Missing Persons (2003)

Clark Freeman getting into character as Morty Soppersiff in Missing
Persons as the crew prepares for the next shot.

Now available on DVD, the first movie from the Sight Unseen Theatre Group was shot over four consecutive weekends in the spring of 2003.  The group spent the early part of the year solidifying their non-profit status, gathering subscribers, and preparing for what would be a hectic shoot involving many different locations and first-time lessons in how to manage a crew of fifty people on the streets of downtown LA.  The film was written by Andy Mitton and co-directed by Andy Mitton and Jon Howard, another Middlebury graduate who had worked with Clark Freeman on his previous short film, Sundown.  Clark Freeman and Mariah Sussman co-produced, TJ Moore did the production design, Crispin Freeman managed the sound, and Tim Bartlett signed on as director of photography.  The stellar cast, headed by Clark and Mariah, included Logan Brown, William Knight, Ralph Valencia, Brenda McDonald, David Nelson, and special appearances by numerous friends and colleagues as office workers or street-dwellers.  Or sometimes both, but you're not supposed to notice that.

In the film, Morty Soppersiff dreams of a California Oak growing impossibly out of the barren desert.  He awakes to his rather drab life, but sees things differently today.  He is haunted by milk cartons and fliers, a missing persons notice with the face of a small boy on it.  As tension mounts in his chaotic office, Morty stumbles upon the missing child and has the chance to bring him home.  A surreal, quirky day-in-the-life story of self-discovery, Missing Persons is now available on DVD. 

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