Shooting for Damnationland.

By Alexander Balzano

Going from graduate to intern has been a fast-pace yet exciting journey. Having just graduated

SMCC this past May with a degree in Communications and New Media with a focus in

filmmaking, I decided to take the Senior Capstone class. This class is essentially a self-designed

course meant to be for a portfolio piece and many students usually end up doing an internship

through this as you must fill up a certain amount of hours.

With the assistance of my adviser and local horror filmmaker Corey Norman, I was able

to intern with Damnationland, a Portland-bred horror film festival. Damnationland is one of the

biggest film festivals in Maine and is invite only, each year employing some of Maine’s most

talented and creative film directors to put their own spins on horror in their own short films.

My overall job with Damnationland was to put together a short behind the scenes featurette of

all of the films and the process behind each one. I did this by filming behind the scenes for most

the films and conducting interviews with the director of each film.

This has been a challenging yet rewarding experience as I’ve had the opportunity to be

self-directed with this project. It was up to me to schedule interviews, coordinating with the

directors and making time to make the different shoot times for each film. Overall, it’s been a

very rewarding experience and will be beneficial in my path towards making a career out of this

medium. I would encourage anyone to take part in some sort of an internship experience with

whatever field they’re in as it can give you real, on-the-job experience and make important

contacts once you do make your start.

Everyone should go see Damnationland, which premieres at the State Theatre in

Portland on October 16th, just in time for Halloween!