Student production company shoots for the sky

Molly Arnn Guest Writer

Remember the name Shoot the Sky Productions—you may see it credited on the silver screen one day. Vassar filmmakers Seth Cuddeback ’08, Aaron Naar ’08 and Woodrow Travers ’09 created the company in January 2008, but it has already found astounding success. The trio produced their first film in April 2006, which won awards at the New York 48 Hour Film Project.

Film was on each of their minds as early as the college application process. Cuddeback and Travers chose Vassar for its noteworthy film department. Travers has a performing arts background and once worked as a circus clown. “I’d probably be with Ringling Brothers if I hadn’t come to Vassar,” he said.

Naar, however, was interested in communications, but never expected to be a filmmaker. Now, though, his life and film work seem seamless. “I like things that engross everything I do daily,” Naar said. “When I make a film, it reflects all; there’s no harsh separation between work and life. Our films reflect our lives,” he said.

In the production process, Cuddeback is usually the writer and co-director, Travers is the co-producer and Naar is the co-director, co-producer and director of photography. The trio edits the films together, and their roles vary depending on the production.

The filmmakers current project, Fades With Age, written by Cuddeback and now in the post-production stage.

Cuddeback traces the idea for the script to a New York Times “Science Times” article that claimed that one’s sense of humor fades with age. Cuddeback “tends to write on topical subjects,” Naar explained. “He didn’t explicitly write Fades With Age to be a critique of America’s treatment of today’s elderly, but that’s exactly what it is.”

“When you read Cuddleback’s work, you don’t realize that it’s written by a 21-year-old college kid,” Naar added.

Naar, too, meshes life and film through his documentary filmmaking. Documentary film, Naar said, is undeniably an influential medium. His latest documentary Los Hombres del Lago was accepted at Hot Docs, the most prominent documentary festival in North America, which takes place in Toronto. The film was nominated for the festival at the suggestion of a Sundance Film Festival representative. The documentary will be screened April 20-22 in Toronto.

To film the documentary, he traveled to the remote Bolivian village of Puñaca Tintamaria. “I was the first person with a camera there,” he said. “People were skeptical at first.” The tagline of the film reads, “One of the oldest villages in Latin America is now on the brink of extinction.”

The Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival in Ithaca, N.Y. and the Trenton Film Festival in New Jersey also accepted Naar’s documentary.

This summer, Travers will work in Los Angeles with director Ron Howard on Angels and Demons, while Cuddeback and Naar will open the Shoot the Sky Productions studio in Brooklyn. They hope that the production company will become an outlet for Vassar students to make films, and they are aiming to start a movement to make Vassar’s name more celebrated in the film industry.

Some students have already benefited; the professional sound recorder for Fades With Age invited the student boom operator to work on a high-budget film, where he spent several nights on the set of a massive World War II battleship.

Their Web site, shootthesky.com, will launch at the end of April and explains many ways that students can get involved in the productions. The organization Vassar Filmmakers will screen Shoot the Sky Production’s Fades with Age, Tushie Tango and About the Bells on campus before the year’s end. The members are also filming a project in the Palmer Gallery, a commentary on sexuality and modern art entitled Statue of David.

Though only students, the creators of Shoot the Sky Productions have already infiltrated the film industry and aspire to produce thought-provoking films.

“I think film is a great way to communicate; it is influential and can spur change,” Naar said.