Marist Filmmaking Students in Lake Placid
The 2011 Team Marist poses in front of the Lake Placid Olympic Center
with the Audience Choice Award. Fron left to right, Ryan Rivard,
Michael Caiola, Nicholas Sortino, and Jonathan O'Sullivan
Every June, the Media Arts Department sends a team of four students to compete in the "Sleepless in Lake Placid" 24-hour filmmaking contest, which is part of the annual Lake Placid Film Forum.
In this competition, teams from five colleges and universities are given twenty-four hours to write, produce, and edit a film. The teams cast their films from a common pool of actors and must include certain pre-defined elements into their stories. These elements change from year to year, and might include lines of dialogue and visual icons of Lake Placid culture.
Marist first competed in June 2011, when teams were required to incorporate the Lake Placid Olympic Center, site of the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics. Team Marist produced Maybe Tomorrow about a figure skater who is reconciled with her estranged father. The film won the Audience Choice Award (see above).
Shooting a scene from Maybe Tomorrow on the ice in the Lake Placid Olympic Center
Watch Maybe Tomorrow (10 min)
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The 2012 "Sleepless in Lake Placid" rules stipulated that students use Lake Placid's majestic movie theatre, the Palace, for one of their films' settings. Team Marist filmed The Wild, the tale of a pair of mischievous young people inspired by a crime movie to attempt a robbery. Their plan goes terribly wrong when one of them is shot.
Team Marist shoots a scene in front of Lake Placid's Palace Theatre in which the main characters hatch a plot to commit a robbery.
Watch The Wild (8 min)
Ryan Rivard, right, directs Christian Rozakis in a scene from The Wild.
Christian's performance as a would-be criminal turned gunshot victim
garnered the award for Best Actor.
Jon O'Sullivan mans the Steadicam
Nick Homler adjusts a light
Dean Silfen operates the microphone boom
Cinematographer Jon O'Sullivan discusses shot framing with faculty advisor Jeff Bass
