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Syracuse University junior Sophie Penn and her three classmates are often asked why they didn’t go to a film hub like Los Angeles or New York City to create their own film company during their remote semester.

Robby Shaffer, a junior, defends the group’s choice to work out of Austin, Texas — it gave them the opportunity to fully commit themselves to Voyager, their film production company.

“Everyone’s like film, movies, LA, New York,” said Shaffer, co-founder of Voyager. “Why aren’t you going there? Isn’t that where it’s happening?

Voyager focuses on making video advertisements and marketing pieces for local businesses.
The company’s mission is to give its clients products that no one else in the market is going to have, setting them apart from other businesses, Shaffer said.

The film company is fully self-funded, and all of its inventory is equipment that the four students in SU’s College of Visual and Performing Arts have acquired over the years. Altogether, they’ve been able to build up a production inventory upwards of over $10,000, giving them the professional means to put out the level of content produced by their competitors.

Voyager has both a business side and a production side of the company. On the business side, each member of the team tackles a separate role. Penn is the operations manager, and SU junior Maria Raad does the branding. Shaffer is in charge of branding and social media. SU junior Charlie Hane is responsible for the finances. Each collaborates on all aspects of the production.

Having backgrounds as filmmakers helps the group “bring more disruptive and cutting-edge ideas” to their work, Shaffer said. He and the rest of the team go into each project with the mindset of creating work that is of the same caliber as Super Bowl commercials.

“We really don’t want to be a commercial agency, that’s not what we are,” Hane said. “We’re filmmakers.”

Penn, Hane, Shaffer and Raad initially considered taking a leave of absence during the summer but came back to campus last semester. They would have Zoom meetings three times a week, and they officially decided around October to take the spring semester off. One of the main reasons behind their decision was that productions at VPA kept getting shut down due to the pandemic, Penn said.

The team of students choose to move to Austin, Texas, because they believe it has a strong sense of community and it’ll offer the ability to network well. Courtesy of Sophie Penn

The group officially moved to Austin, Texas on Jan. 10 to launch Voyager. They knew that, if they went to New York City or LA, they would all have to get day jobs just to pay rent. For them, Austin is where they saw the most opportunity.

“Now that we’re here I think that we made the right decision,” Raad said. “This city has a big sense of community which you don’t have in New York or LA which I think is really helpful for us to grow our network. Once you meet one person they will make sure you meet everyone they know. They want you to succeed.”

Raad took a class last semester in the Newhouse School of Public Communications, where she had to make an artificial production company. She went to Penn before class and asked ‘What’s a good name?’ to which Penn responded ‘Voyager?’

Later on, when thinking about what to call their company, Penn and Raad thought it was fitting to stick with that name. For Raad, Voyager represents “changing your perspective,” a mindset that she takes into all of her work.

Penn, Hane, Shaffer and Raan all plan on returning to campus in the fall to pursue their degrees in filmmaking. However, they hope that they can bring Voyager back to Syracuse and “show our families that this is a thing to be reckoned with,” Hane said.

“Everyone says that film people don’t make money and that they don’t care,” Raad said. “I want to show people that you can be successful and do what you love at the same time.”

Published on February 10, 2021 at 11:27 pm