here we are in richmond vermont outside of our most famous landmark the round church and with us is filmmaker john billingsley from breadbox productions richmond based production company and we are hoping that he'll tell us a little bit about his production company and the new film that he made about the round church so just for starters could you say a few words about breadbox productions sure breadbox productions i formed with my partner around my first project which is liemba we really formed it in order to make that documentary and that was several years ago now and so since then i've used it as my production company the name for my production company to continue forward and do smaller projects here in vermont and just to talk about liemba to start with cause while i recently saw the film it's about this ninety year old ship that goes up and down this huge lake in africa could you say a few words about that project is full of music sure yeah that project we shot nine years ago now i went into it blind my first documentary i had not done one before i was just finishing up grad school which i went to the new school in new york and had studied media studies and media production i was actually shooting sixteen millimeter film so that was the foundation my background is as an audio engineer so this project liemba the ship is just an amazing story i first came across it moving up to vermont after finishing grad school my wife and i had put everything into storage and traveled overland from nairobi to cape town in africa and along the way traveled on this ship liemba for one part of the journey we were just drawn into the whole story and the drama that experience of actually riding the ship is just incredible and i got back and we moved to vermont actually we moved to jericho we rented a cabin in jericho and that's when my brotherinlaw who had finished film school a couple of years before pitched the idea of doing a documentary we were talking about the liemba and he had spent time in africa in the 80s in kenya when he was in college and knew about the ship then and so that's when it started we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into to pick a ship in africa to do your first documentary on had we known what we were getting into we probably would never have done it but there was a huge learning curve it was an amazing experience after raising the money to go we went with a small crew spent ten weeks in africa this ship was brought in one thousand nine hundred and thirteen by the germans to the coast of africa in pieces in five thousand crates transported over land by train and on the backs of porters to the shores of lake tanganyika where it was rebuilt it served as a gunship in world war one it was scuttled at the end of the war the brits brought it back to the surface eight years later and it's still in service today so it's this amazing history our story was really about the role that it serves today in modern africa this relic of colonialism some people travel business some people travel smuggling the mv liemba travels the expense of one of the largest lakes on earth playing a critical role in the lives of those in her way we recorded all the music over there for me like i mentioned my background in audio engineering this was a dream come true i had a range from that first trip to work with a group of musicians who were refugees from the congo who i had had the wonderful opportunity to play music with on that first trip had their contact info arranged the first thing we did when we got to africa was go into a house that we rented with them and record music for a week and then during the course of the ten weeks of production i came across a bunch of other musicians as well so there is a whole cd accompanying the dvd and what was interesting about it too is that just like the round church film it's about layers of history and things kind of coming full circle and i was wondering if you could say a few words about the round church film and how that started i think the allure of a local hometown project was great the main inspiration was a contest the margaret george short film competition that was put out by the green mountain film festival liemba had played the new year before opening night and in all honesty i had just gotten a new camera a new hd camera venturing into the world of hd this is two thousand and ten and they announced this competition and i thought it was a great opportunity i don't know about you but for me to really learn either a new piece of gear or new software i need a project to sink my teeth into i read the contest was to do a short piece about a local historic landmark or public space and how that place reflects the community at large and the spirit of the community and i've always loved the round church since i've moved to richmond about seven years ago i drive by it every day and it's just such a wonderful building that it was a great opportunity to learn more about it and chipping away at the history what are some of the things that you discovered about this landmark that everyone drives by that you didn't really know by making a film it's really its origin how it first came together how it was really truly a community effort five different churches came together and it was volunteers and through this great community effort built this structure where they could all share and i think that that sense of community is also something that you still find here today that's what i think is the most amazing thing about it and doing this film where they wanted this historic building to reflect the community at large it was pretty easy you come to the round church christmas sings or a snowy day and it's still a very much a vibrant part of the community as it was intended to be two hundred years ago when they set out to make it and i guess we're standing on not only a historic site but one of the best sledding spots in town yes indeed yep my kids love it can you say a few words about some of the architectural points of interest about the building they always call it a round church for instance but in the film you go into some more detail well it's actually sixteen sided it's not round it's sixteen separate panels that are put together to create that round church the round field there are stories about why it's that shape one is to keep the enemy from hiding behind the corner outdoors and another it would keep the devil out of the corner i just think it's an amazing architectural achievement when you're inside it feels as if it's round but yeah and how its origins may have been in new hampshire from one of the points that come out in the film from one of the fellows that constructed it it was inspired i guess by a place it was inspired by a building in his hometown he had moved here to this community he was originally from new hampshire he was commissioned to build the round church and he took his inflation from another round church that is no longer around this is all through historical documents and i must tip a hat to harriet riggs who is richmond's treasure of a historian she literally wrote the book on it as far as my historical research my historical research for the most part consisted of sitting down with harriet and really spending some hours with her going through her trove of pictures historic pictures that she's collected about the round church and she was just a wealth of information we sat down for the interview here in the church and that was an hour plus of just everything just detailed information about the church and so it made my job easy and there are a lot of people that are really culturally invested in not just the round church but just richmond and its history that show up in the film i mean i see gary brestford's house right here and he's the guy that rings the bell so if you can say a few words about that whoa yeah to tell you the truth that first green mountain film festival there was a cutoff there was a ten minute limit to the film and i had tried to arrange an interview with gary and i had not been able to do it before the deadline and i knew it was incomplete without an interview with gary the second cut and final cut which we showed this summer here for the bicentennial celebration includes gary and i'm so glad i was able to get that in there because he is been the caretaker for the church he first started working on the church about fifty years ago in his teenage years that summer he worked on the church and he's been working on it consistently ever since and he's also the bell ringer which is a great story within a story about his devotion towards ringing the bell for all the wedding services but it's people like gary there's a list of folks all the volunteers with the historical society who've come out and through all the fundraising and community has come outpouring support for the church but it's people like that that keep it going and keep it alive it's a great part of the community and you weren't nervous bringing your new hd camera all the way to the top there on those sort of rickety looking steps i don't know if they really are that was fun i had to pass the camera up cause i was more worried about myself getting through than the cameras it was a little tight squeezing through some of those holes it was very interesting to get up there and see the inner workings the bowels of the church and the sprinkler system too which is one thing i didn't get a chance to because i couldn't capture it i didn't have a set of lights when we were up there and it didn't quite come through in the film but that's been a recent addition relatively speaking but it's very important and it's elaborate and it's great how they've set it up so that there's no heat in the building this sprinkler system is set up in such a way that it does trigger from heat and melts a cap and release water so the church is protected from fire whereas it hadn't been in the past but there are remains around the round church and this came through throughout the bicentennial year with all these events that mmctv was filming concerts and things and there's still an urgency around the round church it's not like all the work is ever done there's still no i think it's like a boat in that regard the upkeep is constant there's always a new project to keep it going whether it's the roof or some other issues they've found some decane wood in the back some of the structures that they needed upkeep i think as being a center of the community i think people understand its importance too i don't think it's at risk of falling into disrepair i hope that people as gary says in the film that there'll be other people around who care enough to look after it over the next two hundred years and that really comes through in the film how things do come full circle it was founded as a meeting house two hundred years ago it's still a meeting house in a lot of ways maybe a broader sense today that's what i was trying to achieve with that was trying to convey that that it's still serving its original purpose it really is and i had just a one last question before we show the film here if you could just say a few words about where it's been shown so far and where you hope this film travels we showed it at the green mountain film festival and it's been shown on your station here it's also on the richmond historical society website so if somebody wants to see the film on their own time they can just go to the film society website and find it there yes you can find it there it's available to watch online and any other future documentaries we should keep our eyes out for in the next few years several ideas brewing i haven't pulled the trigger on any one of them yet so i'll let you know but kind of sifting through different ideas and seeing where the next one will take us hopefully i'm very interested in it's now with three young kids as well keeping it more of a local perspective and doing some sledding i guess in a few weeks yeah let's hope so well thanks for joining us and talking about your film thanks so much for having me appreciate it