Q&A: Cinema and pictures alum screens award-winning characteristic at Cinemapolis

“Stationed at Home,” the debut characteristic movie written and directed by Daniel V. Masciari ’15, premieres at Cinemapolis on The Commons on March 19. The screening shall be adopted by a Q&A with the filmmaker and several other forged members. The movie takes place on Christmas Eve in 1998 and follows a taxi driver anxious to catch a glimpse of the International Space Station throughout his in a single day shift. His plans are interrupted by a forged of eccentric strangers who collectively, by the top of the night time, study extra about their place on this planet. “Stationed at Home” has premiered at a number of movie festivals together with Glasgow Film Festival, Buffalo International Film Festival and Brooklyn Film Festival. 

Masciari studied cinema manufacturing and minored in philosophy at Ithaca College and has labored professionally as an editor since graduating. In 2015, Masciari was featured on Variety’s 110 students to watch list. He has been engaged on “Stationed at Home” for the final six years.

Life & Culture Editor Parker Anne Devine spoke with Masciari about “Stationed at Home” and his time at IC as he prepares to return to Ithaca for the screening. 

This interview has been edited for size and readability. 

Parker Anne Devine: Where did you get the inspiration for “Stationed at Home?” 

Daniel V. Masciari: I used to be on a bus going from New York City to Ithaca, New York, and we stopped in Binghamton. It was a chilly winter night time, and I stepped out, stretched my legs, and I used to be listening to the track “Dusk” by Duke Ellington. Something in regards to the chilly, the winter and the look of Binghamton, seeing this outdated, deserted, large constructing on a practice observe, one thing about that actually conjured up an actual feeling in me that there’s one thing right here. Something about that, mixed with the music, actually struck a twine in my soul, after which I imagined my pal Erik Bjarnar, who performs Ralph, driving a cab within the distance. It felt like I used to be in a comfortable blanket. One factor led to a different, and I had the primary draft of the movie. I used to be simply actually obsessive about town of Binghamton, and my creativeness went from there.

PD: Is there one thing or somebody that you’d cite as your greatest inspiration style-wise? 

DM: As I used to be writing the movie, and all through the whole course of, I used to be actually simply centered on staying true to that feeling of coming off of that bus. … The metropolis of Binghamton, the actors within the movie and even my cinematographer, Jackson Jarvis, who was with me from the primary draft I despatched him, these are folks that actually encourage me. We have been actually making an attempt to remain true to this concept of strangers who discover magic within the mundane on a really chilly winter night time in a really surprising place. 

PD: When you’re creating these characters based mostly on those who , what’s your course of once you’re writing? 

DM: It’s attention-grabbing, as a result of a lot of appearing, it doesn’t matter what type of a personality you’re enjoying, is all about empathy. You have to search out one thing within the character that makes you perceive how they settle for who they’re. No matter who they’re, it’s important to discover one thing in them that permits them to be who they’re with out occupied with it an excessive amount of. The actors in my movie are so gifted, they’re superstars. … It was numerous enjoyable to discover the characters with them, as a result of they’d get concepts for his or her characters and that might inform a second within the movie in a extremely distinctive method. It felt like a really existential course of, from the highest, from all of the occasions Jackson and I’d take Greyhound buses to Binghamton from Brooklyn simply to discover the alleyways within the cities earlier than we have been even near with the ability to movie. That was an enormous a part of the method. It was an unimaginable six 12 months journey.

PD: How do you are feeling like your experiences as a scholar at IC ready you for creating this movie?

DM: Going to IC actually fulfilled my creativeness, largely due to the places. Ithaca and the encompassing space is so fruitful of places, and being part of this system at IC allowed me to discover among the most stunning and eclectic places a filmmaker might dream of. Especially once you need movies to really feel genuine and actual, you haven’t any higher canvas than this space. Just an hour south is Binghamton, an hour north is Syracuse, a number of hours west is Buffalo. You have this actually huge array of choices to movie. 

PD: What recommendation would you give to IC college students and younger aspiring filmmakers who’re all for making their very own characteristic movie?

DM: If it retains you up at night time not doing it, you need to do it. … As lengthy as everybody loves being round one another and imagines in the identical mission, then it’s going to be an journey in contrast to another. You must be craving for that type of an journey in an effort to do it.