Students from the department of Film, Television and Media (FTVM) lead by Professor Matthew Solomon and Co-Lead by the Duderstadt Center’s (DC) Sara Eskandari took home blue ribbons at the UROP Symposium in April for The Big City: Lost & Found FEAST team project. Their production aimed to recreate the iconic Black Bottom Cabaret from the film The Big City, using the Duderstadt Center’s Virtual Production resources. Students 3D modeled the Black Bottom Cabaret and then transformed it into XR to be used as a digital background, while filming with real actors. The Big City is a film lost to time that featured over 100 black actors and actresses who were never properly credited for their work. The Big City: Lost & Found features descendants of some of the original actors like Raymond Nat Turner Jr, a descendant of actor Ray Turner, once again taking the stage inside the Black Bottom Cabaret to perform their original art and poetry.
Additionally, student Hassan Berry who was mentored by the Duderstadt Center’s Visualization Studio staff and Professor Matthew Solomon, leveraged 3D modeling and motion capture to create his own virtual recreation of a scene from the film Citizen Kane (the Great Hall) which also won a UROP blue ribbon.