Kevin Smith discusses collaboration with Ringling students

Ringling College continues to draw Hollywood talent to speak — and work — on campus, a sign of the growing cachet of the school’s film program.

March 29, director, writer and actor Kevin Smith visited the school to share insight gathered during an entertainment career that’s spanned three decades. Smith, the creator of films such as "Clerks" and "Mallrats," also plans to shoot a project in conjunction with Ringling’s new digital filmmaking complex, an opportunity to give students experience on a professional shoot.

Smith joins Dylan McDermott, Justin Long and Roman Coppola as known names in film that have recently committed to working in Sarasota. This level of pull is a point of pride for Ringling and David Shapiro, whose company, Semkhor Networks, is a co-founder of the school’s digital filmmaking Studio Lab.

Those involved with the film program expect these star drop-ins to continue to be a regular occurrence.

“The talent that’s coming, a lot of them are responding to the students at Ringling and the community in general,” Shapiro said.

This was the vision the school had in mind when the Studio Lab was founded in 2008. A $1.75 million Sarasota County grant, along with other public and private funding, has allowed Ringling College to move forward with a 30,000-square-foot soundstage and post-production studio project. The new facility is intended to be a hub for both student and commercial digital production.

With plans for the infrastructure locked in, Ringling and Semkhor have been focused on widening the film program’s influence within the entertainment industry. Last year, The Hollywood Reporter named Ringling College a top-20 film school in the United States. As professionals get experience working alongside students, word is beginning to travel about Sarasota.

“We’re building a reputation in the community, for sure,” Shapiro said.

That may have played a role in drawing Smith to the region. Long, who starred in Smith’s 2014 movie ‘Tusk,’ shared an enthusiastic endorsement of the Ringling film program after visiting the campus. Long now plans to bring a project of his own to Sarasota — a fact that carried weight for Smith.

“I know it might not seem like it, because he did that walrus movie,” Smith joked, alluding to "Tusk’s" mixed reviews. “He’s generally very selective with the stuff he does, so the fact that he was like, ‘I’m going down there to do some stuff’ (was significant).”

Smith shared a few details on his new project. He's setting out to produce a more highbrow film, relative to his recent work, which is more niche movies that have drawn less-than-universal praise from critics. After initial plans to shoot in Pennsylvania fell through, he brought the idea to Sarasota.

The filmmaker scoffed at the notion that he had any trepidation about working with students on the project, saying he was confident that he would learn more from the experience than the Ringling students who eventually work alongside him.

“I’d rather work with a student than a paid professional,” Smith said. “Not that there’s anything wrong with a paid professional — but who’s got more passion for this than you?”

With McDermott and Long scheduled to film in Sarasota later this year, program officials are now working on maintaining a year-round production schedule within the city. By reaching out to even more creative professionals, Shapiro says he thinks they’ll continue to find projects that align with the school’s focus on digital episodic content.

Although more details on Smith’s project are still forthcoming, he said he has one area of emphasis already in mind for the students: decorum. Smith stressed the need for filmmakers to truly appreciate what they get to do for a living, calling the profession a rare opportunity to “watch your dream literally come to life.”

By extolling the virtue of focusing on the positives of the job, Smith hopes to help foster a creative hunger that will last a lifetime for Ringling students.

“You work with kids, and you impart that to them, you send an army of little passionate artists out there to do stuff,” Smith said. “So I can’t wait to work with those guys.”