Howard Earns Spot in Limelight

By Dylan Marsh
EAGLE TIMES STAFF
CLAREMONT — Local filmmaker Loren Howard has landed a job with Florentine Films. The prestigious film company, located in Walpole, New Hampshire, was co-founded by Academy Award winning documentarian Ken Burns.

After graduating from Stevens High School, Howard began his higher education at Keene State College in August 2018. While at school, he made a number of short films including “The Last American Cowboy” and “Hitchin,” while also working as a videographer for the college’s RedFern Arts Center. After graduating this May, Howard received a Bachelor’s Degree in Film and TV Production.

“I chose Keene State because it’s an affordable state school that has a very good film program.

There aren’t very many schools in the area that provide such a robust film production program. Coming from a low income family, I had to actively seek financial aid from grants and scholarship sources. Without their support I might not have been able to go. People considering film school or any college that might not have the funding, should check out the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation,” Howard said of his collegiate decision.

Howard, a Claremont native, cites the lack of widely available artistic presence in the community as his inspiration. While in the past films have been shot in Claremont, independent films such as “In Your Eyes”(2014) and “Live Free Or Die”(2006), there aren’t many opportunities in Claremont for filmmakers. “Part of the reason why I like doing music, art, and film so much is that Claremont seemingly has a lack of it, or has for a long time. People say be the change you want to see, so I always really like actively participating in this stuff,” Howard stated.

This led Howard to working with a number of local public access stations including Claremont’s own CCTV as well as Windsor’s WOA-TV and CATV in White River Junction,Vermont. “I started at CCTV as soon as I could. While I was there the station went through a transitional period, after signing on a new Executive Director, and I stayed on during that transitional period. Working at public access stations was definitely instrumental in me working for Florentine,” said Howard.

Florentine Films, located in Walpole,, was founded in 1976 by Ken Burns, Roger Sherman, Buddy Squires, and Larry Hott. The studio is known for its wildly popular documentaries featured on PBS, including The Civil War and Muhammad Ali. Howard started at Florentine as an intern in February of this year after a Keene State professor had informed him of an internship opening at the film studio. After being approved for the internship, he worked as diligently as possible hoping to secure a position within the company. While working as an intern, he worked with Technical Director Dave Mast, and worked retrieving archival footage from outdated formats.

Since beginning his position as Technical Assistant, Howard has worked with editors, aiding them with data management for upcoming Florentine projects. One of them being the 2022 Benjamin Franklin documentary in which film makers, to whom no archival footage is available, not only used paintings, but also on location shooting. The film makers would travel to reenactments to give viewers an idea of life during earlier eras for their documentaries.

Howard is currently working on his first feature length film, “Custodian”. While most of the details of the film haven’t been released, Howard says he is working on pre-production, which includes location scouting and casting. He also invites anyone that is interested in working on a film set to contact him via social media, if they wish to come help work on the film.