In honor of the moon at its fullest and brightest, the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival is a worldwide celebration of harvest, abundance, and family. Since ancient times, Chinese people have celebrated through the traditional sharing of mooncakes, honoring the moon goddess Chang'e, and by lighting paper lanterns, all while reuniting with loved ones. For international student Tong "Lily" Sheng (M.F.A. illustration), studying far from her hometown in Tianjin means sharing customs with new friends and family at her second home: SCAD.

Sheng looks forward to the festival—which arrives this year on Sept. 29—as an opportunity to share her home culture with her chosen family in the States. "The feeling of home is a sense of belonging and security," she says. "At SCAD, I feel that I am embraced and I belong. I feel a sense of security that I can do anything I want to do. No matter how big your dream is or how small you are, you can always find your place here."

To honor her heritage and the significance of the holiday, Sheng plans to creatively commemorate the Mid-Autumn Festival with her American boyfriend Alexander L. James (B.F.A. industrial design). The two will learn to make the customary egg yolk and lotus seed paste mooncakes that are typically shared during this festival. The couple will also create decorations—including a custom 3D-printed mooncake—to mark the occasion.
 
"I'm thrilled to delve into traditional China's fascinating history and customs," says Sheng. "Each exploration brings fresh insights and knowledge, making it an endless process of self-discovery. This is also one of the reasons why I love traveling: the more I see, the more I feel about other cultures, the more I appreciate China."

"In His Eye," digital photo collage, 2023.

She loves to create in an array of styles, including linocut print self-portraits, funny cat comix, and digital photo collage. She believes that her artwork reflects different aspects of herself and her personality. While flipping through her diary, she found a quote from her favorite professor of illustration, Richard Lovell: "Draw what you really love, and others will feel it." This inspired her to pursue her passion for illustration, love what she does, and expand her artistic identity.

Sheng spent spring quarter 2023 studying at SCAD Lacoste, immersed in the color and history of Provence, affirming her growing artistry and sense of global citizenship.

Soon, under the bright moon of the Mid-Autumn Festival, Sheng will reflect further on the journey that brought her to SCAD, where she has found a supportive community that builds her confidence as an illustrator. As she says, "SCAD helped me relax and believe in myself, increasing my self-expression."

Follow Sheng's work on Instagram @lilylanguage22.

"When we look at a portrait of an artist, we think about the person who's depicted in the work, their art, their stories," said assistant curator Haley Clouser from the stage of the SCAD MOA theater. "I'm happy to sit here today and flip the script."

To the stage Clouser welcomed artists Rebecca Ness, Keith Mayerson, and Michael James O'Brien, each of whom has a work in the new SCAD MOA exhibition Likewise: Artists Portraying Artists. "So, what about the artist behind the painting, behind the photograph?" Clouser prompted.

Serious script-flipping ensued; but first, a warm-up: Mayerson, radiating positivity, told the audience, "You rock!" (A laughing Ness: "You're so impasto!") O'Brien crossed his legs and told a peculiar anecdote about Richard Avedon and a dog. Clouser entreated them to speak of their work, revealing how-what-why and then some.

Mayerson's rendering of Marcel Proust—twinkling visage, prominent chin, fab mustache—depicts the French writer marveling over a painting by Vermeer. "I think the secret of portraiture is revealing the inner personality of the person you're portraying," Mayerson said, biting into an imaginary madeleine. He advised students to go deep, get into it, do research—"yes, learn from your professors and complete your assignments"—but do what you want to do. Mayerson said he'd listened to the entirety of Proust's epic A Remembrance of Things Past ("on 26 CDs!") while painting.

Brooklyn-based Ness was there to discuss "Hangama," her rich, dynamic painting of her friend, Afghan-Canadian artist Hangama Amiri, who, as Ness explained, "very specifically doesn't make paintings with paint, she makes paintings with fabric." Ness's portrait, taken from her Studio Visitor series, depicts an absorbed, in-action Hanagama pushing patchwork cloth through a sewing machine. "What was more important than getting the likeness right was making the portrait of her work the most authentic to her."

"If the person's very well known, that's not always helpful," said SCAD Atlanta chair of photography O'Brien, discussing the perils of celebrity portraiture and the day he shot Andy Warhol. "I wanted Andy to look like the prince regent in an imaginary Velazquez painting, and Edmond Gaultney is the sentry." O'Brien pointed out how his choice of film ("Tri-X 400 graded at 320") combined with limitations-turned-strengths ("I don't have depth of field") created a regal and resonant image of Warhol. "You have to ask yourself why you're being drawn to it."

Students of all ages sopped up the wit and wisdom. The discussion lasted a half-hour, tops, Clouser corralling the crew. Afterwards someone yelled "I loved that!" The only possible response? Likewise.

(l-r) Michael James O'Brien, Keith Mayerson, Rebecca Ness, SCAD MOA's Haley Clouser.

For this writing professor, summer reading hits different.

Talking over iced chai on a leafy patio, Tish Hamilton mentions Angels on Toast by Dawn Powell, Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, and How the Word Is Passed by Clint Smith, as well as the sonnets of Terrance Hayes and recent magazine profiles of Tom Hanks, Sharon Olds, and Lizzo. For Hamilton, reading for pleasure and edification is indivisible from building challenging classroom syllabi.

"Media literacy is part of a writing degree," says the professor, who joined SCAD Savannah's writing faculty in fall 2022. "That means being able to recognize what to invest your intellectual and creative energy in."

Hamilton brings river-deep, mountain-high professional experience to SCAD. She excelled as an editor at publications including Rolling Stone, Outside, and Sports Illustrated for Women, and led for a decade-plus as executive editor at Runner's World, where she penned an incisive profile of Olympic marathoner Kara Goucher. Hamilton—who has completed 56 marathons herself and co-hosts the podcast Another Mother Runner—is in it for the long haul.

"Running, like writing, requires discipline, endurance, and great stretches of time alone," she says. "Then you come together, whether that means running the New York City Marathon with fifty thousand other people or showing up to class with your peers and your professor to workshop your draft and get feedback."

School of Liberal Arts Dean Kate Newell emphasizes the value of Hamilton joining the department. "In just one year at SCAD, Tish has achieved the status of ‘much beloved faculty member,'" says Newell. "Students love her humor, positivity, and ability to translate her professional expertise in the classroom. For our writing majors pursuing careers in multi-platform journalism, editing, and story research, Tish is genuinely invested in their success, and they feel that connection, support, and authenticity."

This fall, Hamilton will again teach Writing for Emerging Media: Storytelling in the Digital Landscape (WRIT 355) and, for the first time, Writing for Arts and Entertainment (WRIT 205).

"What I love about teaching is helping people uncover their best writing selves," Hamilton explains. "That means understanding where there could be more metaphor or revelation or where the writing can be tightened up and still be true to their voice and vision."

Hamilton's classroom process begins by her witnessing "how my students are reacting to storytelling. We talk about multi-media stories, and how to use audio, graphics, slideshows, and maps to enhance the reading experience. We talk about how to do what surrounds the story in a way that complements, but is not redundant, and makes sense for the medium."

A natural classroom rapport is helped by a certain familiarity: Hamilton raised a digital native of her own. (Her daughter Nina is now a rising sophomore at Barnard.)

"I'm focused on teaching students how to produce quality content," Hamilton says. "Whether you're doing longform journalism or creating Instagram stories and TikToks, you have to be able to do the work. True quality will win out."

Connect with writer, runner, and professor Tish Hamilton.

Kevin Ramsey's low-key precocity belies an impressive professional trajectory.

The co-founder of Warren James was a high school junior at Charlotte Christian when he created Hungercraft, a Minecraft development company that quickly boasted three million active monthly players. That summer, Ramsey participated in Rising Star, the five-week SCAD program that allows rising high school seniors to earn college credits. In the fall of 2011, he matriculated at SCAD.

"I knew art within video games was the path I wanted to pursue," says Ramsey. "I finished my first year at SCAD, and Hungercraft had really taken off. I was monetizing it quite well for a college kid, so I talked it over with my parents and decided to take the summer to focus on it."

As that summer ended, Ramsey made the momentous decision to pause his academic studies. After he sold Hungercraft in 2014, he went to work at toy giant Jazwares managing business development, first in the U.S. then in Shenzhen, China. Next, global gaming platform Roblox recruited him as their senior manager of business development and licensing. In 2019, Ramsey and business partner Ben Wiedner founded Warren James, a merchandising firm with offices in Los Angeles and Guangzhou that works with popular personalities in the online creator space.

"What Kevin achieved leading up to Warren James was a phenomenal prelude to what he's doing now," says SCADpro Fund managing director Ray Crowell. "By combining design, fulfillment, and marketing in one company, he's exceeding what's considered possible at such a high level. I'm confident that with the backing of the SCADpro Fund, Kevin will play a special role with SCAD students, many of whom are huge fans of the creators Warren James works with. This is a partnership that can include mentorship, hiring, and business development."

The Warren James CEO's success story may require a reappraisal of the value proposition of higher education. What happens when a student actualizes their creative career without completing a degree program? Ramsey emphasizes the lasting value of his SCAD experience, and his affinity for the university's commitment to innovation.

"The amount of people I know from SCAD who are now in really strong positions at other companies I can call on, it's hard to quantify what that's worth," he says. "One piece of higher education that a lot of times goes unnoticed is the network effect, and it's something SCAD excels at. The relationships you cultivate here are ones you'll maintain."

Ramsey believes SCAD is in step or ahead of today's creative industries. "I was studying interactive design and game development, yet the larger part of my career is now in merchandising, fashion, and manufacturing. It's impressive that SCAD now offers newer degree programs like fashion marketing and management. If I could go back, I'd go for a degree within that sphere."

That may one day come to pass. Ramsey sees the connection between Warren James and SCAD as a key to the future.

"Historically, our moat at Warren James has been our custom product development. Recently, our second moat is starting to expand around our quality of creative. Creators work with us because we come up with the best designs in the industry. The challenge is, how do we bring in the best talent to Warren James and put them to work? We need to be working with an ever-flowing pool of talent at the cutting edge of design. That means SCAD."

Connect with Kevin Ramsey on LinkedIn.

With Cloud Studio, Chloe Campbell (B.F.A., fashion, 2019) has made event painting nearly as synonymous with weddings as ring bearers and cutting the cake.

Over the past seven years, the entrepreneur has grown what began as a weekend gig while a student at SCAD into an agency with six artists painting weddings across the country and even overseas.

"We get a full spectrum of clients, from people who want a painting to be exactly their vision, to those who are like, ‘We trust you!'" she says. 

As Cloud Studio has bloomed—turning "special moments into irreplaceable keepsakes"—Campbell has nurtured her own creative career. And when the business owner got married herself in April of 2022, she tried out a new idea.

"I had three of my six artists there at my wedding, all capturing little moments throughout the day, whatever inspired them. That was the first time we tried what we call the plein air series, which we now offer to our clients."

Although a show called "Real Wedding Painters of the Lowcountry & Beyond" isn't in production quite yet, Cloud Studio has just launched its own YouTube vlog with major dish. To be sure, a conversation with Chloe is itself a special entertainment.

Chloe Campbell:

I studied fashion design at SCAD. I knew I was good at painting, but I didn't want to be in a studio alone for the rest of my life. Then freshman year a friend said, "Hey Chloe, I saw someone painting at a wedding. You should try that!"

Since I grew up in Oldfield where there are lots of weddings, I contacted a wedding planner, and it turned out she was actually getting married herself and said, "Would you want to try and paint my wedding?" That was spring of 2016. By junior year I was painting around 40 weddings a year. It just took off.

I knew the direction I wanted to go was to hire artists to work with me under the banner of Cloud Studio. I interviewed a lot of candidates to get the original three artists I hired. I wanted to align with them as people. What we do isn't just wedding painting, we are multitasking. You have to be a people person because [as wedding painters] we are part of the entertainment of a wedding.

Every one of our artists has a little bit of a different style. I teach them my techniques, based on workshops I've taken with plein air painters in the southeast. I work a split primary palette, and I share my go-to color combos for the wedding world. Like, when you see a black tux, don't use black. I studied at SCAD Lacoste, and I'm more impressionistic—I love capturing the light and shadows of the landscape. 

When I was a SCAD student, I'd get people who would say at weddings, "Oh this is a fun hobby, what do you do for money?" Even now sometimes people doubt this is a business. That's why I like to brag on my team.

All my artists are going viral, and collectively we have I think 300,000 followers on social media. We get leads coming in from TikTok every day, and a strong foundation with the wedding planners I've been working with for seven years. Two of our artists left the medical profession [to join Cloud Studio] because of how much this business is thriving.

I feel honored to support the women I work with as we continue to grow. I'm proud that this is a business I started at SCAD. It's been a phenomenal journey.

Chloe Campbell of Cloud Studio.

A billionaire pelts a famous actress with oranges. The sounds give the scene its absurd impact. Squish! Splat!

"Killing Romance was a blast to work on," says Hyoenzi "Alex" Wang (B.F.A., sound design, 2022) of the hit Korean film starring Lee Hanee and Lee Sun-kyun. "There were many creative challenges I faced as a Foley artist. I did the wooshes of the clothes. The main character sometimes wears uniforms with thicker material, and I studied tae kwon do for ten years, so I tried to mimic that rustle."

This is Wang's job: create sounds that sync with moving images to bring film and television to life. (Her Instagram page demonstrates exactly how she creates many memorable sounds.)

"Becoming a Foley artist involves an idiosyncratic career path that requires commitment, and I am so proud to watch Alex's journey unfold," says sound design professor Jamie Baker, who taught Wang in Foley Production Techniques (SNDS 322).

While a student at SCAD, Wang was part of the student team that created "Let Loose," winner of the 2020 Coca-Cola Refreshing Films competition. In 2021, she spent time in Seoul, working on many Korean film and TV projects. After graduating from SCAD Savannah, she went to work for Parabolic New York as an assistant Foley editor, before Baker recommended her to colleagues at leading firm C5 Sound, Wang's current employer.

"C5 has always been in the industry for 34 years, and Marko Costanzo and George Lara have been a dynamic presence in the Foley world, working with legends like Martin Scorsese. They've told me some stories," Alex says, chuckling.

Originally from Gwacheon-si, South Korea, Wang first came to the U.S. as an exchange student in 2014. She soon began exploring Stateside opportunities in higher education. "I wanted to major in film, and SCAD has a great film program. I first wanted to be either a cinematographer or a film editor, then I learned about sound design as it relates to film, and it really suited me."


At SCAD, Wang built a professional skill set through a series of connected classroom experiences.


"I first used ProTools in Professor [Robert] Miller's class Sound for Film and Television (SNDS 101). Then in Professor [Robin] Beauchamp's class Music for Media (SNDA 212), I learned [keyboard] shortcuts and professional terms, and felt really strong knowledge-wise. Professor Baker's Foley class also helped me a lot because I learned how to edit in Foley way. It's different from the regular editing. You don't want to hear any sudden stops or room tones. It's a precise and meticulous job."

As Alex sees it, "Being a Foley artist requires different skill sets or components. You have to have strength and agility, good reflexes, and musical ability. You might have to lift a heavy door, throw and bang props. Good syncs require musical ability and creativity. And you need good reflexes. I think all of my abilities and background combined make me a Foley artist."

Connect with Hyoenzi "Alex" Wang on LinkedIn.

(Banner image film still from Killing Romance, ⓒ 2023 WEBI)

"When I'm painting, I try to stay loose," said Maggie Ellis (B.F.A., painting, 2014). "I'm not interested in depicting realistic environments perfectly."

Full of churning energy and a preponderance of purple, her paintings prove her point. The Atlanta-born artist was in the SCAD Museum of Art for a gallery talk with assistant curator Brittany Richmond. The occasion was Ellis's first museum exhibition, The Ride. "We're going to take you on a ride around her show," said Richmond, which sounded a bit meta but felt right.

Indeed, the packed talk became a live-action version of the paintings themselves. Looking at people looking at the work was a manifestation of the artist's objective.

"I was trying to think about a situation where I could paint a crowd where everyone was having an experience collectively," Ellis said. "And within that, the different facial expressions, individually."

Ellis and Richmond stood bracketing the large-scale painting "IMAX." The moviegoers depicted in the painting seem disgruntled, delighted, or drowsy as they sit on a slant in a steeply pitched theater. "I was thinking about the sharp diagonal, cutting the space corner to corner and having the figures recede into the back, all bathed in this light," Ellis explained. "It conveys the feeling of gawking up at this ginormous screen," added Richmond.

“IMAX,” 2021, oil and acrylic on canvas, 34 x 50 in. Courtesy of the artist.

Ellis, who currently lives and works in New York City, has been called "an unflinching observationalist" and is represented by gallerist Charles Moffett. Much of her work feels New York-centric, though not to the exclusion of other worlds. Whether depicting an in-flight crush of airplane passengers ("Turbulence") or a phalanx of bicyclists on a stinky Bushwick street ("Flat Rat"), the paintings all capture crucibles of human drama.

During her talk, the esteemed alum stood in front of her oil-on-linen "The Big Dance" and said: "I was looking a lot at El Greco, his figures in his paintings from the 1500s have very long exaggerated limbs and they're flailing passionately around. I was thinking about putting together a space with limbs and legs and the figures themselves pulled from imagination or people I've seen on the street." (Plus the occasional recognizable celebrity: an old school John Travolta getting down amid the dancing throng.) Curator Richmond gestured towards a young woman in the painting and wondered: "Is she wearing a see-through top or is her body see-through?" Ellis's answer was to nod and smile.

Bits of Bruegelian grotesquerie and Ernie Barnes boogie-downs seem to inform the work. The paintings in The Ride feel both distinct yet part of something greater. As Richmond put it, "You have these master art historical painter influences and you're using what they put out in the world and you're bringing it to 2023 and it feels so fresh."

At that point, the curator and the artist were standing in front of a wall displaying gouache and graphite on paper works with titles like "Scream Study" and "Pizza Party Study." All part of The Ride.

"I see painting as this gigantic lineage, past-present-future," said Ellis. "I'm just here now."

Photo by Charlie Rubin

Maggie Ellis, The Ride, on view at SCAD Museum of Art through Mon. August 28, 2023.

"It's important for my students to know they don't have to compromise, you can make your creativity your career," says digital communications professor Natasha Vasiljevic. "Figuring out how to make that passion sustainable means everything."

She knows of what she speaks. Before joining SCAD faculty full-time in Fall 2022, the professor ran her own studio in Toronto while teaching university-level masterclasses in still life photography. "I talk in class about my experience as a professional photographer and business owner, so my students understand what I'm teaching has substance behind it."

At SCAD, Vasiljevic teaches Digital Communication (DIGI 130), a required course where students gain the digital competence fundamental to all creative professions. That includes building their professional identity in an online world, and "being able to speak about their digital portfolio, and discussing and representing their own work," she says.

The fact that her Herstand Hall classrooms are filled with underclassmen is a boon. "My students are from all over the world. They are from different majors and have different ideas about what they want to do, and I am impressed by how open-minded and accepting of each other they are. I so admire this generation now at SCAD."

Vasiljevic was 24-years-old when she came to Canada as a refugee of the Yugoslav Wars. She earned her M.F.A. at Ontario College of Art and Design for her thesis project "When Tito Went on Vacation" featuring kinetic mobiles constructed as a way of "reimagining nostalgia."

The experience gave her a lasting understanding of what it means to be in a country without the support network of immediate family and familiar language. At SCAD, she encourages international students to engage with the deep resources provided by ISSO. "SCAD offers important support services, and I emphasize the positives of using this help."

A good-natured hour-long conversation with Vasiljevic includes references to the visions of Bosnian poet Mak Dizdar, the creative efficacy of a good cappuccino, and her time in Haiti using Photovoice methodology "to teach kids how to represent their own lives through photography." When she says she is running off to class, she may be speaking literally.

With her training partner (a.k.a. Nancy, her dog) at her side, she has explored much of Savannah on foot, and won her age bracket at this year's Savannah Women's Half Marathon.

Now, entering the homestretch of spring quarter, Vasiljevic and her students are focused on the academic year's final assignment, an artist statement in video form. "They take all the elements of their personal brand and narrative and make a little movie, about a minute long. I tell them, it's a smaller project, only fifteen percent of your grade, but boom! They make these amazing movies. Each student speaks about their research and ideation before they show their work. I bring popcorn."

For Vasiljevic, SCAD is a new lens. "As a professor you are leading from in front of the class. But what's most fascinating to me is seeing what my students think and make."

"I am of the school of thought of not interfering with nature," says Monica Valle (B.F.A., architecture, 2020).

If Valle's statement sounds antithetical to the very idea of the built environment, it is essential to a new design discipline called Bioplanning.

On a misty Tuesday afternoon in New York City, Valle sat to discuss her work as project manager at Supernature Labs. Supernature is "not a design studio," she emphasizes, but a start-up that is both "a marketing agency for licensing ecological products" — foremost the dwelling called the Supercell — and a non-profit engaged with research and education.

"What we want to do with Supernature Labs is create systematic change in the way that we build our communities," she says. This means moving on from the boxlike structures that dominate architecture globally into shapes based on nature, "a geometrical shift into Bioplanning."

A native of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Valle lived through her country's 2009 coup d'état and the consequences inflicted on a nation and its people. That experience eventually informed her studies at SCAD, where the architecture faculty inculcated "my fascination with the policy issues behind master planning and urban development, and the social advocacy issues that go with it."

As SCAD architecture professor Scott Singeisen says: "Monica's work at SCAD indicated the high level of expertise that she brings to her professional career. Her vision and commitment allow her to translate solutions for world housing, while advancing architectural conversations around sustainability and culture. This is important work."

The work will happen on a global stage this November at COP 28 in Dubai. Supernature Labs founder and CEO Dror Benshetrit — who came to Savannah last month to speak at SCADstyle 2023 — will deliver the Bioplanning Open Report to global leaders during the United Nations Climate Change Conference. The report includes research-based policy recommendations that, per Supernature's precis, "[will] save enormous resources and energy and create a better future for both inhabitants and the natural environment."

As Valle explains: "Supernature is focused on the collaboration between industries, while giving a platform for architectural talent in emerging markets in different countries—Indonesia, South Africa, Morocco—to bring their own perspectives to what the architectural dialect can look like. Our Cop 28 activation will provide a global platform for us to invite talent to participate in the movement."

As the afternoon's conversation about her work winds down, Valle adds, almost as an afterthought,  "Oh, and I'd like to invite you to my pop-up this weekend."

A three-day collaboration between Estudio Valle and Kajal New York, "reframe" is a showroom and installation presented by Valle with fellow alum Kajal Goel (B.F.A., fashion, 2019).

"Our installation is a play on how we consume garments, and the relationship between patterns of consumption in fashion and in architecture," Monica says.

Thinking outside the box? By creating a world of positive possibility, Valle is reshaping it entirely.

"When do you feel closest to your definition of the divine?" asks Joshua Stoker (B.F.A., film and television), turning the tables on an interlocutor who's been peppering him for insights about his thesis film, INDIVIDU.

It's a good question, since divine inspiration is certainly at play in INDIVIDU.

In crisp black-and-white, sans dialogue, the action unfolds in an unnamed tropical forest. Dancers engage in ritualized movements as masked figures face off, reaching for revelation. Echoing Douglas Dunn's Peepstone (1987) and Maya Deren's Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946), Stoker's short film is deeply strange, and that's a major compliment.

"For me, it starts with my day-to-day life," says the writer-director. "I enjoy dance, I enjoy Jungian psychology, and I enjoy abstraction. So why not bring those together into a project?"

From Panama City, Panama, the brother of Ann Stoker (B.F.A., fashion marketing and management, 2019), Joshua initially envisioned SCAD preparing him perhaps primarily for a career as a music video director. In 2021, he won an Adobe + MTV Music Video Creative Jam Award. Now, with INDIVIDU, he has expanded his focus and entered another realm.

"INDIVIDU was originally ten minutes long, and my aim was the entertain. Then my professor Sedika Mojadidi said, ‘Do you want to entertain, or do you want to communicate? If you want to communicate, you must have the courage to do so.'"

Stoker and editor Emma Kafka (B.F.A., film and television, 2022) began paring back the narrative. Then Stoker jettisoned an emotionally pat soundtrack for an ambient score by Nathan Yamaguchi (M.A., sound design, 2022).

It was then, fortuitously, that film and television department chair D.W. Moffett brought The Florida Project producer Darren Dean to meet students in Hamilton Hall. Stoker showed Dean his work. "Darren Dean saw the original ending and told me, ‘Don't close the loop.'"

So Stoker recut the film's final moments. "It now ends on an active, unresolved note, and [viewers] feel part of this conversation," he says.

"Bringing cutting-edge creator Darren Dean in to meet directly with students is the sort of professional connection that distinguishes our film and television program," says Moffett. "I'm proud that Joshua grasped that transformational opportunity as he develops into a visionary filmmaker in his own right."

Stoker is in a near-perpetual state of activation, even during periods of apparent non-work. "I may be meditating. Or contemplating the role a director plays in the morale on a film set."

Stoker accepts that his galvanizing vocal presence helped sustain the crew during INDIVIDU's obdurate outdoor shoot in the muggy, boggy Lowcountry. "It was an incredibly difficult shoot, and I was in a constant state of admiration towards my collaborators."

"It's unfair for any director to take full credit for a project," he continues, proposing a less rigid collaborative hierarchy: "When you're telling an ambitious story, try have a pyramid where the director is at the middle."

As he locks the final cut of INDIVIDU, Stoker outlines a submission strategy for placing the film into festivals. The Alternative/Experimental category of the Student Academy Awards may represent a pinnacle, though he has a number of other festivals in his sights.

"I'm excited to share what we've done with the world."

Stoker on location.