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BCC Students Win Global Animation Award

Tom Rizza
2 min read

Congratulations to the Berkeley City College Multimedia Arts students for earning second place in the global VIVE Mars “Best Horror Shot!” film competition for their spooky short “Night of the Living Dodo.”

The talented team includes:

  • Yunha Kim – Director, Film Editor, Storyboard Artist
  • Sasank “ROCKET” Seelam – Technical Director, Virtual Camera Operator, Render Supervisor
  • Dorothy Abuan – Animation Director, 3D Modeling/Rigging Lead, Motion Capture Actor
  • Will Letchworth – Voice Actor (The Rogue Scientist & Dodo)

"We were collectively shocked to hear about this win. I think we spent about an hour just chatting the morning of the announcement to check in with each other," said Yunha Kim. "This was our first time working with virtual production tech as a team to create a short film. So imagine our surprise seeing that we were contending with entries from around the world and we still placed. We're already talking about what's next for us."

This achievement was made possible by the RVPA internship program, which is sponsored by the Film Commission via the California Community College Foundation. As a result of their support BCC’s Multimedia Art students were able to use their internship hours to push the boundaries of horror and visual storytelling. In addition to the award, the team received video equipment for Berkeley City College.

"A huge thank you to my teammates and future leaders in tech & animation, Sasank "Rocket" Seelam and Dorothy Abuan, who were really the ones who worked hard to figure out the tech and make it all come alive," said Yunha Kim. "Thank you to virtual production rockstars Will Letchworth, for providing excellent voice acting to help bring life into the project, and to Tom Chesy, for generously letting us borrow his expensive equipment that brought this production together. Big thanks to Joe Bay and the BCC IT Department (Phu Le, Phi Le, Vincent Koo, Willis Liu) for putting up with our tech issues and demands and giving us access to the spaces necessary to make this film happen."

Bravo to our creative team!