Film Studies at Trinity College
Film 309: Making Coaching Colburn
www.coachingcolburn.com
Student created production company logo.
In the fall of 2013, Trinity College offered an unusually ambitious film production class with the unassuming title “Film 309.” Not listed in the course catalog, students applied to take the class in person and were selected via an interview process. In the end, eleven students were chosen and challenged to conceive, script, shoot, finish and market a cinema-quality short film in one semester.
The class started with an accelerated version of the story development process, in which each student created or evaluated a dozen story ideas, either original concepts or existing scripts. Among the 130 story ideas considered, one student pitched a profile of her cousin, who suffers from a developmental disorder called Fragile X. The idea won the day, and the students tentatively entitled their project “The X-Factor.”
Breaking into teams, students began training on two Canon DSLR cameras, lighting and sound equipment, and also conducted pre-interviews with their subjects, the Colburn Family, via phone.
Two weeks later, the students loaded their equipment into cars and traveled to the Colburns’ home in the seaside town of Newburyport, Massachusetts, for a three day shoot. Functioning as an eleven-person crew through long, intense days, the students formed personal and professional bonds with each other, as well as with their subjects. They grew especially close to James, who had the time of his life as the “cowboy movie star” he had always wanted to be.
Returning to Trinity, the first job was to transcribe and log the hours of footage the students had collected. A script was quickly generated, and picture editing began in parallel on eleven Final Cut Pro workstations. The result was sound designed, mixed, and color graded into a 16 minute serio-comic memoir infused with the larger-than-life personality of James Colburn and the caring family and friends that surround him.
As a final task, the students created a logo, title treatment, poster, website and press kit to promote the film to festivals, as well as to a general audience.
The first public screening of Coaching Colburn took place at Trinity College on February 4th, 2014.
The students of Film 309 and proud creators of Coaching Colburn were:
Sachika Balvani
Katherine Brandl
Briana Chang
Avery Dwyer
Benjamin Green
Alexander Hirschl
Alexandra Kozar
Avery Paskal
Denicia Peterson
Rebecca Smith
Paroma Soni
The instructor was filmmaker Jeff Bemiss.
Film Studies @ Trinity College
www.trincoll.edu/Arts/Pages/FilmStudies
The Interdisciplinary Program in Film Studies at Trinity draws on courses in film studies and production taught in sixteen of the College’s departments and programs.
Though the program is based in core courses that emphasize the aesthetic and theoretical traditions specific to Film Studies, the study of film by its very nature engages other domains and disciplines. History, politics, philosophy, psychology, culture, theatre, literature, music and visual art are all potentially implicated in the experience of film, and our courses invite students to explore the multiple dimensions of cinematic experience.
The program offers production and screenwriting courses, internships, a study abroad production program, and the option of a senior production thesis. The Interdisciplinary Major and Minor in Film Studies ground students in three basic aspects of the field—film history, film theory, and film production—while at the same time providing flexibility for deeper exploration within each area of interest.
CINESTUDIO THEATER
www.cinestudio.org
Located in the heart of Trinity’s campus, Cinestudio is known throughout Hartford for its large screen, 70mm projection capability, balcony seating, and 1930s movie palace atmosphere. Showing a mix of quality Hollywood, independent and classic films, a season of Cinestudio programming is, in itself, a veritable film school education.
Cinestudio hosts several film festivals as well as regular visits by established screenwriters, directors and producers. It is routinely recognized as Hartford’s premier destination for film-lovers.
TRINITY FILM FESTIVAL
www.trinityfilmfestival.org
www.facebook.com/TrinityFilmFestival
