Team Members

Bjorn Ahlstedt – Film / Motion Graphics   

 

 

 

  Christian Bruggeman – Programmer

 

 

 

Christian Cashman – Producer/ Film   

 

 

 

  Ruokan He – Artist / Designer

 

 

 

James Vollberg – Producer / Web Designer 

 

 

 

   Yue Zhu – Film / Sound Designer

Advisors

Ralph Vituccio is the Director of Media Development in Communications Design and an Instructor in the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon. He has developed, written, and produced numerous films, videos, CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, web sites, and multimedia projects for Carnegie Mellon as well as many corporate and commercial clients. He is also an adjunct faculty at Pittsburgh Filmmakers where he teaches film and video production.

His media work has received several communication and media awards and his interactive training CD-ROMs on racism and teaching conflict management skills have both won National Educational Media Awards and International Television and Video Awards.

As an independent artist, Vituccio has received numerous grants in support of his work form the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Mid-Atlantic Region Media Arts Fellowship Program and the National Endowment for the Arts. In addition, he has been the recipient of three Media Fellowship Awards. Vituccio’s documentary, “PERFORMANCE: The Living Art “, won an Artist Distinction Award at the 1990 Berlin International Film Festival and has aired nationally on several PBS stations and internationally in several countries. His latest documentary, “When The Video Came”, slated for release summer of 2003, considers the early formation of video as an art form and profiles many of the original pioneers in the field. Currently, Vituccio is in preproduction on his first feature film.

Brenda Bakker Harger is a theatre director (MFA Carnegie Mellon University), improviser, and professor of Entertainment technology at Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center where she teaches improvisational acting and leads diverse interdisciplinary projects. As an improviser, Brenda has performed with Pittsburgh Theatresports and SAK Theatre, and has led improv workshops nationally and internationally from theatre improvisers to executive leadership training (Carnegie Bosch Insititute) to video game companies. Bakker Harger is also director of a unique award winning theatre company at Carnegie Mellon, which uses live interactive theatre to address controversial issues in the workplace and classroom. She has produced an exploratory DVD-ROM for interactive theatre, and is currently pursuing her interest in further exploring her theory and skills in directing and improvisation with technology, both in gaming and theatre. Recent projects include: making a demo/prototype of a game based on the film Night of the Living Dead (with George Romero); creating a toy/exhibit featuring virtual representations of The Pittsburgh Children’s Museum’s Puppet collection; and Interactive robots – creating a robot which had distinct character and was able to convey emotion and intention. In theatre, Harger has directed and developed plays as technologically based Interactive experiences, one which premiered at the Humana New play Festival at the Actor’s Theatre in Louisville, Virtual Meditation #1, and another, Full Spectrum, which premiered at the Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York City. In addition, Harger engages in ongoing research on using improvisational methods to create more believable virtual characters.