Baldwin filmmaker seeks funding for a tribute to his late grandfather

Tim Snow began writing about his feelings of grief, and nostalgia, for his grandfather, Norman Silverman, in 2018, 20 years after Silverman died. In December, Snow, 33, a filmmaker from Baldwin, completed the script for a short film, and plans to begin work on “Now It’s Your Turn” later this spring.

Snow’s script is about a young man who is clearing out the home of his grandfather, who has just died, and learns to make peace with the struggles of daily life after the loss of a loved one. Since he finished the script, he has launched a fundraising campaign and hired a production team to start filming in May.

“I’ve been working on this story subconsciously,” Snow explained. “Every time I sat down to write, I would find myself describing the grandson-grandfather relationship and the feeling of grief and loss.”

His film will follow the man’s life in the aftermath of his grandfather’s death. As he rummages through his belongings, he comes across a checkers table — a detail inspired by Snow’s own experiences playing checkers with his grandfather.

Snow said his grandfather died during his childhood in 1998, and he didn’t get the chance to get to know him as well as he would have liked. Silverman, a Korean War veteran who was originally from Queens, lived with Tim and his family in their Baldwin home — which was originally Silverman’s home — when Tim was growing up.

“He lived in the basement of our home, and I would go down to mess around with him, and give him a flick on the back of the head, or play checkers,” Snow recalled. “When he became ill, he was moved into a nursing home, and I didn’t get to see him as much.”

Snow said his feelings of nostalgia for his grandfather grew out of the stories his family members told about him after he died. Those feelings inspired him to start writing.

“As I grew up, I would hear stories about my grandfather, and I became increasingly fascinated by him and who he was,” Snow said. “When I found myself writing projects, I’d find myself constantly trying to tell his story, so I realized I need to put this out into the world so I can start to write and tell other stories.”

Snow graduated from Baldwin High School in 2007. Afterward he worked in several retail jobs — including at the now-closed Pathmark on Grand Avenue in Baldwin — before moving to Pennsylvania with his girlfriend the day after Superstorm Sandy landed in New York in October 2012.

He moved back to Baldwin in 2015, and asked a friend who was in the film industry if he could help him get a job. “Once I got on set as a production assistant, I began to fall in love with film,” Snow recounted. “It was being on set, and being a part of a team, where people came together to create something, that inspired me to write my own films.”

He has worked in sound and art departments, served as art director for the promotion of “Severance,” on Apple TV, and was the prop and set director for HBO’s “The Jinx.” 

He has enjoyed those experiences, but, he said, he is truly inspired by the role of the director, which he describes “the epicenter of creativity.” 

“So I started writing my own project,” Snow said. “I’ve learned that no one will give you or ask you for anything. You need to be the one to deliver art to the world.”

He said he hoped to secure enough funding for “Now It’s Your Turn” by the end of next month. He started a campaign on Seed&Spark, a film-focused crowdfunding platform, hoping to raise $12,000 to cover production costs. At press time he had collected just over $1,400. To donate or to find out more about Snow’s film, visit tinyurl.com/TimSnow.