Clemson student, faculty works featured at Greenville film festival

Published: April 17, 2012

CLEMSON — When Greenville’s first International Film Festival opens on April 25, Clemson’s Digital Production Arts (DPA) program will be well represented. Two entries from the program, “Gravitons” and “Wycinanki,” will be featured in the animation category of the festival that will run April 25 to 28.

“Gravitons,” a whimsical 3:05-minute animated film, explores Isaac Newton’s discovery of Gravitons, the agents behind gravity, and illustrates the effects of gravity through a series of pranks played on Newton by the Gravitons. Produced by faculty members Tim Davis, David Donar and Tony Penna, “Gravitons” was written by Pisut Wisessing and Patrick Roeder, and directed by Wisessing, graduate students in Clemson’s Digital Production Arts program. It also has been accepted into the Red Stick Film Festival and the 2011 Charleston International Film Festival. Wisessing is now a junior effects developer at Dreamwork’s new facility in India.

“Wycinanki,” which runs 3:18 minutes, is based on a true story of a woman in Poland who adopts three stray animals (a dog, cat and chicken) but has to leave them when she emigrates to America. Written and directed by Irena Rindos, the piece was animated by Ashwin Bangalore, Cory Buckley, Dan McCoy, Rindos and Tony Liu, all graduate students in the Digital Production Arts program. It has been accepted to the prestigious REDCAT’s 2012 International Children's Film Festival (Los Angeles) in May 2012, as well as the 2012 Children’s Film Festival Seattle and the 2011 Philadelphia Film and Animation Festival. It received an award for Best Narrative Short at the 2011 North Carolina Family Film Festival.

“This event is a wonderful validation of both the DPA program at Clemson and our extremely talented students,” said Jerry Tessendorf, professor of visual computing and director of the program. “The Greenville International Film Festival heightens awareness locally, nationally and internationally of the film experience and capabilities of the Upstate and our DPA program.”

Tessendorf, an Academy Award winner, will present a workshop on “Digital Filmmaking Tools” on Saturday, April 28, as part of the festival.

The Master of Fine Arts in Digital Production Arts at Clemson University is a professional degree program aimed at producing technically skilled, artistically talented graduates who are sought after by the growing electronic arts industry, particularly by those companies engaged in visual effects within the entertainment and commercial video, film and gaming industries.

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