A large laboratory room echoed with the sound of chatter from a dozen students moving lights, microphones and two state-of-the-art Sony cameras fresh from the box on April 12. The students didn’t converse about life or about the new Hollywood hit, they spoke about what they needed to do in order to get the shot right. When all was said and done, their chatter is quickly drowned by three words: “Quiet on set.”
Over the past three weeks, SIU helped host a series of Southern Illinois Film and Television workshops funded by a grant from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. The program is designed to develop an industry workforce to participate in any sort of media production activity throughout the state.
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The program was in the works for over a year and a half before it opened its applications up to the public. The program was founded in 2024 by Vanessa Sneed, associate director of SIU Research Park; Karla Berry, director of SIU’s College of Arts and Media; and Nathan Colombo, founder of the Brand Advocacy Group. The three launched the program to help aid the state of Illinois’ objective to give film production training to people who are 18 years or older with a high school diploma or GED.
“The state of Illinois is seeking to show that Illinois is not all booked up for production,” Colombo said. “In fact, we do have a workforce that is ready and able to meet the production needs of any type of film, television, digital media production that comes through the state, not just in Chicago, but also as far south as where we are here in Carbondale.”
DCEO first rejected their application for the grant due to minor clerical errors. After fixing the minor errors, the state accepted their application and started giving funding to the program.
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Emails were soon sent out to SIU students and a website was created allowing for community members to join. Forty-five people were then selected for the program and sorted into three different cohorts. Each student has to hit 80 hours of training in order to get their certificate of completion. After training, they will be added to a database of crew members eligible for hire in the state of Illinois.
On the last Saturday of Cohort 1, the Dunn-Richmond Economic Development Center in the SIU Research Park was the hub for filming. Students rushed from one side of the building to another carrying bags of film equipment. Two productions were happening simultaneously, just a few feet away from each other.
The cohorts were both tasked in part to film a documentary. One cohort was working on a documentary about weight loss and another about the creator of Dip N Dots Kirk Jones and his latest enterprise, 40 Below Joe.
The rooms in which these productions ran were in deep silence. Every footstep, button press and conversation was quick and thoughtful. It was like the students were scared to make a single peep.
Each room also had SIU Radio, Television and Cinema graduates who Berry invited to the production. One alum was Jessica De-Jong, who has worked on TV shows like “Remastered” and “Unsolved Mysteries,” who offered advice to the students in attendance.
“I have been working with them, giving them very practical knowledge and experience of how a typical set runs. It’s very much within my wheelhouse because I work in documentary production,” De-Jong said.
While De-Jong was in one of the rooms doing mock interviews with a previous cohort, Kimberly Butler, a student with the program, quietly watched the filming of her cohort’s documentary. Butler worked in the Department of Corrections for 25 years, and after she retired she picked up writing.
“It was really interesting to me to do the behind the camera, setting up the camera for the start to finish setup, take down, and learning the language that’s associated with the use of cameras and lighting and microphones and stuff like that,” Butler said
While there, Butler met Carl Elmsworth, an SIU alum who has written movies with Steven Speilberg. Elmsworth took a look at one of Butler’s screenplays, giving her words of encouragement about her script and motivation to continue with the writing process. Butler then shared advice to students who may be on the fence about joining the program.
“Don’t sit back and wait and then look back one day and think I wish I would have done it,” she said. “I’m not trying to start a second career, I’ve got some ideas in my head and I’m trying to get those out.”
Cohort 3 is starting next week while Cohort 2 finishes its final weekend.
Staff Videographer Will Elliot can be reached at [email protected] or on Instagram at @cameramanwill06.
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