By Lauren Young
Staff Writer
Ten years ago, Syracuse native Sean Cunningham won the I Love NY short film contest, featuring the Upstate New York landscape in his short that aired on national primetime television during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. On Thursday, Oct. 4, he returns to his hometown to premiere another project featuring the scenic Syracuse landscape – in his first feature length film.
Cunningham, a writer/director based out of Los Angeles, will return to Syracuse to premiere “Hudson,” a “family dramedy” about two cousins who take a road trip together through Upstate New York to scatter one of their late mother’s ashes. The low-budget film, starring veteran actor Richard Masur (“The Thing,” “Encino Man”) and shot primarily with a local film crew, will debut on Oct. 4 at the Palace Theater in Syracuse.
The project, which was recently added to the Syracuse International Film Festival, was shot throughout Upstate New York and included several scenes set in Cazenovia and Chittenango Falls.
Though Cunningham has been directing commercials and short films between New York City and L.A. for the past several years, he knew the warm atmosphere and foliage of Upstate New York in the fall was the only time and place he could shoot his first feature length film.
Cunningham experienced firsthand what it meant to “go viral” when he was first nominated for a Young Director Award at the prestigious Cannes Lions Festival in 2015 for a short film he directed called “Office Hottie.” The short was filmed for a ROLO commercial and garnered over 2 million views.
Cunningham, who has lived in L.A. for four years now and lived in New York City for almost six years, has traveled between the two for the past decade, writing and directing commercials for brands like AT&T, Chevrolet and American Express.
Cunningham knew he wanted to feature his hometown in his first full-length film, and worked with close friends and other local crew members in developing the picture — an entirely self-financed movie.
Returning to Syracuse for its landscape and “small town character” for the film was essential, said Cunningham, especially during the fall season.
“It was awesome to go back to my hometown,” he said. “We always pictured filming it in the fall.”
The film features the area’s sprawling landscape and crisp foliage, even traveling to parts of Madison County, like Albany Street in Cazenovia, to shoot some scenes.
“Caz has that great main street and that classic small town look we wanted,” said Cunningham.
Other scenes were set at Chittenango Falls, a location the crew “really wanted to film.”
Filming in places like Cazenovia and Chittenango Falls, said Cunningham, was different than filming in NYC or L.A. — it was more “gritty” indie filmmaking, and strangers were more accommodating.
“People actually went out of their way to help us,” he said.
Finishing his first feature length film, Cunningham said, was “like raising a kid” — lots of baby steps and lessons learned.
“Day by day we would figure out a new problem,” he said.
Because “Hudson” was a low-budget road trip film, Cunningham said its production relied on many unreliable factors, like the weather. The process was “very slow-moving” he said, but “production was fast,” and the film was shot entirely in 12 days.
Written in Sept. 2017, filmed in the fall and finished in Oct. 2017, the film was shot in 12 days, but those were 12 to 15-hour days, said Cunningham.
“Somehow we got it done,” he said.
Unexpectedly, post-production took the most amount of time, he said, and to help cover its costs a Seed&Spark page was created — raising over $7,000 to go toward finishing touches like color correcting and sound mixing.
Cunningham, who is close to his brothers and cousin, said he wanted to write a film about “family members connecting on a road trip,” featuring “simple characters” with “a dysfunctional family tone.”
In making his first future length film, Cunningham said he received “so much help from friends and family,” using many of them as extras in the film.
“We counted on them to make it happen,” he said.
Motivated by character-led comedies and dramas, Cunningham said the film features a lot of improvisation, inspired by director/writer Joe Swanburg (“Drinking Buddies,” “LOL”) who also relies heavily on the creativity of his cast.
“I slowly developed that style of improvisation,” said Cunningham. “I started to just structure a scene and talk about where the characters need to get to, and [the actors] fill in the dialogue.”
Cunningham said he choose his cast ahead of time before writing, even landing “great character actor” Richard Masur, and wrote the script with them in mind.
“It’s more like a collaborative thing,” he said. “It relies on the [actors] a lot for [the story] to come to life.”
Other directorial and creative influences of Cunningham include Jason Reitman (“Juno”), The Coen Brothers (“The Big Lebowski”), Jim Jarmusch (“Broken Flowers”), Alexander Payne (“The Descendants”) and John Hughes (“The Breakfast Club”).
Cunningham said he looks forward to writing another future length film set in Upstate New York, an area that “almost feels undiscovered.”
“I love small towns and simple characters, and I want to do something based in that world,” he said. “We really do want to promote this area; it almost feels undiscovered.”
Despite his love for L.A., Cunningham said Syracuse “feels like home to me.”
The premiere of Sean Cunningham’s “Hudson” will be held on Thursday, Oct. 4 at 7:30 p.m. at the Palace Theater in Syracuse, and will include a Q&A with cast/crew. To learn more about “Hudson,” visit Hudsonthefilm.com.
