Chantal Massuh of Santa Ana, Costa Rica, and Team Shine at Sleepless in Lake Placid 24 Hour Film Competition

2012 Aug 24

Four Rochester Institute of Technology students put on a gold-medal performance at the Sleepless in Lake Placid 24 Hour Film Competition.

Chantal Massuh of Santa Ana, Costa Rica, and teammates Harlan Doolittle of Pittsford, N.Y.; Meghan Connolly of Scituate, Mass.; and Christina Lodato of Rochester, N.Y., won three out of the four major categories at the film competition in June. The team's film, Chet's Pet, won for Best Film (Robin Pell Award) as well as the Audience Choice Award.

Massuh is a third-year film and animation student in RIT's College of Imaging Arts and Sciences.

"These four students demonstrated professionalism, production skills with tremendous creativity and I was very proud of them and to be a part of this," says team adviser Dave Sluberski, who is a lecturer with RIT's School of Film and Animation. "They maximize every minute in that period to tell a story in less than eight minutes that the audience and judges loved. They were a solid team."

The teams were required to shoot and produce the film within 24 hours and had to include four specific elements. The jury consisted of award-winning director Craig Macneill, writer and film and television director Gregory Orr, and veteran film and television actor Michael Gaston. This was the sixth year the 24-hour film competition was held in Lake Placid, N.Y.

Rochester Institute of Technology is internationally recognized for academic leadership in computing, engineering, imaging science, sustainability, and fine and applied arts, in addition to unparalleled support services for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. RIT enrolls 17,500 full- and part-time students in more than 200 career-oriented and professional programs, and its cooperative education program is one of the oldest and largest in the nation.

For more than two decades, U.S. News & World Report has ranked RIT among the nation's leading comprehensive universities. RIT is featured in The Princeton Review's 2012 edition of The Best 376 Colleges as well as its Guide to 311 Green Colleges. The Fiske Guide to Colleges 2012 names RIT as a "Best Buy," and The Chronicle of Higher Education recognizes RIT among the "Great Colleges to Work For 2011."

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