VCUarts brings animation talent to famous Tribeca Festival

By Sian Wilkerson

In May, Virginia Commonwealth University arts student Haadi Haadi received an unexpected call: A producer with the audio magazine Signal Hill needed an animation component - and fast - for an appearance the following month at the renowned Tribeca Festival in New York City.

Celebrating its milestone 25th installment this year, Tribeca - a longtime highlight of the film festival circuit - now celebrates storytelling in many forms, including TV, music, audio and more. It draws hundreds of thousands of attendees from around the world, but for Haadi, who is enrolled in the master's program in the Department of Kinetic Imaging in VCU's School of the Arts, it seemed like just another animation project.

That is, at least, until he started telling other people about what he was working on. Soon Haadi realized: "Oh, that's a big festival."

In June, Haadi was one of a handful of VCU students and graduates whose work took centerstage at Tribeca as part of a collaboration between VCUarts and Tribeca Audio, which is responsible for the larger festival's audio and podcast programming.

The collaboration began last year, when Chioke I'Anson, Ph.D., director of community media at the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU, was contacted by Davy Gardner, head of podcasts and curator of audio storytelling at Tribeca. Gardner was looking for animators to help create a visual component for several podcast trailers that were being shown at the festival's podcast showcase.

In turn, I'Anson contacted VCUarts, and from there, a partnership took root.

"That first year, it was a pretty great thing," I'Anson said. "Maybe three trailers got made. This year, Tribeca called and they were like, 'Give us everything you got.'"

In its second year, the collaboration saw six VCU students and graduates take part. They animated trailers for podcasts ranging from a six-part series about largely forgotten stories from medical history, to a fictional narrative about a demon from hell sent to bring about the apocalypse.

I'Anson worked with the Department of Kinetic Imaging to identify the six participants - Haadi, Ari Worrell, Michelle Huynh, Sarah Johnson, Gabe Salabao and Hanna Chou - and then served as something of a matchmaker, as he assessed different trailers and portfolios to pair the VCU artists with projects based on thematic resonance. The artists then worked with the individual producers to bring each vision to fruition.

Across the board, the students and alums made their mark.

After working with Johnson, podcaster and radio producer Avery Trufelman said that the VCU alum "was so brilliant. She was consummately professional and turned around this fantastic video concept in a matter of days." Featuring stop motion animation, the project "involved so much hidden labor," Trufelman continued. "I'm eternally in her debt for the extraordinary trailer she made."

Likewise, Haadi had just a week to work, animating three trailers that were showcased at Tribeca. The work included rendering illustrations from Signal Hill magazine in 3-D.

Despite the scale of the platform, "it was just a normal project," said Haadi, who studied painting as an undergraduate in his home country of Pakistan. "They gave me three sound pieces, and I was supposed to create videos for those. I had no storyboard, nothing - they just told me to do whatever you want with it."

At the showcase, the trailers were projected on the big screen in front of a crowd of hundreds. The six VCU students and graduates were also invited to Tribeca to see the showcase and to hear their names announced at the end.

"Up to this point in [the students'] professional lives, this might be the biggest stage that their work plays on," I'Anson said. "Tribeca is huge."

In his role with VCU and as founder of the RESONATE Podcast Festival, an annual two-day event that brings creatives from across the industry to Richmond, I'Anson is constantly working to create opportunities for students. Tribeca "is one of my favorites because it's so clearly VCU," he said. "These students, they're so skilled and they're ready to make moves."

While Haadi's ultimate dream is to show his work at the Museum of Modern Art, he plans to continue working in animation after he earns his master's degree next May. And while he didn't know much about the festival stage before, he's well aware of its significance now: "[I can say] I did something for Tribeca," he said.