Filmmaker | Curator | Organizer | Educator

Miami | Fort Lauderdale | Palm Beach, Florida, United States
Shane Eason is a time based media artist, curator and educator living and practicing in the metro Miami and Fort Lauderdale area. His formal experimental films are conscience studies in self identity and abstraction with subtle hints of documentation. His film and video work has screened internationally in festivals and art galleries. Currently, bills are paid by teaching as a cinema production professor at Florida Atlantic University.

winter | night | toronto | 2008

winter | night | toronto | 2008

winter | day | miami | 2008

winter | day | miami | 2008

8.11.2009

Chester Gillette + Grace Brown Documentary

I returned from NY and Connecticut in one piece, considering I flew standby, which obviously has it's positive and negative characteristics. How? Positive in the sense that it's cheap and quick, if it's in the low season of travel. And negative in the sense that it can be very time consuming during the high season of travel, which in-turn is an extremely frustrating experience due to the countless flight bumps. Aside from the air travel and airport naps, it was a good trip and a great opportunity to get behind the camera for a colleague.

Derek Taylor (Dir.), Mike Bay (HD DP), Kate Taylor (Foto + Food), myself (16 mm DP), and a small crew of Southern Connecticut State University students (Jay and Alex) and local talents spent 5 days shooting a new documentary on Chester Gillette and Grace Brown.
It was 1908 in Herkimer County, New York when Gillette was accused of killing his pregnant lover and somewhat secretive companion Grace Brown. Gillette, at the time of the homicide, allegedly clubbed Brown on the head with his tennis racket while they sat idle in a small row boat on Big Moose Lake located in the Adirondacks. She fell overboard and struggled to stay afloat, eventually drowning. He swam ashore to a waiting suitcase of which he placed prior to the incident and fled on foot. Although the evidence gathered by the detectives was largely circumstantial, Gillette was later caught, tried, convicted and later executed by electric chair at Auburn Prison.

There were a number of shooting locations used for the documentary. The first was a small lake in rural NY. The second was the actual Herkimer County Jail built in 1934 where Gillette spent his days after arrest and during trial. The third location was at a turn of the century home built in the early 1900's located in Lincoln, NY.

Hours of footage were collected on HD, along with 2000+ feet of 16 mm film burned. All this footage will add to the hours of previous interview and archival footage collected by Taylor and Bay.

Next step for Taylor's film is post production. Until then, here is press and production stills from the documentary: Herkimer Telegram, SCSU@Facebook, Utica Observer Dispatch, WKTV Utica, NY. Liz Taylor and Montgomery Clift would be proud.