“Behind the Lens: Discover How Shari Hamrick Grewal Transformed Film Set Dreams into Director’s Reality”
Shari Hamrick Grewal
Yeah, so Sergeant stubby is an independent animated film, which is very difficult to pull off. And Richard Lanny is the writer director, and he launched a company called fund Academy, where he brings history to life in a fun way, where it’s actually educational, but you don’t feel like you’re getting a lesson. So he wanted to bring this true story. This is a true story about a real dog. His real name is Sergeant stubby. And he was a, you know, a mutt out on the streets in Connecticut and ended up getting adopted by a young army, infantry group and man named Conroy, Robert Corney. And this dog ended up going to France and being in the war, and actually saved a French village and a bunch of soldiers and became a huge hero. And there’s a big statue of him now that they put in in Connecticut. He was part of the 102nd division of the army. He was actually awarded the rank of Sergeant the first furry animal to receive that rank. He’s in the Smithsonian Institute. So, this is a true story. And the fun part of it is, is that it’s a way for what our experience has been in sharing this movie. I’m even I’ve got 80-year-old veterans. I’m like, I don’t want to watch a cartoon. I’m like, this is not a part of this animated bear. So, they all call me up after Oh, my God, I cried. Oh, my God, I laughed. That’s just the best thing I ever saw. They really, really love it. And it’s also cool because they can sit there with their grandchildren and their great grandchildren, and watch something about a topic that they aren’t able really to figure out how do you discuss service? How to do they discuss that they served in a war? Most of them, of course, are not from World War One, these are guys from either Vietnam or Korea, that are elderly, World War Two, and we’ve almost lost all of our I mean, just based on the time goes by and a lot of them have aged and have passed out, passed away. I mean, not passed out, passed away. But this is a cool way to bridge that gap of those topics from people who are in service on, on what the camaraderie and the buddyhood and do it in a safe way that those topics can be discussed. Like most of the kids I interviewed after my big screenings with variety kids and the boys and girls clubs that we did, you know, they took away things like, wow, I didn’t know how the Spanish flu happened, because the Spanish flu was in the movie. So they were learning bits of history in a safe way in a celebratory way with this dog. I mean, certainly there’s a little bit of a war action and things like that. But the topics are handled in an age-appropriate way. And then at Fun Academy’s website, they have coloring books that we partnered with, you know, educational in the history, teachers associations and things like that, where busloads of kids can come and watch Sergeant Subby. So, the reason we’re sharing it now is we’re redoing a re-release theatrically for this Veterans Day holiday, 7 to 11. We’re going to re -release it theaters across the country. And we’re also letting people know that Fun Academy is going to be making Sergeant Subby two, which is more adventures about the dog and what happened to him before and after the war. Fun stuff like that. But the powerful thing about this is that this was done as an independent movie. So it was raised with independent money, shot independently without any studio help. Paramount’s going to take it out on kind of like a home video DVD thing. It’ll be also it’s available right now. But they’re doing a big push again for December following our 11-11 re-release in theaters. It’s a very special story about a true furry hero in our country.
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