Posted on May 15, 2008

Jason Katz ’10 describes his documentary film project in Visiting Professor of film Jim de Sève’s spring 2008 class: “Documentary Filmmaking: Filtering Your World.” Katz plays on a softball team that won the championship last year. They came into this sea

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,” said Woolson. “The storytelling aspects, showing something visually without words, are really interesting.”

Woodson 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.

Visiting Professor of film Jim de Sève describes how he legally used CNN footage in a movie, when they couldn’t permission from CNN, by shooting the scene with the footage on a television screen in his spring 2008 class: “Documentary Filmmaking: Filtering

The 38-minute film chronicles New Jersey Police Lieutenant 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.

The burgeoning interest in filmmaking and the Film Studies minor, which launched last fall, is heartening to 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.”

Academy Award-winning documentary Director and Cinematographer Cynthia Wade will be at Union May 16, 2008 to present her Oscar-winning short documentary “Freeheld” at 3:15 p.m. in Sorum House.

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 explained, “is telling all your facts up front. You need to hook the audience, but then reveal the facts a little bit at a time.”

Hazen Woolson ’08 edits footage for his 10-minute, documentary film project for Visiting Professor of film Jim de Sève’s spring 2008 class: “Documentary Filmmaking: filtering your world.” Woolson’s project chronicles the antics of two immigrants who have

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 elevator pitches and synopses for their final project, a six-to-12-minute documentary that will have a public screening on campus. Woolson’s project highlights two local immigrants who have owned and run Pizza King in Schenectady for the past 20 years.

“It’s about surviving as a business in Schenectady,” said Woolson. “It’s very character-based. They know their customers and joke around with them all the time.”

The course will be offered again in the fall. For more information on the Film Studies minor, contact Chilcoat at chilcoam@union.edu or (518) 388-7103.