Your mission this Memorial Day Weekend — should you choose
to accept it — is to postpone seeing the latest big-budget lobotomathon and
instead get an advance peek at the future of cinema. On Sunday, May 28, the
School of Film and Animation at Rochester Institute of Technology is presenting
their annual Honors Show, with more than 15 short works by RIT students filling
the Little Theatre screen for two different shows, at 1 and 3:30 p.m. Remember,
you only get one opportunity to be able to say, “I knew them when…” Here are a
few highlights:
Rachel K. Sreebny, Brendan van Meter, and Mark Justison
pooled their talents to create Clonal
Eclipse of the Heart, combining live action and animation in a sweet short
that tells the tale of Nate, a young man who really wants a girlfriend. Nate is
“helped” in this quest by his bratty little sister, who supplies a cute robot,
as well as cartoon space creatures, who send down Nate’s clone to learn about
“the human phenomenon called love.” The slightly confusing plot is rendered
forgivable thanks to immensely likeable lead Matt Risi, who plays the lovesick
Nate. The clone is played by, um, Ratt Misi.
The Calabrian’s Feast,
Adrean Magiardi’s senior thesis work, is a touching short that unfolds in the
mind of a very old man after a sepia-toned photograph prompts memories of
family, love, and loss to come rushing back, most to the sweeping sounds of
opera. Magiardi shot Feast in his
native Italy
and the results are beautifully filmed, using natural Mediterranean light to
luscious advantage. And in Bill Robinson’s Love
at First Roach, an amorous insect pitches woo at a ravenous rat in a filthy
kitchen. Robinson fashionedRoach with 3-D animation software called Maya, and squalor and
vermin have never looked so candy-colored and cheery.
Graduate student Adam Fisher painstakingly photographed each
frame of the stop-motion The Ballad of
the Purple Clam with a 35mm camera, allowing for a clever and satisfying
short that features a cantankerous clam hunter (complete with New England
accent) squaring off against the titular clam… and not for the first time, as
we learn in flashback. I know I’ve come down a couple of times in this space on
the reprehensible genre of vigilante films, but after seeing Purple Clam I must make an exception:
Absolutely all art involving clay clam avengers is OK with me.
RITSchool of Film and Animation Honors Show (NR)
plays Sunday, May 28, at the Little Theatre, 1 and 3:30 p.m. Admission is $5,
or free with student ID.
This article appears in May 24-30, 2006.
