New Movie Shows Life of US Teachers(2/3)

"We wanted it to feel like a documentary. True documentarians don't try to interrupt the process of the subject. They are at the mercy of the subject as far as the boom operators and camera operators. So that is what we wanted. We wanted to keep everyone on edge."

Chris Mass, who plays history teacher Mr. Stroope in "Chalk," says real life school administrators who have roles in the film worked well with the improvisation. "Both of those assistant principal and principal are real and you just kind of tell them, 'Here is what we are going to do in this scene' and 'just play yourself and do what you do."

In coming up with the characters and storyline, Mass and Akel drew on their own experiences as teachers and they both have strong feelings about the profession and definite opinions on why the job has become so hard.

Mass says part of the problem is that teachers today have to compete with a huge world of mass media and movies for the attention of students.