Film School

“We wanted to be an outlet {for} interest in the alternative film world,” said Jamil Munoz, undergraduate film student at SU and one of the creators of Dropped Frames. “We’re picking up the other end of the spectrum.”

The idea for Dropped Frames sprung up at the end of last spring, when Munoz, Danila Usov, an undergraduate film student, and Jess Lance, an SU graduate student in film, wanted to bring more artists to campus. When Lance and Munoz approached Soon-Mi Yoo, an assistant professor of film, she encouraged them to make their idea official. Her advice soon lead to the creation of Dropped Frames, said Munoz.

Last year, not only did the society host the first annual Upstate New York Film Festival on campus, but it held a special film event in March dubbed “One Take Super 8.” The group got 15 to 20 filmmakers to use classic Super 8 film to shoot a three-minute video. The directors handed the unedited film to Dropped Frames, which later presented the work at Funk N’ Waffles, where the audience and directors saw the films for the first time. The venue was packed. “People were standing at the door during the middle just to watch the stuff,” he said.

After spending the rest of the semester getting established so people wouldn’t think Dropped Frames was just a “rat-pack group throwing stuff together at the last minute,”



Munoz organized the second annual Upstate New York Film Festival, which ran Sept. 25 at SU’s Gifford Auditorium. The free, two-hour fest featured work from SU students, faculty and other regional filmmakers. Although all films had to be less than 40 minutes, the only other criteria was that all had to come from people living or studying in the region, said Munoz.

The nine films shown at the event ranged from experimental art cinema—like Sook Hyun Kim’s comment on anxiety, death and disease in her nine-minute film, The Conversation with Dr. Mouse—to more straightforward work, like Chris Toppino’s Lady Feet, in which a young painter is not only cheated on by his girlfriend, but is sexuality exploited by the woman who broke up his relationship: his girlfriend’s best friend.

Other upcoming participants will include Ronnie Bronstein, who drops by SU on Oct. 14 to screen and discuss his new film, Frownland. Bronstein was nominated for the “Someone To Watch” award at the 2008 Independent Spirit Awards, scheduled for Feb. 21.

Lance Hammer will discuss and show his award-winning first feature film, Ballast, on Nov. 11. Hammer won the Dramatic Directing Award for the film at last year’s Sundance Film Festival. The lecture will run from 2 to 5 p.m., while the film showing will take place at 8 p.m. in SU’s Shemin Auditorium. The events are free and open to the public.

As for other film events, Dropped Frames has a few ideas in the works but no definite plans yet. “We’ve been talking about doing a regular cinematheque where we screen things out of class,” said Munoz, “the things most won’t necessarily see.”

For more information about upcoming Dropped Frames events, visit http://droppedframes.blogspot.com.

—Alexandra Kish