WXXI continues to put a spotlight on the work of Rochester Institute of Technology film and animation students by presenting a series of shorts biannually.
RIT Shorts, Pt. 4 premieres Thursday, January 15 at 8 p.m. on WXXI-TV and the WXXI-TV Live Stream. Repeats Saturday. January 16 at 5:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m., and Sunday, January 18 at 3:00 p.m. on WXXI-TV.
This edition features four pieces — three animated and one live-action — all centered on disability themes. RIT Shorts, Pt. 4 is part of Dialogue on Disability, WXXI’s annual initiative with Al Sigl Community of Agencies, which features a week of programming that showcases people with disabilities and sparks conversations about inclusion. RIT Shorts, Pt. 4
Featured shorts include:
I Want to Be Alone by Piper Charron
Follows Lisa as she struggles to complete a late-night commute after her headphones run out of battery. Each area of the city brings new and increasingly chaotic stimuli that she must cope with to reach her rooftop garden sanctuary. These stimuli manifest increasingly abstractly, building in visual and sonic texture and intensity as she traverses the city.
About Piper Charron: Piper is an internationally recognized 2D animator who works in both industry pipelines and experimental fine art animation. He specializes in highly technical character rigs and multimedia experimental animation. He worked as the senior animator and Harmony rigs specialist at MAGIC Spell Studios for two and a half years. In the spring of 2023, he worked with Christine Banna to create live projections for Stories From The Living Tree, a multimedia choir production. His film Sea Smoke was selected as the Rochester Institute of Technology’s animation submission for the 2023 CILECT prize competition. In 2024, he was awarded the Irene Pfizenmaier Award for Academic Excellence in Graphic Expression and the Outstanding Undergraduate Scholar Award from RIT. Piper grew up on an island off the coast of Downeast Maine. His proximity to the ocean in a tight-knit artistic community while growing up still informs his work today. In his multimedia work, he explores themes of connection and community, evoking emotions through non-traditional narratives. He aims to pursue a career in television animation in Canada while working on his personal craft. He earned his Bachelor in Fine Arts from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2024. He currently resides in Maine, enjoying the ocean while searching for the next step in his artistic career.
Ghost Sandwich by Lymon Thorn
When a deaf woman drops and shatters her phone, her one accessibility aid, she uses different means of visual communication. Unfortunately, everyone else happens to be haunted by specters that she will never perceive – and to make matters worse, they won’t listen to anyone who can’t use a ghost to talk.
About Lymon Thorn: Lymon is a deaf queer animator who goes by they/them and enjoys animating in their own language, ASL.
Xobrettahc by Robert Welton
Taking place in an animation class, students are asked to propose ideas for story pitches. They each blurt a series of words pertaining to their main concept as Trebora, a student who isn’t prepared to share, moves shapes inside her imagination in an effort to visualize their plans. She lucks out when time runs out before her turn but continues to struggle at home. Finally, after a fit of frustration, she draws an expressionistic but solid creature. As Trebora describes her idea in the following class, we see the other students’ concepts fleshed out as their own animals.
About Robert Welton: Robert is a Film and Animation major at Rochester Institute of Technology pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. He is currently a junior and his passion centers mainly around Stop Motion animation.
Oneness by Kaela Mangiaracina
This film is about being in the process of making one of the biggest decisions of her life, a deaf girl attempts to figure out where she fits among the hearing and deaf worlds. Fun fact: The lead actress in this 2015 film Jacqueline Pransky, who is now a teacher at Rochester School for the Deaf.
About Kaela Mangiaracina: “I was born and raised in New Jersey in a crazy Italian family. They always have been a big advocate for me and supported me in anything I wanted and needed. I was born deaf, and am the last baby of the family. I have two older brothers, one is deaf, so my parents already knew sign language when I was first born. I never wanted a cochlear implant, but because of the pressures I got from school I went to – I wanted to be a video editor, and I felt like I could not succeed as a video editor if I am deaf. So, I forced myself to get a cochlear implant, and that experience was actually traumatic, what Kristen experienced in the movie is not what I experienced, I changed the story a bit for visibility, what I experienced was more of physical intense pain shooting up in my arm and my face. I experienced a lot of vertigo and severe tinnitus. It gave me a new perspective on life itself, just have to keep on pushing through things. In some cases, cochlear implant works for some people, in some other cases, it does not, and in some other cases, people wonder what it is like if they got it. I had a taste of all of that. I actually got a cochlear implant replacement, it works better, but I am very cautious about it because the first experience was really, really traumatic. I don’t understand words or environmental sounds. I just hear weird sounds.”
RIT Shorts is a bi-annual series that showcases the work of some of RIT’s most impressive student filmmakers, offering these young producers a platform to share their films to a broader audience while offering WXXI viewers the chance to see the incredible talent that RIT is cultivating.