The “Weird Kid” Leaves ’ em Laughing!

by Joseph Sheppard, College Counselor

Jared Acquaviva ’12 loves the movies. “I was a weird child, ” he

smiles,

“because when I watched a movie, I wouldn ’ t just watch a movie. I’d watch the way it was shot and then learn from it... When I was a kid I fiddled around with claymation and stop motion. [I joined the IIP] because I felt it was time to get a leg up on college—to prepare myself, jumping into what I wanted to do in life earlier. ”

The Independent Immersion Program (IIP, formerly known as LAII) was just what the doctor ordered for this multifaceted young man from neighboring Carlisle. Jared, who is also a talented musician, applied to the program to “learn about [himself] as a filmmaker and a musician and about the craft...to get a head start on [his] film and music career. ”

Though most IIP students enroll in a couple of regular classes—Jared took Senior English Seminar and A.P. Music Theory “ to learn what builds music ” —the bulk of their learning is accomplished by doing. (The buzzword is “ experiential. ”) Since childhood, Jared has turned his remarkably observant eye to every film he has watched, remembering particular shots, directing techniques, and even mistakes in, for example, continuity, and transforming all these memories into tools to be used in his own films. He had no outside teacher for cinematography this year; it was “kind of a self-taught thing, ” as he puts it.

If you look up Jared’ s work on YouTube, your efforts will be rewarded with a small library of films that are not only superbly shot but infused with Jared’ s omnipresent sense of humor. He has a wonderful sense of comic timing, both visual and verbal, that comes not only from watching all the great film comics, but also from get-togethers with his big Italian family, where things get “loud and pretty silly. ” “Dawson ’ s Bad Side, ” filled with sight gags and great cameo roles, is the chronicle of an imagined “day from hell” in the life of Jared’ s faculty advisor, Zach Dawson. For his work last year, Jared assembled a troupe of actors who worked together on close to a dozen films, honing their acting skills and becoming a true ensemble in the process. For the “ really

big projects ” like “Dawson, ” he would write a full script and follow it strictly. “But there were other projects, ” he

explains,

“ where I gave my small crew a setup and let them explore. I wanted to be an observer and let the project unfold on its own. ” In one film, about a board of directors trying to come up with ideas for movies, Jared, playing the boss, suggests a silent movie, which he then illustrates for them, showing a hilarious short film-withina-film complete with villain and high-speed chase. Jared had written down only that he wanted “ someone to get robbed, then a dramatic chase scene. ” He says, “I told Jason [Karos ’14] to disguise himself at one point, so he put a finger over his lip as a fake mustache.

Throughout the year, Jared found time to hone his musical skills by practicing the piano, studying keyboard harmony to learn to play by ear the music of the 1920s that he has come to love, and even starting a barbershop quartet. The spring-term calendar crunch stymied their efforts at a first public performance, but the group will continue this fall with a couple of new members.

When asked how he thought his year in the IIP had gone and whether it had turned out as he had hoped, he replies, “Yes, it ’ s what I wanted to do. I accomplished everything I set out to do. The goal wasn ’ t to end up the year with a certain amount of experience or knowledge; I just wanted to start my film and music career earlier, to get a head start, and to document all my videos and all the music I’ ve been able to play and learn this year. ”

Citing Clint Eastwood as

“ one of [his] inspirations, ” Jared would “ really like to do both acting and directing ” in his lifetime. Now in his freshman year at Ringling College of Art and Design, the “ weird child” is in his element, and it won ’ t be long before we see his name in lights.

Jared Acquaviva ’12