Imagine yourself on the set of a breathless action-adventure flick shooting in Vermont on an oppressively hot summer day. Pretend that technicians are about to mount a dangerous stunt involving a car careening off the road and rolling down a hill. Your critical job in this key scene is to make sure the local population - a herd of Holsteins - doesn't eat the equipment. Sound farfetched? Not for Jennifer Latham, a volunteer on the set of Diamond Run, the second feature by director David Giancola about a jewel heist that goes terribly awry. The 25-year-old Burlington resident, currently waitressing between films, had to travel a winding path to Rutland for this golden opportunity.
Latham, originally from Putney, first became interested in film when she volunteered at the Vermont International Film Festival four years ago. A 1993 University of Vermont graduate, she then enrolled in a class on the history of documentary film at the UVM a year later. As her final project for this course, students were asked to devise a synopsis and budget for a "dream" documentary as a theoretical exercise.
Latham, however, was spending her summer working at a fishery in remote Yakutat, Alaska. So she decided to forgo the theoretical and began videotaping a piece on the local fishing industry with her father's camcorder. "I shot about 16 hours of footage, following the salmon from hook to table," she recalls, acknowledging that portions of her opus suffer from technical difficulties. Latham hopes to complete the project someday because she believes that documentaries provide a solid foundation for fictionalized film making.
Fish-free in Burlington the following summer, Latham met technical consultant Jon Miller at the local film festival, who invited her down to Rutland to watch the unfolding of Diamond Run. When Latham arrived in Rutland in late August, she soon found herself doing odd jobs, such as tracking down fire extinguishers for a car crash scene, running to the store to buy replacement fuses, and helping out the gaffers. Gaffers - lighting specialists - asked for her help on everything from figuring out lighting arrangements to dreaming up ways to hide wires from the camera.
After a few days of this, Latham was asked to stay through the entire shoot, scheduled to last through September, an opportunity she could not resist. "My first exposure to the reality of film making is that it's not all that pretty," she says, smiling. "You haul loads of heavy equipment and then you sit there and wait." But even those times when she wasn't needed on the set were informative because Latham asked questions constantly. In that she was needed to help out in almost every phase of production, the experience proved to be a sort of crash course in film making, while also earning Latham credit as production manager.
Latham also acquired an endless supply of anecdotes about the making of Diamond Run. One day, a sheriff's car being used for an action scene broke down in the middle of filming. Latham and other crew members had to push the vehicle, rolling it fast enough to simulate movement. She found this low-tech approach fascinating. "Low budgets are very interesting for people working on films," she points out, "because, if you don't have the money to achieve an effect, you have to figure out a way to produce it effectively with what's on hand."
Another scene required the lead actress, Linda Ljoka, to witness a car bomb exploding, making it necessary to suggest the fires intense light and heat without setting off an actual conflagration. So the director of photography, John McAleer, cut a gel - a piece of colored plastic used to achieve different effects when placed in front of a light - into thin strips. When these strips flapped in the breeze, the appropriate movie magic emerged. "When you see something like that: Wow, that's film making!" Latham says appreciatively, adding that she loved the camaraderie with the crew and that the communal atmosphere that reminded her of summer camp. "You spend 12 hours a day on the set and you make all of these friends instantly. It was a lot of laughs and a lot of work."
All of that hard work as a volunteer paid off. Latham now has a paying position on a film that goes into production on June 28th. She will be the location manager for Letters to My Mothers Early Lovers, directed by Nora Jacobson of Norwich. Plus, David Giancola is tentatively planning to launch another Vermont feature, possibly titled Recoil, and she hopes to work with him again. "My goal is three films this year," she says with the enthusiasm of someone who can envision the career of her dreams. "Theres nothing else like it."
This article originally appeared in the 6/5/96 issue of VOX, an arts weekly based in Burlington, VT.
© Todd Meigs
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