Spotlight on... Sam Morrill '08

Author: Melissa Marshall

Currently your friendly Digital Media Lab Assistant, recent graduate Sam Morrill '08 not only knows how to supervise the film making process, but he also has an impressive body of creative work. Perhaps the most intriguing is his recent film set in Havana, Cuba that will be screened in Dana Auditorium on Tuesday, Jan. 27 at 8 p.m.

The Middlebury Campus: Why Cuba?
Sam Morrill: I decided to go to Cuba because I had already traveled a bit in Latin America and I studied Spanish for a while. I knew that one of the only ways I could go legally was through study abroad, so pretty much as early as high school I knew I wanted to study in Cuba.

TC: How did you get there?
SM: I technically could have gone through Miami, but it was cheaper and more convenient to go through Toronto.

TC: What genre of film did you make?
SM: It's a fiction narrative piece. A sort of romantic dramedy with a mystery. Or like a travel film as well.

TC: What were some of the challenges of filming in an impoverished country? The rewards?
SM: Lots of challenges. For example, this was a film that was made entirely without cell phones. So mobilizing a 10-person crew for a seven-day shoot was often times a difficult task. It required a lot of organization. One of the advantages, obviously, was that it was cheaper to shoot there. Feeding a cast and crew of 10 people was something feasible in my budget as a student. Some of the bigger challenges were not necessarily related to the poverty there so much as the government - some of the restrictions on speech, especially. When I finished writing the screenplay and was trying to get support from the local film school there, I had to give it to the Ministry of Culture to get censored basically. Nothing was taken out of it, but I kind of wrote it knowing I couldn't make anything controversial by their standards.

TC: What's one memorable story that sticks out?
SM: The first day of shooting - literally the first shot - was a take of Gabriel picking up Angela from the airport. Shooting at the airport is strictly prohibited. This was especially true because a month earlier there had been a hijacking attempt on one of the planes. So security was especially high. We showed up with a car packed with the film crew and decided to try to get the shot from inside the car and drive away. And we messed up on the first take. Gabriel had to go into reverse and go in for another take and as we did that a cop stepped out. We were held aside for a half an hour and questioned. We were running the risk of having our camera confiscated and the movie almost didn't get made right there. Fortunately, my producer managed to talk our way out of the situation and we eventually got the shot.

TC: You mentioned a budget earlier. Where did you get your funding?
SM: I funded it myself. The film cost about $600 to make and most of that went to renting the car that was not only the prop in the film, but also our transportation.

TC: Did any professional influences go into this film?
SM: Let me think about.

TC: Ouch, strike one. How about student work?
SM: Not necessarily regarding my film, but I have definitely admired the work done by Astri Von Arbin Ahlander '07 and Perry Blackshear '05. They proved to me that you could do very professional looking work on a small budget.

TC: Common art question, but did you create the film with any angle in mind?
SM: First and foremost, it's definitely a form of entertainment. But I think I wanted to try to go at Cuba in a somewhat even-handed, apolitical approach. Because just about everything regarding Cuba tends to be politicized in some way, whether it's pro-Castro or anti-Castro, pro-American or anti-American. I kind of wanted to strike a balance and focus on a story that doesn't have anything to do with politics but that is still relevant to the current situation in Cuba and the outlook of most young Cuban people.