Reenacting is one of the main ways NCTV17 illustrates its documentaries. Reenactments are essential in recreating historical events that could not be recorded by photograph or video having occurred prior to such technologies.

It was thanks to Bryan Ogg, the Research Associate from the Naper Settlement that we were able to tape a reenactment inside a beer tunnel for the Stenger Brewery Documentary. The beer tunnel was located on land owned by Bryan’s friend, Suzie who had bought the land which included a large house that had once served as a bordello in its heyday. Suzie had ran the house as the Addison House Bed and Breakfast for many years, but at this point only she, her 2 cats, and pooch reside in it.

And what a house it was! Every room was immaculately and uniquely decorated. Not only had Suzie painted fresco--like images on her kitchen cupboards, but she made ceramic pieces of art as well. The ceiling in her dinning room was taken from an old schoolhouse and each of the suites that she rented out to bed and breakfasters, had a different theme. There was the Bird room, the Cowboy room, and the Honeymoon suite. Each with its own knick knacks, paintings, photographs, drawings, and furniture.

Suzie had not stopped with the house, however, she had created an outdoor garden complete with a multileveled pond where koi swam, a full flower regalia next to her garage, and vines of honest-to-god hops. (The only hops we’d ever seen was the one in the beer we drank) Suzie also kept bee hives and cultivated her own honey. (Something Carl almost found out the wrong way when he unknowingly approached the bees’ homes on his way to getting a closer to look at the vines of hops.)

After taking in Suzie’s house and garden, she led us along a small trail through the woods at the back of her house and then down some wooden stairs to the beer tunnels. The tunnels were dark and according to Suzie vials of cocaine had been found strewn across the floor. (Suzie knew they were cocaine vials because someone had conveniently etched the word cocaine into the glass. This is back when cocaine was perfectly legal and well liked and used for recreational purposes.)

Our reenactors included one of Liz's students, Colt, his brother Kyle, and two NCTV17 staffers, Carl and Stevan. Colt and Kyle were set to play John and Nick Stenger, the two owners of the Stenger Brewery, and Carl and Stevan were to be their workers.

Both Kyle and Colt play football, and when we got ready to take the big heavy wine barrels down to the beer tunnels, we all watched as Kyle picked one up, hoisted it over his head, and started walking down toward the tunnels. From now on, it is NCTV17 policy to have at least a couple of football players in our reenactments.

After carrying all of the gear down to the tunnels, Carl, Stevan, and Liz set up the lights and camera, while I got Colt and Kyle ready to enter the 19^th century. It’s amazing how much some carefully selected shirts and pants from a thrift store can transform a person. (Thank you Kandiss Hernandez!) Here are Colt and Kyle as John and Nick Stenger.

After we taped with Colt and Kyle for an hour, I got Carl and Steven costumed up as well. Stevan said he might start wearing this hat to work.

Here are our reenactors before their costumes, and here is them after.

At about this time, we broke for lunch. The reenactors waited to change back into their normal clothing, but I insisted we didn’t have the time, and so all four of the reenactors ate their lunch in full costume.

Just as we were finishing up, a man at another table who had been staring at us quite frequently asked if the four reenactors were in a band. Carl replied that no they were actors, and the man insisted that they were a band. I figured if he wanted to believe that, then that was fine with me. I told him they were called The Farmers and were going to be on MTV next week to which the man promptly told Carl that he believed his response over mine.

Full from the food, we went back to the tunnels where we wrapped up Carl and Stevan’s scenes and then began to tape the exterior shots with the help of NCTV17’s coolest new piece of equipment, the jib.

The Jib is a long metal bar that sits horizontally on a tripod at it’s midsection and holds a camera on one end and handles on the other. The operator can then smoothly manipulate the movement of the camera by holding onto the handle and pushing the bar around. The shots Carl took with the help of the jib are incredible and will really help the reenactments have more of a movie type feel.

Our day started to wrap up at 4:30pm which was good because it had started out at 6am. Colt and Kyle ended their day as they had started it, sleeping in the backseat of Liz’s car.