Computer Science major Hazen Woolson ’08 of Keene, N.H., got a camera his senior year in high school and has been shooting films ever since.
“I like being behind the camera,” Woolson said. “The storytelling aspects, showing something visually without words, are really interesting.”
Woolson is one of 16 students in “Documentary Filmmaking: Filtering your World,” taught by Troy native and visiting filmmaker Jim de Sève.
De Sève’s contacts in the industry have provided a steady stream of filmmakers to the College, including Academy Award-winning documentary Director and Cinematographer Cynthia Wade. Wade will present her Oscar-winning short documentary, “Freeheld,” Friday, May 16 at 3:15 p.m. in Sorum House.
The 38-minute film chronicles New Jersey Police Lt. Laurel Hester’s struggle to transfer her earned pension to her domestic partner. The film also received the Special Jury Prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and screened in 45 film festivals, 26 states and seven countries, garnering 11 additional film awards.
Sponsored by Spectrum, the Minerva Program and Film Studies, this screening is a special preview before the film debuts on Cinemax Reel Life in June.
Union introduced its new Film Studies minor last fall. Program directors are Associate Professors Michelle Chilcoat (Modern Languages and Literatures) and Andrew Feffer (History).
“It would be great to have a campus that becomes more film literate each year,” said Feffer, “not just in the sense of being able to appreciate classic films or art film, but to understand the world better through film.”
De Sève’s class is less about the technical side of filmmaking and more about learning to tell a story visually.
“The biggest mistake documentary filmmakers make,” de Sève said, “is telling all your facts up front. You need to hook the audience and reveal the facts a little bit at a time.”
With a background in still photography and a passion for real-life stories, de Sève said “the filmmaker should not be ‘removed’ from the story. It’s more intimate and personal if he becomes a character.”
By term’s end, students will have developed synopses for their final project, a short documentary that will have a public screening on campus. Woolson’s project highlights two local immigrants who have owned and run Pizza King in downtown Schenectady for 20 years.
The course will be offered again in the fall.