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Current and former students of the Documentary Film class taught by Andrew Smith, assistant professor of English and chair of American studies, will screen their films 8 p.m. today and Tuesday in Oechsle Hall room 224.
Filmmakers in the current class will screen and discuss their original documentary shorts on “The Lafayette Experience” tonight. A reception and awards presentation will follow.
Last year, Superfan, a film by English major Amy Banas ’04 (Bixby, Okla.) and Paul Germain ’04 (Coral Springs, Fla.), a double major in English and art, swept the Jury, Filmmakers’, and Audience Awards at the documentary film festival.
Towers of Shadow and Light, a 62-minute film produced as a companion piece to the main summer reading for the class of 2009, Art Spiegelman’s graphic diary In the Shadow of No Towers, will be shown tomorrow.
Smith and John O’Keefe ’96, director of academic technology services, directed the film, which will be shown during first-year orientation in conjunction with discussion of the summer reading. It features discussions, interviews, and reactions to the book by students, faculty, staff, and Spiegelman himself.
This summer, the class of 2009 will receive the book, the film, and excerpts from the 2003 State of the Union address by President Bush, which made the case for the U.S. response to Sept. 11. Supplemental materials will include an image of Freedom Flag Story: On Tuesday Morning, an artwork by Faith Ringgold expressing the idea that America’s freedom will not be compromised by the events of Sept. 11.
The film features 59 separate speakers from the Lafayette community, plus Spiegelman. It has nine chapters: The Book, Comix, Politics, Offense, Patriotism, Humor, History, The Media, and Memory. Students are encouraged to study the chapters individually and to create their own sequence through the chapters of the film.
“The original idea to produce a documentary film began with a desire to embrace the complexities of visual culture suggested by Spiegelman’s book, to extend those complexities by adding another complex visual art form (film), and to offer an active model of intellectual debate to incoming students,” says Smith. “The fact that current Lafayette students worked on the film should also be of interest to incoming students, as is the fact that the film was produced using equipment and facilities in Skillman Library that are available to all Lafayette students.”
A five-student production team worked extensively on the film, serving as camera operators and editing assistants and doing creative advising: Alexis Siemons ’05(Moorestown, N.J.), who has a personalized major in communications and culture,and former Documentary Film students Mike Bruno ’05 (Massapequa Park, N.Y.), a Marquis Scholar and double major in economics & business and English; Suzi Ryder ’05, a Marquis Scholar and English major; Matt Schleifer ’05 (Rahway, N.J.), an English major; and Jaclyn Smith ’07 (Saugus, Calif.), a double major in English and psychology. The 16 current students of Documentary Film also worked with early footage of the project, learning Final Cut Pro editing software with project footage and serving as creative advisers.
Towers of Shadow and Light was produced by Andrew Smith and Ed Kerns, Eugene H. Clapp II ’36 Professor of Art, and edited by O’Keefe, with videography by E.J. Hudock, instructional technology facilities coordinator. Gladstone “Fluney” Hutchison, dean of studies, is executive producer. Lew Minter, head of the media lab at the Williams Visual Arts Building, is art director and Pat Facciponti, instructional technologist, led the DVD menu design.
