Excitement was palpable at Suffolk University’s Modern Theatre March 7, as a packed crowd settled into their seats for the premiere screening of “Keytar Bear,” a 12-minute film directed by Kely Maloney.
The film tells the story of Boston’s infamous Keytar Bear, who can be seen playing music on his keytar throughout the streets of Downtown Boston.
The film’s website’s description of the project is “A street busker dedicates his life to uncovering and defeating the evils that plague his home. Unable to work within the system, he instead creates a new identity, a symbol of fear for the criminal underworld – Keytar Bear.”
Those in attendance were treated to the 12-minute film and a Q&A panel moderated by Suffolk’s Matthew Dezii, while also getting the chance to directly ask questions to Maloney, Carson Stiles, Megan Defaz, Bella Ramirez and her brother Ethan.
When Maloney first saw someone dressed as a bear playing the keytar at the Boston Common, he naturally wondered what was going on. As he did some more research into the mysterious bear, he saw a story that could be told.
“From there, it was just tracking him down and getting his number,” said Maloney. “If you seek them out a couple times, then they’ll start to get used to you being around and then they’ll get comfortable.”
As Maloney’s idea became more and more real, he enlisted the help of Stiles, Lydia Comprosky, Ramirez, Defaz and many others to help tell the story of the Bear that had taken Boston by storm.
With a crew assembled, the next task was determining how to tell the story. Maloney credits Comprosky for coming up with an idea to portray him as a superhero figure. From that point on, they decided to add animation and comics to the film.
As Maloney put it, “a superhero needs a comic.”
Ramirez liked the idea of animation because of the differences it has from directing real people while shooting a film.
“You have control of whatever you want and you don’t have to make people do things, so it’s easier,” said Ramirez.
Part of the process of gathering footage for the film included filming Keytar Bear on the streets while playing, which drew the attention of a Reddit user. A post went up with the caption “Keytar Bear has a film crew now?”
“It got mixed reviews,” said Stiles. “That Reddit post, mixed upvotes and downvotes.”
While they don’t know how much traction they gained online from that one Reddit post, they did get plenty of people coming through the Modern Theatre doors when premiere day arrived. 122 people took their seats for the 3 p.m. screening, with 140 people in attendance for the 7:30 p.m. screening the same day.
Despite long hours of planning, interviewing, filming and editing a film on the man known as Keytar Bear, his public identity still remains anonymous. Even to some members of the crew.
“I still don’t know what his face looks like,” said Stiles. “I don’t know his real name or anything. He’s just Keytar Bear to us.”
The journey of the film didn’t end with the two screenings at Modern Theatre. The crew plans to enter the film into film festivals across New England, and hopefully come back with an award or two.
