Jonathan Plante is a pizza delivery guy who’s taking his career in his hands. Not his oh-so-promising pizza delivery career, of course… I’m talking about that film career he’s shooting for. He’s embarking upon an interesting and original project that promises to be both educational and entertaining – while also providing lots of opportunities for resume credits for other up-and-comers in the area.

As I sat across from this attractive, enthusiastic twenty-something, I could see that he is one of those people that has a problem sitting still. That energy should serve him well for a project of this scope. I’m sure he’ll need all that energy and enthusiasm and more.

After three years of majoring in Film Studies at Old Dominion University, it occurred to this outgoing and enthusiastic student that what we still needed to learn about film production could only be learned through doing. In a talk with Conrad Winters, an ODU professor, about thoughts for a new film class, Jonathan came up with the idea to recreate scenes from classic movies. By emulating great filmmakers, he and the others who work with him can learn the processes the originals when through. All in the pursuit of becoming better filmmakers. Of course, this idea was a bit cost-prohibitive for a classroom setting, so thus was born Students of Film.

Thanks to some fortunate real estate deals, Jonathan is planning to fund the entire project personally – not that he’d turn down a donation or anything. He’s already garnered lot of interest from the ODU community, plus he’s planning on having a big hiring/audition week in the near future.

Pretty much everyone who shows up will be able to have some sort of involvement, even if they just want to watch and learn.

Jonathan’s plan is to pick scenes from certain movies based on what kind of things those scenes require. The more variety the better. The list is still growing based on suggestions from the Students of Film message board. The current front-runners are Fight Club, Office Space, He Got Game, Cat People, Little Women, Sin City, A Clockwork Orange, A League of Their Own, Monty Python’s Search for the Holy Grail, Seven, The Maltese Falcon, The Shining, and Reservoir Dogs.

Each movie has a different movie-making experience to offer. For instance, Sin City requires no sets and lots of digital work. The Holy Grail requires elaborate makeup, costumes and set construction, not to mention British accents and comedy acting. A League of Their Own will need an all female cast, outdoor lighting, and lots of camera movement.

Due to copyrights and legal stuff, Students of Film will not be able to make money off of the scenes they film. They can however make money off of the documentary Jonathan plans to make about the process. He also plans to repeat this project later this year… the hope being that he can make enough money off of the documentaries to film

an original work next year.

Dates have not been finalized yet, but the audition/hiring week is planned for sometime in April, a marketing push in May, pre-production in June, and a July shoot. Updates can be found on the Students of Film webpage, and of course, we’ll be posting audition and event notices here on OHR.