On the Set at Northstar Studios with Steve Gilreath (an NFI Field Trip)

My name is Allen Smith. I'm an instructor here at The NFI. Recently, I had the pleasure of accompanying our students on a film school field trip to Northstar Studios here in Nashville.

This is not an everyday experience for film students. Northstar Studios is a full-service, one-stop, state-of-the-art... pick your adjectival poison. This place is grand. It's a 16-acre production campus, and it's where all the magic happens. As I pulled up to the security gate Paramount-style, I debated whether I should've been wearing some hip Wayfarers and a fancy hat.

Really, I was just praying my name was on the list.

I'm relatively new to Nashville, so this was my first visit to Northstar. Now, I have been inside production studios and worked on large film sets but never anything of this magnitude.

And never as a film student.

I got there half an hour early, and some of the students had beaten me to the set. After a briefing from our host, Steve Gilreath, we got a tour of the set. Steve is producing and directing a series of educational videos designed to teach students about music. The set consisted of three different setups, each elaborate and functional in its own way.

Our students had signed up to shadow certain professionals in their roles on set. Steve had other ideas for the students though. He rallied everyone up to give a pre-shoot pep talk where he allowed us to introduce ourselves to the crew and then instructed the crew to help the students out in any way they could. He asked them to teach, guide and assist any students who wished to find out about a new role.

Before long, Steve had eight new sets of hands working on his show. One student, immediately jumped in to assist the art department. Normally these guys spend their days assembling extravagant hats constructed from cupcakes, candles and various types of adhesive. Today, it looked like Jessica was making props out of pizza boxes to demonstrate different musical tempos.

Another student, Shayne, began the day shadowing the video editors as they tried to catch up on dailies from the previous days of shooting. It wasn't long before he had hopped over to the camera jib operator. Shayne told me that he had offered to stay till the crew wrapped at 9:00 p.m. if it meant being able to learn how to assemble and break down a jib. I didn't have the heart to tell him we were set to leave at four.

When the crew broke for lunch, we learned that this was the final day of shooting for the month. This meant that a handful of crew would be moving on to new projects and wouldn't be coming back. In a gesture of solidarity, the crew opted out of craft services for the day and instead contributed a homemade potluck of sorts. The series' lead actor, Graham, topped off the crew's last supper with a folksy, British serenade of a song he had written to the crew. It was the perfect end to our day at Northstar.

But Steve, again, had other ideas for the students. Four o'clock came and went. The students continued on in their roles, free to stay, learn and work till it was time for crew to say goodbye. They were, after all, part of the crew.