Courtesy of lobsterman.movie on Instagram

As Grace Lott ’26 entered her final year at Bowdoin, she faced a practical constraint: She had a Faculty Scholarship Grant she needed to use before graduation. Despite being a physics major, she decided to use the funding to produce a film. Drawing on her background in theater and directing through Masque & Gown, as well as photography coursework, Lott brought her interests together in a project that reflects the interdisciplinary nature of her Bowdoin experience.

The film, “Lobsterman,” was shot primarily off campus in order to ensure the environment felt unfamiliar and slightly disorienting, reinforcing the film’s themes of exploration and uncertainty. Every location was within a 40 minute drive of Bowdoin, ranging from Cliff Island to abandoned buildings scattered across the region.

“The general concept started as college kids going out into the woods and exploring something,” Lott said. “And that’s basically what the movie turned into.”

The project has been made entirely by students, with no formal oversight by the College beyond logistical support from the Media Commons and guidance from professors, including Visiting Assistant Professor of Visual Arts John Fireman, Professor of Cinema Studies Tricia Welsch and Professor of Art Michael Kolster, who is Lott’s photography professor.

Lott’s theater experience is primarily in producing, and she said her photography coursework helped her bridge the logistical and creative demands of a project of this scale. She emphasized that understanding both sides of production was essential when managing a student-led film.

“I think with the photography classes in particular, they’ve helped me learn so much about myself and my own creative process and how I think more than just how to make a picture look nice,” Lott said. “So my theater background is mostly in producing, and I found that the photography classes in particular just sort of heighten that and help me bridge the logistical side of things and the creative side of things.”

An important early step was assembling a cast and crew. Lott sent out a campus-wide email gauging interest in the project, then organized auditions after receiving responses. She said she wanted to cast a wide net, specifically encouraging students who might not typically act due to inexperience or lack of confidence.

One of those collaborators, Lorca Peña Nissenblatt ’27, helped produce the film’s soundtrack. Like Lott, Peña Nissenblatt is not affiliated with the cinema studies department. She is a sociology and Russian double major with a minor in Africana Studies and she is a member of Miscellania.

“I get to feel like I’m exercising my music abilities, because I don’t take any classes in the music department,” Peña Nissenblatt said. “It’s something that I sometimes feel like I need to do to keep me sane.”

Her interest in film comes from personal creative projects and an internship with an independent filmmaker before coming to Bowdoin.

“I really love filmmaking because I feel like it allows me to mix different things that I like working on, like writing and making music and I can bring it together in video,” Peña Nissenblatt said.

Peña Nissenblatt worked in collaboration with Will Churchill ’27, a music and math double major. She focused on acoustic composition, including vocal structuring and piano, while Churchill contributed technical production as well as additional musical input.

Churchill took an electronic music class with Lott last fall and a film scoring course during his sophomore year, where students analyzed how music creates meaning in cinema and composed original scores for film. He said those skills translated directly into the soundtrack production.

“I’ve learned so much and been very inspired to pursue music more because of that [electronic music] class,” Churchill said.

Despite their preparation, the project faced setbacks throughout production. Some staff left, others joined mid-process and the script underwent a full rewrite during development.

“Those are just kind of roadblocks I think every beginner filmmaker needs to tackle anyways,” Lott said. “So [it] felt like a rite of passage with the amount of things that went.”

Even though a student-only team had many strengths for the film, it also proved to be a challenge. With finals season rapidly approaching, the team working on the movie has navigated deadlines with academics, extracurriculars and the film.

“I think it’s difficult because it’s hard for everyone to prioritize this when we have finals and stuff, right?” Peña Nissenblatt said. “It’s just been really hard balancing work with the movie … I think in the future, if I could have the time to … I would totally want to put a project into motion.”

Other students contributed across editing, production and acting, each applying skills they developed at Bowdoin to “Lobsterman.” The project remains a fully student-driven effort and is tentatively scheduled for release on May 9.