{"id":13456,"date":"2015-05-05T08:00:17","date_gmt":"2015-05-05T12:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/?p=13456"},"modified":"2015-05-05T08:00:17","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T12:00:17","slug":"peanut-butter-jelly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/peanut-butter-jelly\/","title":{"rendered":"Peanut Butter Jelly"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"slider-2015-peanutbutter-back\"<\/a>New film shines light on\u00a0Clemson\u2019s Hollywood connection<\/span><\/h3>\n

<\/h3>\n

One jellyfish fires projectiles from a sunken airplane, and another retaliates with a blast from a ship\u2019s canon.
\nWhat caused all the fuss?
\nA jar of peanut butter that had fallen off a boat and drifted to the coral reef below.
\nThe animated short,\u00a0\u201cPeanut Butter Jelly,\u201d\u00a0showcases the increasing sophistication coming out of a Clemson program that mimics a real-world animation studio. It also shines a light on the\u00a0School of Computing\u2019s growing influence in the movie industry.
\nGraduates are winning top honors, including an Academy Award as recently as February. They are learning from professors who have worked their computer magic on feature films ranging from \u201cHappy Feet\u201d to \u201cThe Hobbit:\u00a0An Unexpected Journey.\u201d
\n\u201cPeanut Butter Jelly\u201d takes about one minute to watch, but it\u2019s the result of a year\u2019s work by 26 students, said\u00a0Alex Beaty, the student writer and director.
\nThe film\u2019s producer,\u00a0Jerry Tessendorf, racked up\u00a0 credits in several movies, including \u201cHappy Feet\u201d and \u201cSuperman Returns,\u201d before becoming a professor of visual computing at Clemson.
\nWhile Tessendorf provided some guidance on \u201cPeanut Butter Jelly,\u201d he described it as an \u201call-student production.\u201d
\n[pullquote]\u201cThis is very close to what is done in feature films,\u201d he said. \u201cThe ability to do this kind of work is rare in academics.\u201d[\/pullquote]
\n\u201cPeanut Butter Jelly\u201d illustrates the growing technical ability of students in\u00a0Digital Production Arts, a program in Clemson\u2019s School of Computing. Students learn the skills needed to work in the animation, visual-effects and electronic-games industries.
\nBeaty, who recently received his Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in the program, said 14 graduate students worked on the film in artistic roles and 12 undergraduates worked in supporting roles. Tessendorf and Joshua Tomlinson, who is also a faculty member, supported their efforts.
\n\"PBJ-Alex_Beaty\"<\/a>\u201cWhat excites me most is the number of people who came together to make this,\u201d Beaty said. \u201cWe\u2019re not paying them, and they\u2019re putting in large amounts of time. It all came from passion, and that represents why we\u2019re all here in the DPA program \u2014 not to be on screen but because we all love making movies.\u201d
\nOne of the strongest ties between Clemson and Hollywood is Tessendorf. He shared in a 2008 Technical Achievement Award from the Academy with Jeroen Molemaker and Michael Kowalski while at Rhythm & Hues Studios. They developed a system that is still used in film and allows artists to create realistic animation of liquids and gases.
\nBeaty, who aspires to direct movies, said he decided to write and direct\u00a0\u201cPeanut Butter Jelly\u201d after participating in an intensive summer program at Clemson with professionals from DreamWorks.
\n\u201cThey said if you\u2019re interested in layout you need to have some sort of film that you direct,\u201d Beaty said. \u201cThat\u2019s the role of layout \u2014 it\u2019s really close to a directorial role. As soon as I heard that, I said, \u2018Ok, I\u2019ve got to make my own film.\u2019\u201d
\nThe DreamWorks program was a success and will be back this summer, Tessendorf said.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a very intense 10 weeks during the summer,\u201d he said. \u201cWe choose a few students. They are volunteers because they have to commit to working 100 hours a week in the studio with DreamWorks mentors. The goal is to produce professional-quality work, not just student-quality films.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peanut Butter Jelly – Animated Short FIlm<\/a> from Alex B<\/a> on Vimeo<\/a>.
\nThe School of Computing\u2019s\u00a0Digital Production Arts program offers both an undergraduate minor and an MFA. Currently, 30 graduate students are enrolled in the MFA program.
\nTwo School of Computing alumni\u00a0were recognized last year for their work on the Academy Award-winning film, \u201cFrozen.\u201d
\nJay Steele, who received a Ph.D. in computer graphics, received a film credit in the area of animation technology. Marc Bryant, a Digital Production Arts graduate, was part of the animation team that received an award from the Visual Effects Society for outstanding FX in the segment called \u201cElsa\u2019s Storm.\u201d
\nDigital Production Arts\u2019 co-founder, Robert Geist, who had a credit\u00a0 in \u201cThe Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,\u201d remains a professor in the School of Computing and currently serves as interim director of the DPA program.
\n\u201cOur graduates are doing some of the highest-level visual effects in the world,\u201d Geist said. \u201cFor them, the sky is the limit.\u201d
\nPaul Alongi is a technical and feature writer for the College of Engineering and Science.<\/em>
\nMore information on Clemson’s Digital Production Arts program<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New film shines light on\u00a0Clemson\u2019s Hollywood connection One jellyfish fires projectiles from a sunken airplane, and another retaliates with a blast from a ship\u2019s canon. What caused all the fuss? A jar of peanut butter that had fallen off a boat and drifted to the coral reef below. The animated short,\u00a0\u201cPeanut Butter Jelly,\u201d\u00a0showcases the increasing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":13498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[149,733,981,1022,1076,1247,1329,1644,1652,1862,2434,2692,2969,3207],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-13456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-alex-beaty","tag-clemsons-school-of-computing","tag-digital-production-arts","tag-dreamworks","tag-elsas-storm","tag-films","tag-frozen","tag-jay-steele","tag-jerry-tessendorf","tag-marc-bryant","tag-robert-geist","tag-spring-2015","tag-the-hobbit","tag-visual-effects-society"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/04\/slider-2015-peanutbutter-back.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13456"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=13456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}