In 2011, award-winning independent filmmaker Jay Craven and his Kingdom County Productions founded a semester-long film intensive at Marlboro College. The pioneering program ran for several years, providing invaluable experience to 96 students from 23 colleges and universities around the world. In addition, the program produced three independent films featuring award-winning actors that have played nationally in theaters, at festivals, on Netflix, Amazon, Showtime, and more.
Today, this film intensive program takes up residence at Sarah Lawrence College, where it is directed by Craven and film department chairman Fred Strype. Named “Cinema Sarah Lawrence” and backed by the resources of the College and its Filmmaking and Moving Image Arts program, the program has blossomed into a semester-long experience that is unique and unparalleled to any study away film program in the United States. With just 36 students, the program comprises sophomores, juniors, and seniors from colleges like Skidmore, Middlebury, UVM, and, of course, Hamilton.
The 2019 spring semester kicked off with a week-long excursion to Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, from Jan. 24–31. Students stayed at the conveniently-located Chateau Apres Ski Lodge, just a minute walk from the Park City Library festival venue and two minutes from the Sundance shuttle that connects to each theater. During the week, students enjoyed a daily routine of screenings and special events. Everyone kept journals to write about and discuss the films they saw and the experiences they had.
After Sundance, students and faculty traveled from Sundance to the film’s shooting location — the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts. The film slated for production this spring is
Martin Eden
, based on Jack London’s intensely personal autobiographical novel. Set in the early 1900s, it tells the story of an impoverished and unschooled young sailor, Martin Eden, who unexpectedly meets Ruth Morse, a young woman of means and education. Their unconventional attraction upends both lives and propels themes of impossible love, the confines of class, aspiration to the American Dream, survival as an artist, and the quest for a secure place in an inconstant world. The screenplay for
Martin Eden
was developed by Sarah Lawrence College students in Jay Craven’s class, The Art of Adaptation: Screenplays and Films Developed from Other Forms of Literature. Further screenplay development and revisions took place during Cinema Sarah Lawrence’s pre-production period on Nantucket. The film began shooting on March 25 and is set to wrap by May 3.
For six weeks prior to shooting, students were immersed in classes, film department workshops, screenings, discussions with visiting artists, casting, and hands-on pre-production. The professionals that led these workshops included the director Jay Craven, director of photography David Dolnik, producer Stephanie Serra, production designer Maryam Khosravi, costume designer Avery Reed, line producer Eve Symington, and editor Patrick Kennedy. A literature studies teacher, Stephen Morison, also joined the program, as did recent alumni now working in the field, who assisted in the production department. Approximately two weeks before the start of production, other professionals in the camera department and grip and electric began to arrive to help lead classes and make final preparations for production.
Students were divided up into five film department workshops that generally met three times a week for three hours each. These workshops included cinematography, film production, production design, costume design, and post-production. In these workshops, students learned what they would need to know and do for production, and began to move into the positions they would fill.
The workshop I chose was post-production, in which students edit first assemblies of the film in Adobe Premiere Pro, assemble dailies, and sync video and audio. Our group worked hands-on to develop a rough cut of the feature film, guided by a professional editor and the director.
Many kinds of students, not just film students, benefitted from the program. As a Cinema and Media Studies and Neuroscience double major, the skills I’ve refined from being in this program include critical thinking, creative interpretation, flexibility, and risk-taking in the process of creative discovery. I also acquired practical skills in the many specific jobs that are required to make a narrative feature film or television program, skills which can only be learned through hands-on experience. Not only was this experience beneficial to students individually, but also as valuable experience in the entertainment industry that future employers will look on with favor. Even though we have three weeks remaining of the program, I am truly going to miss the friends that I’ve made and the once in a lifetime experience of being on a feature film set. Stay tuned next year for the release of
Martin Eden
!
