Long before it was one of the fastest growing neighborhoods in the nation, Long Island City was an industrial town along the polluted East River, where generations recall the only good smell emanated from the Gordon Baking Company producing the Silvercup brand of bread.
After it was shuttered in a bitter labor dispute in the mid-70s, nearby factory owner Harry Suna of Kew Gardens purchased the property at 42-25 21 St. in 1980, and his architect sons Stuart and Alan began drawing up the plans to repurpose the property into Silvercup Studios, which launched in 1983 and rapidly became one of New York City’s largest film and production facilities, with nearly a half million square feet of studio space and 19 sound stages.
Today, Silvercup Studios is dedicated to supporting the next generation of filmmakers, especially the ones in its own backyard, expanding an initiative to foster film programs and students at schools like LaGuardia Community College to include the new Motion Picture Technical High School, which opened last fall at its temporary home in I.S. 429 in Sunnyside with a mission to mold traditionally underrepresented talents into film and media industry-ready professionals equipped with technical skills and the creative confidence to seek careers in film and television production roles.
Silvercup recently welcomed half of the inaugural freshman class of 9th graders to tour the studios and get a crash course on film and television production from industry veterans.
They were taught how to properly light a set with older lighting and grip equipment that Silvercup is donating to the school’s growing program and will include more production equipment when the school moves to its permanent location in the new Northern Boulevard High School in Woodside when construction is complete in September. Students engaged and continued to ask questions at each setup, getting more excited when they could touch some of the lighting equipment
Jacquelyn Guttierez, head of the CTE and Film Department at Motion Picture Technical High School, said the tour gave her students some hands-on experience.
“A big part of Motion Picture Tech is lights, camera and access and that access is giving them that exposure, the ability to come on sets, the ability to speak to industry professionals, to interact with them, which oftentimes they aren’t given,” Guttierrez said. “Having a tour at Silvercup Studios is that first step, being able to see a space where actual careers are moving and thriving, the students are able to see themselves in these positions.”
She added that because they are a brand new specialty school, they don’t have that much equipment yet so the donations from Silvercup are greatly appreciated.
“We’re really relying on the generosity and grace of our industry partners,” Guttierrez said. “Our goal is for students to dabble in every single pathway in the industry so that they can decide where in the industry they want to land and this equipment will help them inform that decision.”
As Silvercup continues to modernize and update its lighting equipment for film and television productions using its studios and soundstages, it has donated older equipment to the Academy for Careers and Television and Film in Hunters Point and to LaGuardia Community College.
Glendale resident Alberto Rios, the Director of Lighting and Grip at Silvercup, explained that modern LED lighting equipment is replacing older lighting equipment.
“So while we used to use 300 of the older equipment at one time, now we only use about 100 pieces, meaning that 200 pieces are sitting on a shelf doing nothing, so it’s better to move the equipment to schools in our backyard,” Rios said. “They’re very excited to get their hands on the equipment, and they’re putting it to good use.” He added that the initiative is open to any school offering film and television production programs.
In July, LaGuardia Community College held a graduation ceremony for the first cohort of students to complete a new workforce training program in film production after they completed a four-month, 90-hour course that included hands-on training using equipment donated by Silvercup last spring, career readiness workshops, and meetings with film and television employers, such as LaGuardia’s neighbors at Silvercup.
“Film and entertainment is a tech-heavy field, so it’s important that we provide students with the opportunity to train on industry-standard equipment,” said Jason Schafer, a professor with LaGuadia’s Film & Television program. “Silvercup’s generous donations have made it possible for our students to learn production skills using gear that they are sure to encounter on a professional shoot.”
The program was developed with Motion Picture Studio Mechanics Local 52 IATSE, the union representing production workers on feature-length motion pictures and episodic television series films across the city. Last spring,
Silvercup donated approximately $37,000 worth of film production equipment to LaGuardia Community College, including Arri lights, Kinos, Barflys, and more.
“The growing Film & Television program at LaGuardia is extremely grateful for this partnership,” Schafer said.
Zoe Match Suna, Silvercup’s Director of Marketing and Strategic Initiatives, Alan’s daughter who grew up on the lot, is proud of the program.
“Silvercup was originally my family’s business, which my dad and uncle started. I grew up in Queens and actually lived in the building until I was five years old,” she told QNS. “We’ve always cared a lot about giving back to our local community, especially in Queens and doing what we can to help boost the industry here in New York City, especially when it comes to the next generations of students.”
Queens World Film Festival executive director Katha Cato is thrilled by the synergy developing between Silvercup and LaGuardia Community College and the fledgling Motion Picture Technical High School, especially at a time when new studios are opening soon and promise thousands of new production jobs. QWFF has mentored Queens youth through its internship program for years, and they now work as programmers at top-tier festivals, working on-set with production companies in commercial, reality, and studio projects, and some have gone into education.
“We’ve been plugging away at feeding the talent pipeline into the industry and having an entity like Silvercup come in and do something like this really legitimizes what we do,” Cato told QNS. “We’ve been jumping up and down for years, hollering about this for quite a while to develop programmers, develop production managers, develop future grips.”
The talent pipeline will feed not only Silvercup and Kaufman Astoria Studios but also Robert DeNiro’s new Wildflower Studios in Astoria, the Borden Avenue Complex in Long Island City, and the rapidly rising East End Studios in Woodside.
“I think that having Silvercup step in and become this kind of mentor is great, and I’m hoping that it will inspire these other entities that are new and soon to be with us in Queens, too,” Cato said. “We know we have the people; we’ve been training them for a while. We are gearing up for our 15th festival in the first week of November, and in that time, we screened 1,979 films, 274 of which were made right here in Queens. If there were five people attached to each film produced in Queens, that’s a sizable gene pool right there.
She added that filmmaking is a collaborative art form.
“It allows us to work on something that is larger than ourselves, ” Cato said. “I’m proud of the youth development and the professional development that we do, and we hope that we can continue to be part of the system that makes sure our storytellers are heard.”
Additional reporting by Paul Frangipane.
