{"id":60147,"date":"2012-06-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-06-07T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/joyal-prize-winning-films-appeal-to-many-tastes\/"},"modified":"2012-06-07T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-06-07T00:00:00","slug":"joyal-prize-winning-films-appeal-to-many-tastes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2012\/06\/joyal-prize-winning-films-appeal-to-many-tastes\/","title":{"rendered":"Joyal prize winning films appeal to many tastes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tHarrington School honors student filmmakers<\/p>\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 June 7, 2012 \u2013 Food, fun, love, life, death and murder. They\u2019re all a part of the human experience and all were captured with creativity and technical prowess in films directed and produced by the winners of the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Fred Joyal Film Prizes. <\/p>\n


\nThree students \u2013 Kyle King, Michael Higginbotham and Matt DiGennaro \u2013 received the $1,000 award from the Harrington School of Communication and Media for their short films and Alex Allaux earned honorable mention. All four will also receive passes to the Rhode Island International Film Festival in August.<\/p>\n


\nThe videos can be viewed at www.uri.edu\/artsci\/harrington\/news.html.<\/p>\n


\nThe films are judged based on how each one communicates an idea, theme or feeling; technical proficiency; creativity and the extent to which the projects demonstrate the creators\u2019 promise as a director, producer or artist. <\/p>\n


\nJudges Dan Riordan, owner of Gnarly Bay Productions in Westerly, and John Peterson, founder of ImmersionStudio in Wakefield, said this year\u2019s entries represented the best group they have judged and Tom Zorabedian, assistant dean in the College of Arts and Sciences and a film professor, agreed.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThe films are a leap forward, even from last year,\u201d Zorabedian said.<\/p>\n


\nLiving life to the fullest<\/p>\n

King, an East Providence resident who completed his movie Live It Up before he began serving his third deployment to Afghanistan with the U.S. Air Force, took the deeply personal subject of his grandfather\u2019s fading health and memory as he suffers from Alzheimer\u2019s and envisions a new end to his life.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cIt put a lot of pressure on me because it is about my grandfather and I wanted to make it perfect,\u201d King said via email from Afghanistan. \u201cIt’s far from perfect. I didn’t make the film exactly how I hoped it would be, but I’m satisfied with the way it came out, and I think it’s the best short project that I’ve made yet.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nKing\u2019s film depicts his grandfather wasting away in a nursing home, itching to get out and experience the world once more. Grandpa makes a daring early-evening escape from the nursing home to spend the night drinking cold beer around the fire with his grandson and his friends before watching the sunrise over the Atlantic.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cIt’s supposed to be about him having control over his life instead of waiting to die lonely in a nursing home,\u201d said King, who received the award for the second consecutive year.<\/p>\n


\nKing achieved a natural dialogue by allowing the actors to improvise their scenes around the fire, and he was impressed with his hardy 74-year-old actor, Harold Ashton, who endured early mornings and long days of filming in a nursing home to bring King\u2019s grandfather to life.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cI think I was surprised at just how easy it was for him to act like my grandfather,\u201d King said. \u201cAt times he would say a line and nailed it perfectly the way my grandfather would say it.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nWhile Grandpa took control of his own life in \u201cLive It Up,\u201d Higginbotham\u2019s film, Smoke, depicts an unnamed character\u2019s violent death.

\nAngst permeates Smoke<\/p>\n


\nSmoke opens with two men beginning an ambiguous conversation in a waiting room. There is a flashback to a brutal murder.

\nOne character is full of angst, while the other remains perfectly calm. The contrast between the two characters builds a quiet tension as the movie builds to its murky ending.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cI wanted to make it like a modern art cinema film that allows the viewer to interpret it how they want,\u201d Higginbotham, a Cranston resident, said. \u201cThere are clues throughout the film as to what it would mean, but it\u2019s ultimately up to the viewer.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nHigginbotham, who cites directors Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher, Steven Spielberg and Alfred Hitchcock among his influences, said he wanted the audience to feel the film, not just view it, and using only subtle music helped him achieve that.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThe eeriness of the quiet allows you to focus on the conversation,\u201d he said. \u201cIt makes you feel uncomfortable along with the characters.\u201d

\nHigginbotham left the end of his movie open to interpretation, while DiGennaro showed the end of his heart-rending tale in the opening of frames of This is a Love Story.<\/p>\n


\nTis better to have loved and lost?<\/p>\n


\nDiGennaro, of Cranston, takes a unique approach to summer love in This is a Love Story, weaving the visual tale of a young couple\u2019s breakup before the woman leaves for college from its conclusion to its beginning, while the voiceover describes the youthful entanglement from start to finish.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThe film really came out of conversations I had with the girl who the film was about,\u201d said DiGennaro, who also starred in the movie. \u201cWe wondered if it\u2019s easier or harder growing young. It\u2019s kind of the same with a relationship. Is it easier to have never met at all?\u201d<\/p>\n


\nQuestioning the theme of Alfred Lord Tennyson\u2019s assertion that \u201ctis better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all,\u201d DiGennaro paces the visual narrative against the audio narrative until they meet in the middle for a moment of perfect happiness.<\/p>\n


\nThe project was the product of his experience and one of his favorite books, \u201cOnly Revolutions,\u201d which appears in the movie. It helped influence him on how to recreate the deeply personal tale. He said he enjoys films with an emotional attachment for the audience and set out to create one himself. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cI was able to recreate something that was very dear to me that doesn\u2019t exist anymore,\u201d DiGennaro said. \u201c(The film) is the only place it exists now.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nA twist of fate<\/p>\n


\nAllaux\u2019s project, Chef\u2019s Dream, takes a more lighthearted approach to fate, depicting a failing chef who spends his nights crafting the perfect dish. <\/p>\n


\nAllaux\u2019s first foray into film, the short project is a clever send-up of his own experiences. The Jamestown resident has spent time working in restaurants and credits his father, who is French-Morroccan and stars as the film\u2019s protagonist, with instilling in him a love of cuisine. <\/p>\n


\nOne of the biggest challenges the sophomore faced was creating a dish that looked good, and then getting his father to choke it down.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThe first meal shown in the film tasted good,\u201d Allaux said, noting it didn\u2019t receive much screen time and was depicted as an awful meal that was sent back by a customer, played by Allaux himself. \u201cThe second dish looked good, but it didn\u2019t taste so good.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cIn terms of cuisine it\u2019s about presentation, so we had to make a very nice platter that looked good, but then it was put in the freezer for a week or two and it would come back out when it was time to shoot and my father would have to try to eat it.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nFred Joyal, a 1979 溏心vlog免费B站 alumnus, originally from Coventry, is based in Los Angeles, where he is co-founder and vice-chairman of 1-800-DENTIST.

\nThis is the 13th consecutive year Joyal has funded student prizes, an idea that emerged from a conversation between Joyal and Zorabedian when they met in 1997.<\/p>\n


\nPictured above<\/p>\n


\nFrom left, Matt DiGennaro, Michael Higginbotham and Alex Allaux are among the honorees of the 2012 Fred Joyal Film Prize, awarded by the 溏心vlog免费B站’s Harrington School of Communication and Media. DiGennaro and Higginbotham were winners, while Allaux earned honorable mention. Photo courtesy of Thomas Zorabedian\/溏心vlog免费B站 Assistant Dean of Arts and Sciences<\/p>\n


\nKyle King, director of the short film “Live It Up,” is among three winners of the 2012 Fred Joyal Film Prize, awarded by the 溏心vlog免费B站’s Harrington School of Communication and Media. Photo courtesy of Kyle King<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Harrington School honors student filmmakers KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 June 7, 2012 \u2013 Food, fun, love, life, death and murder. They\u2019re all a part of the human experience and all were captured with creativity and technical prowess in films directed and produced by the winners of the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Fred Joyal Film Prizes. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60150,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}