Avner and Stevie

At Ringling it seems your film becomes your identity.  I imagine it works similarly in other film/animation-based art school programs.  Frequently, when talking about graduates, someone would ask, "Wait, who was that?" and you'd get, "You know, they made [such-n-such] film," and that would suffice.   Now that I'm in the industry people will often tell me about someone they work with and supplement their story with, "You know that short with the [noun] that [verb]s?  That was them!"

We put so much of ourselves into our films.  I wanted to show that by having everyone in my class reenact a fragment of their thesis.  I called it The Visual Credits and we played it at the senior show last year.    If you're friends with me on facebook you can watch the 3 minute clip-show in my videos, but for the sake of my classmates privacy I'm not sharing it here.


What I did want to share is a photo shoot I did with my two friends, Avner and Stevie after filming their segment for The Visual Credits.  I will assume you have given your eyeballs the privilage of seeing their senior thesis, Defective Detective. 

Well, here's the two behind it:

And a little behind-the-scenes Stevie snapped of yours truly.  In case you were wondering where that red light on Avner was coming from, if you look closely behind me...

Of course, what kind of friend would I be if I didn't share this gem of Stevie?  :}

It's hard for me refrain from getting sentimental and sharing more about these two.  They were amongst my closest friends at Ringling.  We were often classmates, and they were constantly setting the bar higher than I'd ever seen it before.  We were first-hand witnesses to each others struggles and triumphs throughout college- both of which were frequent, substantial and numerous.  When you wonder if someone understands you better than you understand yourself, that's when you know you've got a real friend.  It's a rare thing for me, at least, and that's why I feel so privileged to know Avner and Stevie.