Clemson professors ‘guests of honor’ at Orange Carpet Oscar Viewing Party

Published: February 23, 2013

CLEMSON — Clemson University students and faculty will gather at the Hendrix Student Center for an Orange Carpet Oscar Viewing Party at 6:30 p.m. Sunday.

ClemsonLive, a student-run entertainment board, is sponsoring the event and two Clemson professors who worked on Oscar-nominated films will be the guests of honor.

Jerry Tessendorf, director of Clemson’s Master of Fine Arts in Digital Production Arts program (DPA), and Robert Geist, co-founder of the DPA program and professor in the School of Computing, worked on visual effects for the films.

Tessendorf’s water-simulation software was used in  “Life of Pi.” Geist was credited in “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” for working on code for digital map-filtering techniques. Both films are nominated for the 2013 Academy Award for “Best Visual Effects.”

Yujie Shu is a graduate student in the Clemson Digital Production Arts program. The Science and Technology Council of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences selected Shu to participate in its 2012 summer internship program at Industrial Light & Magic.  Shu is in Los Angeles attending Academy-related events; one of the many perks of her internship.

“Thursday was the celebration for animated features,” Shu said. “The directors of five nominated films introduced their ideas and talked about their film productions. Tim Burton was one of them.” 

Shu also attended an Academy Science Technology Council dinner and an event featuring foreign language film nominees where Ang Lee, a Taiwanese-born American film director, screenwriter and producer, made the introductions.

Shu also plans to attend the Academy’s Celebration for Make-up and Costume Design. 

Clemson’s Digital Production Arts program is a leader in the training of technical directors and technical artists for the film and electronic games industries. More than 50 Clemson graduates currently work in the entertainment industry for such major companies as Rhythm and Hues, Industrial Light and Magic and Pixar.

“The DPA program has sent people into the (visual effects) industry for 12 years,” said Tessendorf.  “Over a dozen alumni work at DreamWorks and Rhythm and Hues, and to date, DPA alumni have worked on over 130 feature films and work on 15 to 25 feature films each year.”

ABC will broadcast the Academy Awards ceremony at 7 p.m. Sunday.

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