How filmmaker Kevin Shaw shaped Chicago schools controversy into the rousing documentary ‘Let the Little Light Shine’
CHICAGO — We’ll get to the high point — the explosive reception so far for filmmaker Kevin Shaw’s irresistible Chicago documentary “Let the Little Light Shine” — in a minute.
But first, a long-ago moment of reckoning.
Late 2003. The film: “National Treasure,” starring Nicolas Cage. Then in his early 30s, already with considerable experience working on sports documentaries for ESPN, Shaw served as a Directors Guild of America trainee on that Disney movie.
“Four different locations throughout New Jersey and Lower Manhattan,” Shaw recalls. “Eighteen, 20-hour days. My job was to assist the assistant directors, do the production report, get lunches or dinners for people, and get lambasted for getting anything wrong.”
One night, “at the end of, like, 20 hours, I had to go back to the production office somewhere in Little Italy, I think, and someone tells me the crew needs something to
