him and included his comments on the Patriot Act in their film.

“He gave us a really good understanding about the Patriot Act,” Browning said.

Rosenthal made national headlines in 2006 for his work as co-counsel on behalf of Oregon attorney Brandon Mayfield, who was wrongfully arrested and detained by the FBI.

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