Chris Rhodes, Jr.
faculty
Coming Soon Justin Bull takes on a feature film
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collaborate on a semester-long production. t is all coming together for Justin Bull this summer: The film teacher will be Bull isn’t new to directing — it was the focus shooting a feature-length film with some of his master’s degree — but in recent years of his current and former students, as well he has invested his nonteaching time in as professional actors and crew, on a topic screenwriting. “With three small children at that’s been a fascination of his since he was home, writing has been more accessible,” a child. He had already applied for a summer he says. “But now that they’re getting to sabbatical with the intention of shooting the age where I can get five hours of sleep the film this summer, “but on a very small, a night, I’m getting back to directing.” micro budget,” he says. In February, CA With this particular project, he’ll also be appointed him the Katherine Carton Hamgetting back to a story that first captured his mer ’68 Endowed Faculty Chair, a three-year attention as a child in the Adirondacks: fellowship that he says “makes the realizaBetsey Hays was a local legend in the tion of that project much more within reach.” 1800s who claimed to have not taken food or drink for a period of almost two years. This will be Bull’s second spin in the She said she was fed by the providence of director’s chair of a feature-length film. God. “There were many questions about This spring, he directed the final project for whether this was a fraud,” Bull says. “In Improvisational Film: The Feature Project, hindsight, it looks like the first documented the capstone course where students
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case of anorexia in America.” Bull’s plan for his film is “to take those circumstances and update them to a story that wrestles with the same ideas of science, faith, doubt,” he says. “I’m most excited that I can do something that I’m passionate about every day in the classroom, and now I can do it outside of the classroom and carry students along with me on that adventure.” Jenny Chandler, dean of faculty, says Bull was selected for the Hammer Chair for a number of reasons, including his “methodical, patient, and unassumingly dogged” approach to his work. The chair, established in 1998 to honor former Board of Trustees President Katherine Carton Hammer ’68, supports midcareer faculty by providing recognition and support for developing skills.