It is 12:30 a.m. on a Thursday night, and freshman Dan Fox returns to his dorm room as the laughs of jubilant—if slightly intoxicated—college students echo through the backyard quadrangle of East Campus. For Fox, however, it has been one of many long nights of script reading and film editing for his writing class.
When most Duke freshmen hear the words “Writing 20,” they think of endless readings, lengthy papers and that unpleasant animal known to many as the core curriculum. But for Fox and the 23 other students in Professor Bradley Hammer’s class “Dorm Room Documentaries,” a simple core requirement may very well be the first step toward the prestigious Sundance Film Festival in Utah next January.
Throughout the semester, Hammer’s two Writing 20 sections have worked to produce a 118-minute feature film that they hope to debut April 21. Hammer presented his students with a movie topic and storyline in January that they have revised and edited over the past three months. The movie, Hammer said, is a story about students who are taking a filmmaking class; a murder mystery will produce an unexpected twist at the end.
Fifty to 60 people, including the students in the class and an additional 25 student actors who were selected through auditions in late January, comprise a sizeable production team. Most of the pivotal scenes will be shot in the next two weeks.
As they enter the final weeks of preparation before the big day, the students are balancing the fatigue stemming from long nights pouring over scripts with the exciting prospect of creating a full-length motion picture. But amid the murmurings of Sundance, the production team remains focused on the film’s release in less than three weeks.
“For a group of 24 students having no budget except for what I paid for out of my pocket, and having three months to make a full length motion picture, I think it’s incredible,” Hammer said.
Hammer, a Mellon Lecturing Fellow who has previously produced documentaries on the writing process, created the course to combine critical examination of cinematography with the production of a feature-length presentation.
On top of the movie, students have to submit two written assignments every week and will hand in a final paper at the end of the semester. In order to make them fun and interesting, Hammer said he has always attempted to add an extra component to his writing courses. In past years, he has created a magazine and an online journal.
“You gotta have fun, but in the context of some kind of meaningful learning at the same time,” Hammer said. “The whole idea of the movie is to produce something that is real, that the kids can be proud of, that they can show off, that’s actually out in the world, and then the writing they do makes more sense to them.”
Many of the freshmen in the class were enthused when they first found out that there was an alternative to the normal Writing 20 experience.
“Basically, it was an opportunity to turn my Writing 20 class into making a movie,” freshman Chiara McPhee said.
Some of the freshmen in the course will call it a wrap after handing in their final paper in May, but others, like McPhee, hope to continue the project as part of an independent study or extracurricular film club.
“To really do this right is probably going to take into next year,” Hammer said.
Doing it “right,” however, has taken much more than just time. Coordinating the project has been difficult at certain points, Hammer said, due in large part to the limited experience of those involved. There are also the demands of school, work and day-to-day life. Students have had to juggle making a movie in three months with their normal course load, and Hammer said he has been away from home more than his wife would like.
Everyone involved, however, is confident that the project will be well worth the effort in the end.
“If we can actually pull it off and pull it off well, I think it will go far just because of the people behind it,” McPhee said.
But is “pulling it off well” good enough to make it to Sundance, one of the major independent film festivals that draws international attention every year? When Fox first heard about the possibility of submitting the film to Sundance, he greeted the idea with simultaneous surprise and enthusiasm.
“I was definitely pretty psyched to hear that we could get to that level, but we’re really not worrying about that now,” Fox said. “Right now we’re really just worried about getting it done.”
The students hope to submit the movie to local film festivals in Durham and Raleigh by next fall, build up a “buzz” and then begin to think about other possibilities, Hammer said. While Sundance would be nice, Hammer and his students are keeping things in perspective.
“Honestly, if the movie’s awful, it’s still worth it. I’ve had so much fun doing this, and I’ve learned so much about filmmaking,” Fox said, leaning back in his desk chair after a long night of editing. “No matter what, it’s still a success in my mind.”
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