Up and Away: Animation, Theater, and the Opioid Crisis — Presentation Detail — Celebration of Scholars

Instructions

Student presentations must have a faculty sponsor.

Abstracts must include a title and a description of the research, scholarship, or creative work. The description should be 150-225 words in length and constructed in a format or style appropriate for the presenter’s discipline.

The following points should be addressed within the selected format or style for the abstract:

A clear statement of the problem or question you pursued, or the scholarly goal or creative theme achieved in your work.
A brief comment about the significance or uniqueness of the work.
A clear description of the methods used to achieve the purpose or goals for the work.
A statement of the conclusions, results, outcomes, or recommendations, or if the work is still in progress, the results you expect to report at the event.

Presenter photographs should be head and shoulder shots comparable to passport photos.

Additional Information

More information is available at carthage.edu/celebration-scholars/. The following are members of the Research, Scholarship, and Creativity Committee who are eager to listen to ideas and answer questions:

Jun Wang
Kim Instenes
John Kirk
Nora Nickels
Andrew Pustina
James Ripley

Up and Away: Animation, Theater, and the Opioid Crisis

Name: Tyler Meder
Major: Communications
Hometown: Villa Park
Faculty Sponsor: Herschel Kruger
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: Independent research

Abstract

Up and Away, Animation, Theater, and the Opioid Crisis

In this project I set out to create a hand drawn animation for the Carthage College production of Up and Away written by Eric Simonson and directed by Herschel Krueger. The animation would be played pre-show and introduce the character of Trey before we even know his name and sort of set the darkly comedic tone for the rest of the play. The challenge in creating it was to take the little information there was about this animation in the script and turn that into something that feels organic and part of the world of the play. It was supposed to seem like it was made by the character Trey so there were things I could and could not do in this animation. There is a uniqueness in this project in the medium itself, a combination of traditional and stop motion animation, all presented in a play where videos are integral to the story and important to the characters. In a little less than two months I made 12 minutes of amateur animation with dozens of cut outs and hundreds of pencil and pen drawings all photographed and edited together to form the final product. I feel that this animation added a lot to the theater going experience and the overall completeness of the play. It played before the show every night and it was wonderful to see people react to it and then look back at it after the curtains close to see just how connected it was to the story that just unfolded for them.

Poster file