Faculty Creative Activity
Faculty in the School of Cinema and Interactive Media are engaged in a number of areas related to digital media. The work on this page is not meant to be an exhaustive list. Information about other faculty work can be found on the
faculty profile pages.
- Lisa Barcy has been making animated films for 20 years, and teaching animation since 1997. Her works include The Guilt Trip, or the Vaticans Take a Holiday, The Ordovicians, Woman Without a Past, Mermaid, and Anonanimal, a music video created for Andrew Bird. Her films have been screened in numerous festivals and screenings including Slamdance, Aurora (Norwich, England), The Ottawa International Animation Festival, The Bradford Animation Festival, The Chicago Underground Film Festival as well as solo shows at The Gene Siskel Film Center and Roots and Culture. She received the Directors Citation Award at The Black Maria Film Festival for both The Guilt Trip and Mermaid, and the Best Animation award at The Ann Arbor Film Festival for Mermaid. When not animating she is usually busy creating artist books, collage paintings, and numerous scultural oddities.
- Devin Bell passion is storytelling through character animation. He earned his MFA in animation at CalArts. While in Los Angeles, he worked at JibJab Media Inc. as a writer/director/animator to create original short films as well as content for clients such as Disney and Lucasfilm.Devin’s award-winning independent animations have been in over 50 film festivals globally. His first film working with DePaul students, titled Fatal Vittles is currently competing in film festivals, and has received honors for excellence in animation.
- Jo Dery most recently designed an installation project for the 2012 DeCordova Biennial at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park (Lincoln, MA) and the poster art for the 2013 Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (Chicago, IL). She is currently at work on a collaborative project with students, an interactive animation designed for the web titled Heat Spell, which was supported by a CDM Project Bluelight grant.
- Joshua Jones has worked in feature film and television for studios and clients including Will Vinton Studios, Fox TV, Fox Kids, Warner Brothers, Crystal Sky, Creative Visual EFX, Skyler Animation Studios, and National Geographic. His personal work as a director, technical director, and character animator has screened both nationally and internationally at the Melbourne International Film Festival, the London International Animation Festival, The Big Muddy Film Festival, and Oregon Public Broadcasting. Currently, Josh is directing the CG animated short, “Sunny Side Up,” in collaboration with writer Daniel Klein.
- Scott Roberts his sculptures, video installations and animations have been exhibited internationally. He also has over ten years of professional experience in television art direction, post-production, animation and 3D game art, and was the production designer for the independent film 'Making Revolution.
- Steve Socki completed work on the 7th season of the TV series Futurama this past summer. He has worked as a freelance animation timing director on this series for the past 6 years.
- Eugene Jarvis, senior fellow in gaming, created the video games Defender and Robotron. He currently leads his own game development studio, Raw Thrills, Inc.
- Joe Linhoff, has been developing published video games for over 20 years in California, Minnesota, Colorado, and Illinois. His games cover a wide range from an arcade fighting game (WarGods at Midway) to a deer hunting game (Big Buck Hunter at Play Mechanix), a dungeon adventure game (Dungeon Master: Chaos Strikes Back at FTL Games), and educational games (Stickers, Certificate Maker at Springboard Software)
- Ed Keenan, former Executive Technology Director at Midway Games, created and led several technology groups ranging from Graphics, Tools, and Systems to a companywide Advanced Technology Group. Ed has contributed to over 30+ different titles, most notably WarGods, Hyperdrive, the Mortal Kombat Series, NFL Blitz, NBA Ballers, Psi-Ops, Stranglehold, TNA iMPACT and Wheelman. He’s initiated and started outsourcing development in China and in Eastern Europe.
- Alexander Seropian, game designer in residence, is the creator of Halo.
- Scott Roberts his sculptures, video installations and animations have been exhibited internationally. He also has over ten years of professional experience in television art direction, post-production, animation and 3D game art, and was the production designer for the independent film 'Making Revolution.
- Pete Biagi cinematographer in residence, produced and shot The Moms Project, a video art installation piece focusing on how mothers connect us - faculty member Ron Eltanal co-produced and edited. Pete recently shot - "Fanfare for Marching Band" featuring local, circus, punk band Mucca Pazza, faculty member Jonah Zeiger's narrative short The Art Police, faculty member Kristen Benedyk's narrative short Flat Chested, a congratulatory video celebrating the gains of women in Congress for Emily's List, many political spots this past election cycle and a recent spot for the Chicago Federation of Labor.
- Shayna Connelly's creative work spans narrative, non-narrative and documentary production. Her music video Wait For Amateur screened in several festivals including NxNE and CIMMfest in 2012. She is currently in post-production on a personal documentary, Blunt Force Trauma and in production on a documentary portrait on an EVP researcher who integrates recordings of ghosts into experimental music.
- Ron Eltanal has produced, written, directed, shot or edited award-winning short films that have screened at numerous festivals and competitions, including Sundance, Torino International, LA Shorts and the Student Academy and Emmy Awards. Additionally, he has directed a feature film and music videos, written feature screenplays, and co-founded a non-profit theatre company.
- Ron Fernández is a Cuban-American writer and filmmaker, and an Assistant Professor in the Digital Cinema program at DePaul University. Currently, he is directing the documentary Street Name with Ameena Igram, in association with the Vincentian Endowment Fund. He is also in post-production on Lady of the Lake, a drama which he co-wrote, acted in, and directed, starring Sanny Van Heteren and Daniel DeWeldon.
On the writing side, he is working on his first novel, Pandora, a psychic drama set in New Mexico, and his short story, Two Into One is part of the upcoming anthology, Love and Other Distractions, a compilation of tales from Hollywood writers. Fernández is the film and media editor for the journal Diálogo, published by DePaul’s Center for Latino Research, and his review of Gaspar Noé's Enter the Void is featured in the forthcoming issue 16.1 Cosmic Liturgy.
Partnered with CIM director Prof. Matthew Irvine and Prof. Timothy Peternel, Fernández has recently started a production company called Under the L, a venture designed to unite university and entertainment industry forces. He is a member of the Writers Guild of America and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
- Dana Hodgdon has received more than 50 festival awards for his experimental and documentary films (1975-1995) including 3 Gold Plaques, 2 Illinois Awards, and 3 Certificates of Merit from the Chicago International Film Festival. He has had one person shows at MOMA New York, Hirshhorn Museum/Smithsonian Institution, Athens International Film Festival, Chicago Filmmakers (1977-1980), Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, University of Chicago, Governors State University, Virginia Tech University, and Lake Forest Academy. He has written three books including, Adam’s Theories, a novel, Basic Filmmaking, Arco Press 1981, and The Book of Darts, Henry Regnery Publishers 1977. He holds United States Patent No. 5,654,750 (1997). He was the producer of recent Project Bluelight films Flat Chested, Scott’s Dead and In Love With a Nun (2009-2012).
- Steven A. Jones recently complete principal photography on The Harvest directed by John McNaughton and starring Michael Shannon, Samantha Morton, Peter Fonda and Natasha Calis.
- Timothy Peternel has worked as an independent film producer for the past 15 years on such critically acclaimed films as Spun, Buffalo 66, London, Love Liza, Dirty, The Last Word, to name a few. Prior to producing, he was Vice President of Development for the prolific film company Muse Productions and worked on such indie classics as American Psycho, Virgin Suicides, and Bully. Most recently Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions acquired the distribution rights to the movie he produced titled Small Apartments.The film premiered at the 2012 SXSW Film Festival, and stars Matt Lucas, Billy Crystal, Johnny Knoxville, and Rebel Wilson. Besides producing, Timothy Peternel Co-Wrote the animated film The Outback (2012) starring Brett McKenzie, Rob Schneider, Norm MacDonald, Alan Cumming, and Tim Curry. Fox Home Entertainment recently acquired the distribution rights to the animated film with a release dated anticipated in late 2013.
- John Psathas has been working in film and video for the last 10 years on corporate and commercial projects as well as independent and Hollywood feature films. One of the first MFA graduates from DePaul University's Digital Cinema Program, he has produced, directed and shot commercial work for a variety of companies including Sprite, Bacardi, Aussie Shampoo, Pillars, Catholic Charities and DePaul University. His recent commercial spot, Lather, not Leather was selected by Aussie to help launch their new men's shampoo line. Several of John's films have screened as festivals internationally including his award winning MFA thesis film, Milwaukee, which was a regional finalist for the Student Academy Awards and selected at the San Diego Latino Film Festival, the Chicago Latino Film Festival, the Salt Lake City Film Festival, the Downtown Film Festival - Los Angeles, the Carmel Art and Film Festival, and Court Métrage at the Festival de Cannes.
John has been a producer or part of the production team on the last five of DePaul's Project Bluelight films, while continuing to produce and direct independent films in and around Chicago. He is a member of the production team at Chicago-based Digital Hydra as well as the founder and owner of Analog Productions.
- Anuradha Rana’s most recent short documentary, Ring Laila, premiered at EDINDOCS, Edinburgh in 2011 and went on to play at film festivals around the globe throughout 2012. Another short documentary just completed, Variations, about three Chicago artists, will premiere in Los Angles in July, 2013. Currently, she is producing a documentary feature about environmental economics, Futures and Options, that is part of an online transmedia project; the first webisode, in affiliation with Chicago Filmmakers, will premiere in in May, 2013. Also, she is directing a collaborative project, Staged, involving a choreographer, cinematographer, composer and wheelchair dancer set to debut in summer, 2013.
- Robert Steel is a composer and sound designer for cinema, theatre and other media. Recent original music and sound design credits for theatre include the world premiere of Carlos Murillo’s play Augusta and Noble at Adventure Stage opening in April 2013, Cymbeline, Twelfth Night and Hamlet at Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival where he will be returning in the summer of 2013 to design Richard III.
Recent cinema and other media credits include the films Undocumented, Blood on the Plain, Scott's Dead, and Good Hair and Other Dubious Distinctions, Scarlet, Father/Man, voiceover engineering and editing for the video game Zombie Yoga, voiceover engineering and re-recording mixing for the installation Climate of Uncertainty at DePaul University’s Art Museum, DePaul CDM Podcasts and Lobster Stew for Soprano and Virtual Instruments. His multi-media opera, Frequency Response, in conjunction with Chicago Opera Vanguard is in progress heading towards a workshop in Winter 2014.
He is on faculty at the School of Cinema and Interactive Media at DePaul University where he runs the DePaul Cinema and Interactive Media (CIM) Sound Design program and the CIM Sound Studios. He is piloted exchanges with two major universities in Mexico City, Universidad Iberoamericana and Tecnologico de Monterrey, where he taught advanced sound design courses in the Summer of 2011 and mentored students in the production of two short films in the Winter of 2012. He is a recipient of After Dark awards and awards from ASCAP and the Illinois Arts Council.
- Jonah Zeiger produced the TV pilot The King of URLs which premiered in competition at the New York Television Festival. He wrote and directed The Art Police, an action/comedy short and the first DePaul production to film at Cinespace Chicago Film Studios. The project is currently in post-production. His documentary Starring the Extras was selected for the Spotlight on Documentaries section of the IFP Film Market in New York. Follow-up shooting and post-production are currently in progress on this longitudinal documentary project.
- JoAnne Zielinski ris a producer, director and Associate Dean in the College of Computing and Digital Media. As a filmmaker, JoAnne recently traveled to Los Angeles with students to produce a documentary on the Daughters of Charity, Province of the West Ministries. She was an Associate Producer on the film Flat Chested (2012) written and directed by Kristyn Benedyk starring Alicia Witt and Luke Perry. The feature-length film Sweet Sixteen (2011) she produced and co-directed with Gary Novak is currently in post-production. She produced Vincent DePaul Charity’s Saint (2011) , it is currently airing on CatholicTV and has been translated into French, Spanish and Korean. The film was honored with a Telly award and a Certificate of Merit by the Chicago Film Festival. In addition, she co-produced and directed the short film Undocumented (2011) for the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities.
- Scott Erlinder wrote, produced, edited and directed the photography for "Storm Warriors: Heroes of the Shipwreck Coast" for PBS in 2004.
- Joanne Zielinski is currently producing a feature-length documentary on St. Vincent de Paul.
- Doris C. Rusch assistant professor for game design, focuses on games about the human experience and mental health activism. Together with a team of DePaul students, she recently finished Zombie Yoga, a 3rd person, single-player Kinect game in which the player does Yoga poses to overcome metaphorical representations of emotional wounds (e.g. Zombies) and to liberate the inner child. Zombie Yoga was part of IndieCade's "Official Selections" and was recently featured in the legendary game culture magazine "killscreen". Her new projects include Pocket Ritual, a windows phone app that is developed for Microsoft Imagine Cup and that sends the user on a journey of self-discovery. She is further spearheading a transmedia project with DePaul's "Voices & Visions Lab". The Voices and Visions transmedia project aims to raise awareness for both the phenomenon of and research on "unusual experiences" related to psychosis and includes a documentary and a game.
- Brian Schrank is a game designer and author of the forthcoming book, Avant-garde Videogames: Playing with Technoculture. He's shown work at the Game Developers Conference, Art History of Games Conference, Stanford University and Georgia Tech. He's developed AR games and toys for Motorola, Qualcomm and Cartoon Network. He designed NSF-funded physics software to encourage women to seek careers in engineering. He was a character animator on The Urbz at Electronic Arts.
- Dr. José P. Zagal is a game designer and scholar. He is the author of Ludoliteracy: Defining, Understanding, and Supporting Games Education(2010) and the editor of The Videogame Ethics Reader (2012). Zagal is a member of the executive board of the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA)and has published numerous articles on videogames in leading international journals. He also regularly presents on these and other topics at international conferences.
- Dolores Wilber Wilber practices art and design in print, installation, video, sound, performance and writing. Her awards include Illinois Arts Council Fellowships, an American Embassy Travel grant, and a Peabody Award for her work with the national public radio program This American Life. In 2012 and 2013 her work was exhibited as part of the Video Guerilha series in San Paulo, Rio De Janiero, and Brasilia, Brazil; at the Rapid Pulse, international festival of video and performance, Debrillator Gallery, Chicago and was chosen to be a participant in the Center series at the Hyde Park Art Center Program, Chicago, 2013; visit doloreswilber.com for more information.
- Shiro Akiyoshi received his B.A.in English from Kansai Gaidai University (Osaka Japan) and his M.F.A in Visual Communication from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is a graphic designer and artist. He has been a freelance designer since 1995, and has worked on various design projects for international corporations, non-profit organizations, academic institutions, art galleries, and artists. His art and design works has been exhibited in Japan as well as the United States. His current research projects involve Digital imaging, Illustration, montage combining digital and traditional Japanese image making process.
- Craig Miller Cognitive science, computational models of human behavior, machine learning
- Adam Steele Speech Recognition
- Jonah Zeiger produced the Student Academy Award Winning short, "True Confessions of a Sushi Addict". distributed worldwide by Atom Films.
- Joanne Zielinski was the Executive Producer of the DePaul University INSIDE twenty12 series.
- Kristyn Benedyk has written and directed numerous short films that have played at festivals nationwide. She most recently wrote and directed the short film, Flat Chested, starring Alicia Witt, Rebekah Ward and Luke Perry. She is currently developing multiple feature length projects including a reboot of the classic horror film, Carnival of Souls to be directed by faculty member Matthew Irvine, a feature length version of Flat Chested, and a screen adaptation of her stage play, Stolen Children. Additionally, Kristyn has branched out into producing, beginning with a film shooting summer 2013 directed by faculty member Meghann Artes; Kristyn has also optioned and is developing numerous feature length scripts from highly talented working screenwriters. She is also a published and produced playwright. She currently serves as chair of the screenwriting program.
- Matt Irvine wrote "The Hazing", winner of the Producer's Access Program and "Dark Water".
- Brad Riddell rewrote, then received a “Written By" credit on Crooked Arrows, an independent feature film set in the world of lacrosse. The story centers on a Native American team struggling to reclaim its identity in the sport its people first created. Brandon Routh (SUPERMAN) and Gil Birmingham (TWILIGHT) star. Crooked Arrows was released nationally in theaters in 2012, and is now available on Blu-Ray and DVD everywhere.