"Simply put, there is absolutely no infrastructure here for filmmaking . . . no place to rent equipment. Using film is out of the question. The cost would be prohibitive, and there is no lab for processing. We had no trained crew, and our actors just wanted to be in the movie -- [they had] no acting experience at all." That was filmmaker Mitzi Allen talking about working in her home country, the Caribbean island of Antigua. Yet despite such challenges, cinema and photography majors Mark Book '05 and Emma Rasmussen '04 worked as interns this summer with HAMA Productions -- run by Mitzi Allen and her husband, producer-director Howard Allen -- learning the art, science, and business of "no budget" filmmaking in Antigua.

Mark Book ’05 and Emma Rasmussen ’04 (front) learned some things the hard way.

Book and Rasmussen were completely immersed in HAMA's work. They interviewed political leaders; wrote, directed, and produced a documentary; filmed and edited commercials and a children's television program; and composed a film script -- all while finding their way through a new culture whose people speak a challenging dialect of English. Al though creating with limited resources was not something they were used to, given the Park School's resource-rich facilities, the experience was inspirational. "I learned that my film projects can be realized. I learned about being thrifty and that I don't need great 'stuff.' I now know I can create work that I can be proud of on a personal as well as an international level," says Book.

Mitzi Allen calls HAMA's work "no budget" because the funds used are "too little to be called low budget." That's hard to argue when you consider the Allens spent about $100,000 on their first film, when, according to Allen, "in the industry a low-budget film starts at $10,000,000 and an experimental film at $1,000,000."

Three years ago the couple branched into filmmaking after a decade of work as independent producers of documentaries, corporate and industrial videos, music videos, and television programs. They have produced two "no budget" feature films shot entirely on the is lands of Antigua and Barbuda. As of this summer, about one in three of the 65,000 total Antiguans and Barbudans had seen HAMA's work: The Sweetest Mango, a romantic comedy released in 2001, and No Seed, a political drama released in November 2002.

"That's no small accomplishment when you consider that these island nations have few movie theaters, let alone multiplexes," says Janice Levy, associate professor and chair of cinema and photography. "In fact, the two HAMA movies have been bigger box-office hits in Antigua than many Hollywood blockbusters. That is especially [impressive] when you realize that Howard's family did not get TV until about 20 years ago. His younger years were not influenced by regular exposure to television and cinema." Mitzi Allen adds, "The Sweetest Mango is the biggest box-office hit here ever. We beat out Hollywood films like Spiderman."

Levy "discovered" the Allens while she was vacationing on the island in 2001. She was there the night Mango premiered and was so impressed that she invited the couple to the College. "It was a great story line, told well," she says, "and the film included production techniques that one would not expect in a developing field in a developing nation."

While area filmmakers, faculty, and students enjoyed a weeklong exchange on campus in April 2003 -- from master classes to public screenings of their work -- the Allens benefited as well. "Our visit to marked the first North American showings of our work," notes Mitzi. Acquiring their first-ever interns was also a boost, she says: "The tour of the campus gave us tremendous insight into the level of technology available to the students. We knew we were getting students who were on the cutting edge."

And, the Allens say, their first experience hosting interns was a great success. "Emma and Mark surpassed our expectations in terms of their talent and willingness to work," says Mitzi. "The successes included their collaboration on a screenplay and the commercials we produced for a communications company. The client was thrilled. The challenges [were] not having all the equipment that they are used to, and training them to improvise and economize. Howard has never handed his camera over to anyone before -- or left someone to edit a project on his own. For him to give Mark that responsibility says a lot about Mark's skills and professionalism and the level of trust Howard has in him."

For Rasmussen, several lessons made a deep and lasting impression. "I learned the hard way that you cannot make a documentary very easily without having a script to work from first," she says. "I also learned how to be a little more sensitive when interviewing people. I was very good at going in and just asking up-front, to-the-point questions, but I soon learned that that technique works well [only] if you are on the same page as the person you are interviewing. Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way when I angered one of our interviewees to the point that he stopped us filming, walked right up to my face, and told me I needed an education!"

Beyond hard-learned lessons, Book and Rasmussen got to see their work on Antiguan television; the film projects produced with the Allens will soon hit the festival circuit. Anancy Politics: Only in Antigua, a documentary about corruption in the Antiguan government that Book and Rasmussen cowrote, coproduced, and coedited, will be shown on campus and at Cornell Cinema in the spring.

Photo by Janice Levyl