13 minute read
Alumni News
Honor Flight was shown at the Byrd Theatre in Carytown on December 8, 2012.
Clay Broga ’03 (left) and Andrew Garber ’03 (right) were back on campus to talk about their film and about discovering their paths.
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— Clay Broga ’03 and Andrew Garber ’03 — Mission Impossible
Clay Broga ’03 and Andrew Garber ’03 are big names in the world of filmmaking these days. With a record in the Guiness Book and hundreds of screenings across the country, the pair is seeing stars. They were back on Trinity’s campus in December 2012 to speak to the student body about their film and about the Discover Your Path mission.
The documentary chronicles the efforts of a Midwest town as it bands together as part of a nationwide project to bring World War II veterans to the World War II Memorial in Washington, DC. The film premiered in August to an audience of over 48,000 people at Miller Park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and drew the largest audience for any film premiere in history, earning a spot in the Guiness Book of World Records.
And on the eve of the anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Broga’s and Garber’s visit to Richmond could not have been more timely. “16 million people enlisted,” said Trinity history teacher Bob Patterson ’83 whose father, a World War II veteran, took part in Honor
Flight. “Eight million were killed and close to 1000 veterans a day are now dying,” said Patterson. “What Honor Flight does is give closure to millions who never had a chance to see the memorial.”
The film trailer has received more than 4.5 million views on Freethink Media’s Facebook page and the film has had screenings across the United States and recently at the U.S. Capitol. It has received press on major news stations along with the Huffington Post and NY Daily News.
After graduating from Trinity, Broga went on to the University of Virginia where he majored in economics and political science. He started working as a writer in Washington, D.C. and eventually started making informative videos for local non-profits.
He and Garber teamed up with Dan Hayes to develop the film. “We’re interested in big ideas and in the intersection of those ideas with art,” said Broga. “You’ve gotta make people laugh or cry to get them to change their minds. There’s something about movie and sound that can reach people in a different way.”
Today, close to 100,000 veterans have gone on the flight and there are approximately 125 Honor Flight hubs around the country. Much of the proceeds from the film will go to the Honor Flight program.
The film was shown on December 8 at the historic Byrd Theatre in Richmond to a packed house and received a standing ovation. A reception hosted by St. Michaels Episcopal School and Trinity was held prior to the screening at which Broga spoke along with retired President and current Chancellor of the University of Richmond Dr. E. Bruce Heilman. “Coming back to Trinity,” said Broga, “I was reminded of what a special place it is and it’s only gotten better with time.”
But Broga learned during his days at Trinity that fame is not what it’s about. After morning meeting, Broga stayed to talk with students and faculty. He recalled one of the lessons he learned as a Trinity soccer player. “We were tied 0-0 with Walsingham Academy. I had the ball and was heading toward their goal. The guy on the other team fell and we had this opportunity to score. I had friends in the stands and a girl watching the game and Coach Brian Phillips kept yelling ‘Take it wide! Take it wide!’ I didn’t know what he was talking about,” said Broga. “So I just shot it…and I made it.” Broga would regret that decision. “Coach just let me have it. He lined us up on the sideline and let the other team take it down to our goal for a clear shot,” said Broga. “He didn’t want us to win that way…with the other guy falling down and us scoring on them like that…that’s the kind of principled people you have at Trinity,” said Broga.
That lesson stuck with Broga, as did other lessons from his time at Trinity. “I didn’t know this was what I wanted to do, but I just started experimenting with things that gave me a little bit of interest, putting my toes in the water. I had a history teacher that encouraged us to make a video about a time-traveling duo that travels through history. That’s how we got our hook in films. Everything big we’ve done started like that,” said Broga. “You think it’s nerve wracking standing up in Morning Meeting, imagine standing up in front of 48,000 people in a stadium,” Broga laughed.
Broga encouraged students to push themselves outside of their comfort zones. “Nobody’s going to discover your path for you,” said Broga, “but it’s the environment that allows you to experiment. It all starts here.”
— Elizabeth Gottwald ’03 — In Focus
Elizabeth Gottwald ’03 travels light and often these days, camera always in tow. She’s made a career out of it, and fortunately for her, doesn’t mind a little jet lag. Over the course of the past year, she’s traveled to more countries than most have in a lifetime, making a living doing what she loves… taking pictures. It was during her studies at Trinity that Gottwald’s interest in photography developed. “I just loved being in the darkroom,” she said. “For me, photography was the lead into finding out more about myself and where I wanted to go,” she said. “It took my interest in that to discover my love for travel and to put a career together.”
After graduating from Trinity, she went on to University of South Carolina where she majored in visual communications with a minor in photography. When she graduated in 2008, she moved back to Richmond and started work at Richmond Camera in Carytown. But when the opportunity to travel to Easter Island, one of the most isolated islands on earth, presented itself, everything changed for her. “That was the first time I traveled by myself and I decided I really liked it,” said Gottwald.
Her travels helped her build a portfolio and before long she was interning at National Geographic and being hired for destination weddings. She now has her own photography business called Wanderlust Photography (www.elizabethgottwald.com) and sells her work to clients around the world.
Gottwald has trekked to Australia, Thailand, Bali, French Polynesia, Turkey, Israel and Jordan, to name a few, but her favorite places were at the ends of the earth. “The Arctic and Antarctica opened my mind to the broader changing global problems that we have, changing temperatures, etc…” said Gottwald. “It was so sad to see species like the Polar Bear deteriorating before my eyes. Machu Picchu was equally impressive. I actually lost my breath when I saw it,” she said. “It’s in the middle of the Andes, it comes out of nowhere…and you ask yourself, how did people create this?”
For Gottwald, photography is more a vehicle for exploration than it is a trade. “I think a photograph is a messenger…it’s a gateway into what you can be a part of,” she said. Gottwald is drawn most to travel portraits but also does a lot of landscape and wildlife. “I love travel portraits because you get to see into the eyes of someone you have less in common with, but there’s always some connection there,” she said.
She also makes it a point to feature people and companies that might not otherwise be noticed. “I want to expose companies that don’t get a lot of exposure,” said Gottwald. She recently returned from Southeast Asia where she volunteered at an elephant sanctuary in Bali and documented their efforts at rehabilitating elephants abused by poachers. In May 2013, she’s traveling to Central America to capture the work of Physicians for Peace, a Norfolk based company that sends physicians and medical equipment to underserved parts of the world offering medical training and education.
The idea of flying off to remote parts of the world, where in most cases maps are worthless,
may seem daunting to some, but for Gottwald, it only reminds her of the earth’s minuteness. “The world can be so interconnected,” she said. “The more I travel, the smaller the world is. I’ve met people in Zimbabwe who were from Richmond. I met a girl in La Paz who ended up staying in the same hostel and when I went to Buenos Aires, a guy I met knew the same girl.” Though she loves to meet friends along the way, Gottwald prefers to travel alone. “I feel like I change more as a person when I’m experiencing it on my own,” she said. “It’s changed everything about me. I’m more of an accepting person, low key, low maintenance. It’s helped me appreciate everything I have and not take anything for granted.” She plans to keep traveling and documenting important causes. “I don’t see it stopping any time soon,” said Gottwald. Next on her list is a tiger sanctuary in Rajasthan, India.
Beth Gottwald ’03 stands in front of Machu Picchu on one of her many photography trips abroad.
— Colin Healy ’08 — Tuned In
Colin Healy ’08, is making big waves in the music world these days. With a recently released single “Something Different,” a 10 song album recorded and over a million YouTube views for his renditions of catchy songs like Beyonce’s “All the Single Ladies” and Coldplay’s “Yellow,” Healy has Los Angeles producers knocking at his front door.
In fact, last summer he flew to LA to record an album with producer Ted Comerford and LA mixer Jack Joseph Pwig, who has mixed songs for artists like Lady Gaga, Sheryl Crow and Weezer. “Jack heard the song ‘Something Different’ and wanted to be a part of the project,” said Healy. Healy’s music clearly speaks to the hipster, iphone, YouTube, tweeting generation, with his catchy covers and lyrics about dating and relationship woes, but Healy actually got his start at Trinity in the IB music program and is classically trained in piano. He started out playing saxophone in the sixth grade at St. Michael’s Episcopal School and was “so bad at it” that he turned to the drums. “I just had this epiphany that I could be so much cooler if I played the drums,” Healy laughed. He recalled riding the bus from St. Michaels to Trinity every Wednesday for Trinity band director Brian Rollins’s music workshop. Some time during that period he started playing the piano. Once at Trinity, he enrolled in the IB music program for piano. “That was interesting,” said Healy, “because I got the classical training. Before that I had just been playing rock piano.”
Healy had also been playing in his basement with a little band that he put together with his friends including Cullen Macdonald ’07 and Harrison Weber ’09. Healy’s sister, Paige Healy ’05, was a senior when Healy was a freshman at Trinity and she made it a point to get his band noticed. “She went to a Pach’s Place meeting and put my name in to perform. I didn’t know I was supposed to be playing until the
Colin Healy ’08 is big news in the music industry these days.
week of it. She made all these posters saying ‘Live at Pach’s Place with Colin Healy.’ That sort of forced me into public performance,” Healy said.
Healy went to VCU for one year but couldn’t resist the music bug. He had formed Colin Healy and the Jetskis with his buddies from Trinity and they were receiving lots of attention. They decided to follow their passion and headed off to tour the East Coast all the way from Miami to Connecticut. The following year Healy went solo. “That helped me out a lot because when I went off on my own, everyone already knew my name, so it was an easy transition,” said Healy.
But performing in front of a crowd took some getting used to. “In the early days at Pach’s Place I had to take the classes off right before playing and go lay down because my heart would be going a mile a minute,” said Healy. “I’m way more comfortable playing in front of strangers.”
Healy describes his sound as pop with “a little more of an edge.” He prefers piano and acoustic guitar but also plays bass and drums. Healy just released a duet cover of “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” with Caroline Mauck ’07 which has already received over 118,000 YouTube views. Ann Carter Herbert ’14 helped produce the video as part of her Junior Work Week project.
Healy’s goal is to shop his full length album out to big record labels early next year. “Trinity’s all about choosing your path. I’m getting hands-on training as opposed to the in-class training now,” said Healy. “That’s more for me.”
Emily Perkins ’02 is making it as an actress and voiceover artist in the big apple.
There’s an infectious energy about Emily Perkins ’02 with her sweet Southern high-pitched voice and effusive demeanor, and it’s only right that this Richmond native landed in the mecca of energy and creativity, New York City, to pursue a career in acting.
Her most recent work was with her theatre company, The Assembly Theater Project, in Home/sick, a play based on the Weatherman Underground, a group of radical revolutionaries that formed during the 1960s and 70s. The New York Times referred to it as “painstakingly researched” and Time Out New York referred to Perkins as the “fluttery-voiced new recruit.” The Village Voice wrote, “right away you feel like you’ve joined a 1960s meeting of Students for a Democratic Society,” and referred to the play as an “absorbing, critical-minded narrative.”
Perkins studied theatre at Trinity under Fine and Performing Arts Chair Brian Phillips and then went on to get a B.A. from Clemson University where she was active with the Clemson Players. “I very fondly remember Trinity’s theatre program and Mr. Phillips,” said Perkins. “I think one of the most notable productions I did there was Alice in Wonderland,” she said. “Mr. Phillips actually had us devise it based on the book…it was quite extraordinary that he had us writing a play as an ensemble at such a young age.”
When Perkins moved to New York, she began auditioning and landed a tour with Theaterworks USA, a national children’s theatre company. She then joined The Assembly Theater Project about three years ago. The group collectively wrote the play
— Emily Perkins ’02 — Drama Queen
Home/sick over about a two year time span and it opened last summer at the historic Living Theater in NYC. Despite losing power in the midst of Hurricane Sandy, they did a “flashlight performance” for stranded East Villagers. “It was just about the coolest thing,” said Perkins.
But making it big as an actor in New York City is no small task, something Perkins knows well. Like most actors, she maintains a job on the side waiting tables. The job allows her time off for auditions and shows. “It’s how most of us make it here in the city,” she said. Perkins has also found success as a voice-over artist. Her most recent work includes the voice of Tatum, a computer-animated 11 year-old tween, for Crayola Crayon’s popartpixies.com. She also provided the voice for a Nestle Chocolate Raisinet and for a pair of shoes for Pastry Shoes. In addition, she has appeared in dozens of independent films and off-Broadway productions like Our Dolls, Three Sisters, and We Are Not Birds.
If she didn’t sound busy enough, Perkins was recently married to fellow actor, Moti Margolin, and the two started a business that makes promotional videos for theatre artists. They produced the promotional video for Home/sick (vimeo.com/52397132). She also maintains a dynamic website (www.emilylouiseperkins.com) which features her resume, photographs, acting samples and a blog.
