News
Production Option - Film and Animation BFA

Three student teams showed what technology, the arts, and design means at RIT. They designed technology to help astronauts keep physically fit in space, incorporated virtual reality to enhance signing and captioning support for the Deaf, and built a modern sculpture of the human body made of computers.

Alexandra McDonald ’22 showcased her experimental film, "Amalgamate," at the Academy Award-qualifying festival, and is set to also display it at Imagine RIT: Creativity and Innovation Festival April 23.

Film and Animation students Anna McClanahan (BFA) and Gabriel Ponte-Fleary (MFA) are finalists in Coca-Cola's Refreshing Films program. They are producing what is thought to be the program's first finalist film dealing with deaf and hard-of-hearing themes.

RIT’s MAGIC Center won a MegaGrant from Epic Games, the largest academic grant ever awarded by the industry’s leading game engine developer. The grant allows professors to participate in hands-on training with some of the world’s leading visualization and virtual production experts.

The sixth annual event featured presentations on the latest virtual, augmented and mixed reality technologies that are driving various fields, from health care to theater to education. 

Nick Nicely '12 (3D Digital Design), founder of Video Plates and Backings, is providing all RIT students access to his library of more than 5,000 driving plates and moving set backdrops for use in films and media projects.

RIT’s MAGIC Spell Studios is partnering with Pure Imagination Studios, an award-winning independent entertainment studio best known for combining proprietary technology with groundbreaking storytelling, to launch a satellite office and spatial computing studio in Rochester.

RIT's Schools of Art, American Crafts, Film and Animation, and Photographic Arts and Sciences are all under new leadership.

Shanti Thakur—who began her new role as director of RIT’s School of Film and Animation in the College of Art and Design earlier this month—is an award-winning fiction and documentary filmmaker who has taught for nearly two decades.

Selma Peña '22 MFA (Film and Animation), a screenwriter with an undergraduate psychology degree, is using her varied background to create compelling stories that are both meaningful and beautiful.

In working with Dave Sluberski, senior lecturer in the School of Film and Animation, two local filmmakers became the first professional clients to use the sound mix theater in RIT's MAGIC Spell Studios. 

In the mid-1980s, Frank Deese of the School of Film and Animation interviewed Philip Agee to inform his screenplay on young CIA recruits. The conversation is detailed in A Drop of Treason.