SYNOPSIS | BIOS | CREDITS

SENTENCE SYNOPSIS
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An open-ended examination of the Harvard University environment, comparing footage of people on campus with personal reflections by the filmmaker's brother, who is about to graduate from the college.

SYNOPSIS: "I'll never know Harvard like my brother has. Ever since I was a kid I was fascinated by this place, with its reputation, prestige, its academic tradition. But the closest I've come to living there has been visiting my brother. When he was accepted to Harvard four years ago, I felt like part of me made it with him. But as time passed, this feeling seemed more like my own invention. So when I visited him right before his graduation, I asked him to talk to me about his Harvard experience, so I could compare it to the one that I was having, just hanging out. Looking at the people around us, it made me wonder if I could relate to their version of Harvard, as well as my brother's."

This is the introduction to A HARVARD CONVENTION, a work by Kevin Lee that observes, reflects and meditates on how a single place can be experienced in different ways by different people. When Kevin visited his brother William in the spring of 2002, he decided to capture his brother's thoughts on camera. Kevin had always been fascinated with the Harvard mystique, and sought to have his brother account for how his years spent at Harvard have affected him. At the same time, Kevin's attention would often be fixed on the people around him, their unique characteristics causing him to wonder how their Harvard experience might differ from William's. Thus, Kevin's own Harvard experience is formulated, as a continually evolving mixture of William's words and his own observations of the people and settings that capture his eye. What results is an examination of Harvard both from the inside as well as the outside, comparing the virtues of the two perspectives.

The structure of A HARVARD CONVENTION is intended as an address, introduced by Kevin and delivered by William Ð but with the interactive participation of both the other "attendees", the people that surround Kevin and William, as well as the audience watching the film. The footage of people living their own Harvard lives often acts as either reinforcement or counterpoint to William's observations and opinions of the Harvard experience, and the audience is called upon to consider each agreement or disagreement in kind. In this way, the notion of a single "conventional" Harvard experience is problematized, and multiple perspectives are engendered in its place.

The film concludes with its most candid moments. William offers his most brutally final assessment of what Harvard has done to him, with a matter-of-factness that is both endearing and disturbing. Kevin follows by letting his camera loiter patiently among the people, waiting for something to happen that may offer a hopeful counterpoint to William's conclusions.

With a unique approach to documentary filmmaking, A HARVARD CONVENTION offers an unconventional look at one of the most prestigious schools in the world. It presents both an insider's and outsider's experience of a common place, to see how much can be shared and understood by all.

BIOS
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WRITER, PRODUCER AND DIRECTOR: KEVIN B. LEE
Kevin Lee is an independent filmmaker based in New York City. His documenary "Take a Look: Chinatown, NYC Post 9/11" showed the effects of 9/11 on the Chinatown community; it was broadcast on PBS and played to film festivals across the nation. Mr. Lee's recent credits include "World Tourism Center", a documentary short that explores the former World Trade Center in its new incarnation as a major tourist attraction; and "Banana" a 30 minute short about a Chinese immigrant who thinks his son is literally a banana. Mr. Lee is currently working on two feature-length scripts.

CREDITS:
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GENRE: Documentary

RUNNING TIME: 9:50

MEDIUM: Digital Video

LANGUAGE: English

Shot entirely on the campus of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

QUESTIONS FOR KEVIN LEE:

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What inspired you to make this work?

I was visiting my brother William a month before his graduation. It was actually slightly awkward because we'd run out of things to talk about at times, I wasn't particularly out to do any sightseeing in Boston and he had already seen everything he'd wanted to see. One thing we did do was go to an MFA screening of films by two Chinese filmmakers, Jia Zhangke and Tsai Mingliang, both of whom I admire deeply. We watched a couple of shorts by both of them that dealt exclusively with exploring public spaces. So the next day we decided to try to do some videographic exploring of our own in the public spaces of Harvard and Cambridge. While we did this, I started asking him questions about his experiences in Harvard, and he really responded to this by giving answers that I think are very honest, open and reflective. With both of these modes of videography, I could really feel my presence as a filmmaker in capturing these moments, to create my own experience of Harvard.

How did you respond to your brother's words? Did anything surprise you?

I was quite amazed by how comfortable and candid he was during the interview. With some of his responses, especially the more somber ones, it seemed like it was coming out of a space inside him that he rarely showed to others. He's almost always optimistic about life, so when he started talking about how Harvard has molded him into what he has become, I felt like he was showing me a new side of himself. But other times, such as his comparison of Harvard grads with MIT grads, he sounded like a campus recruiter! So even within his testimonial there is quite a range of perspectives.

How would you define your experience of Harvard?

In a word, incomplete, and it's easy to see why: I was there for all of a weekend. But I would use the same word to describe my brother's experience of Harvard, even though he was there for four years. I try to give a sense of this by deflecting his words and experiences with the visuals of other people experiencing Harvard in their own way. So even though we get a highly informed account of one student's college experience, the piece is rather democratic in affording everyone's Harvard experience a certain level of consideration, and all of this builds to an overall experience of Harvard for the viewer that is both self-contained and expansive, and that doesn't give a conclusive statement of what the Harvard experience is.

Why do you think this approach is important or useful?

I think it helps to get past the common myth of what Harvard, or any college experience, is supposed to be, by getting past a one-dimensional image of college, showing that it's more than just student life, that there are other people living among the students whose life experiences can offer a refreshing perspective. I think students, when in college, get extremely caught up in their own lives, since this is a time to be very focused on one's future. I think my brother's words testify to this effect. I hope that college and even high school students get a chance to see this piece, because I think it may offer them a different way of considering their college experience, what it leads to and what it means.