News by Topic: Games, Film, And Digital Media

When audiences head to Cinemark theaters to catch a movie this July, they’ll also see a commercial produced by students from RIT and NTID. The short film, Say Cheese, was awarded the grand prize in the Coca-Cola Refreshing Films (CCRF) program.

TikTok has become one of the most popular social media apps to hit the market in a decade. Billions of social media users have found both community and entertainment in the vertical short videos that are central to TikTok’s format. With a combined nearly 1 million followers and 25 million “likes” between them, four RIT alumni are establishing themselves as social media influencers.

From steel beams added to the RIT skyline to new fencing to mark the start of projects, here’s a rundown of what you might see on campus this summer.

Brick by brick—that’s how members of RIT’s Electronic Gaming Society have built a digital version of the RIT campus in the video game Minecraft.

WROC-TV interviews Anna McClanahan, a film and animation: production option student, and Gabriel Ponte-Fleary, a film and animation MFA student, about their film, Say Cheese.

RIT Esports dominated the FACEIT Grand Finals tournament to become the best collegiate CS:GO team in North America this spring. The Tigers bested 68 teams to win the 2022 FACEIT championship, which is one of the main tournaments for collegiate Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) esports.

Say Cheese, a pioneering, heartfelt film directed and produced by two RIT students, took home the top prize in the Coca-Cola Refreshing Films program announced during the final night of CinemaCon in Las Vegas late Thursday. The project featured the combined creative efforts of students, faculty, and staff in RIT’s School of Film and Animation and NTID.

RIT students have more than 300 clubs and organizations to choose from today. There are also 24 varsity athletics teams and numerous intramural sports, among other groups. For many students, these extracurricular activities are a great way to try something new, find a niche, and build lasting relationships.

After going virtual for 2021, thousands of people came to the RIT campus on Saturday for an in-person Imagine RIT: Creativity and Innovation Festival, which featured more than 250 exhibits throughout the campus from more than 1,800 students and faculty.

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.

Aaron Gordon ’13, CEO of Optic Sky, an advertising and digital experience production company; Franklyn Athias ’85, CTO and senior vice president for Xfinity Mobile Retail Convergence; and Erin Sarofsky ’98, ’00 MFA, an award-winning creative visionary, discussed how the pandemic opened up the eyes of many industries to the future.

Accomplished alumni are returning to campus to discuss the future of technology, art, and design as part of the Imagine RIT: Creativity and Innovation Festival on April 23. The Imagine RIT Futurists Symposium is from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Wegmans Theater, RIT MAGIC Center. It will also be available to watch as a livestream.