Whether he’s working with old video or new technology, Eric Ruggiero, associate professor and chair of digital design and media art, shows his students how he turns classroom skills into action and gives them a glimpse of the many facets of a creative career. He even picked up another award for his efforts, earning a silver Telly Award for the documentary Rocky Glen Park: One Last Look, adding to the collection of hardware that showcases his accomplishments.
Documenting History
About 15 years ago, Ruggiero teamed up with radio host Shadoe Steele for a documentary series called On Location: Revisited. The first project focused on the 1950s horror classic The Blob, filmed in Pennsylvania’s Chester County. The duo submitted the documentary to the Los Angeles Film Festival where it was honored as Best Historical Documentary.
Other work took over until they were inspired to take a trip back in time to Rocky Glen Park, an amusement park that operated in northeastern Pennsylvania from 1904 to 1987. Though it’s been closed for nearly 40 years, the park lives on in the memories of those who visited for the thrills of rides and games. Honored by the Telly Awards, which recognizes excellence in video and television, the documentary can be found on WNEP.
While Ruggiero saw photos and video of Rocky Glen in operation, by the time he started work on the project, the park and its attractions were long gone. Still, he was captivated by the images and others’ fond memories of the spot, and he used his editing talents to bring those feelings to life.
“What’s the relationship between shots? How do you edit video in a way that impacts the audience? It’s about the emotion and the journey from the concept of Rocky Glen to when it was torn down. It’s about the bigger connection to the emotion and feeling of those things,” said Ruggiero.
The producing team will pivot from memories of family fun to local nightlife for their next project, The 25th Hour: Reflections of a Mirror Ball. The film focuses on the nightclub, once operated by the Kornfeld family, where the Woodlands Inn and Resort now stands. The film includes footage and interviews with DJs, bartenders, lighting designers, performers and guests talking about the time when the 25th Hour was the place to be in northeastern Pennsylvania.
Before the disco ball doc hits screens, Ruggiero and Steele have already started production on a new piece about Muhammad Ali’s ties to our area. The boxer and activist’s connections include his personal physician, a training facility and financial support from a coal company owner. With hopes of screening this new work at a fundraiser for at-risk youth in June, the team is working overtime to source interviews and graphics for this little-known NEPA connection..
Though he’s from Syracuse, New York, Ruggiero appreciates the chance to use his animation, montage, film and sound skills to work on these stories that dive into the past of Wilkes-Barre and the surrounding area.
“I’ve done this kind of work for 40 years, maybe. Being in this educational environment, the opportunity to keep my hands on things is important,” he said. “This is a hands-on opportunity to do things I enjoy. And on a different level, they bring some history and happiness to people who see them.”
Seeing the Future
Ruggiero likes to give viewers a way to travel back in time, but he’s also compelled to stay in tune with tech impacting various areas of design. One of the ways Ruggiero keeps up with trends is by traveling to the annual Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) SIGGRAPH conference. SIGGRAPH, which stands for the Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, brings together artists, developers, filmmakers, researchers, scientists and business professionals to network and share innovative ideas.
The 2024 conference, held in Denver, Colorado, featured a variety of panels, presentations and tech booths, as well as appearances by Jensen Huang of NVIDIA and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta. The talk around SIGGRAPH focuses on changes in the industry, and while past topics have included cloud computing, rendering and graphics processing, Artificial Intelligence (AI) was this year’s buzz. “People are still trying to figure it all out,” Ruggiero said. “It’s the AI Wild West.”
With SIGGRAPH’s focus on industry, the AI talk surrounded the ability to make time-consuming processes quicker, brainstorm ideas and create voices, images and video. Discussions also focused on the technology’s potential to eliminate jobs and save corporations money, while some education panels looked at the potential for academic dishonesty.
For students with stakes in the AI game, Ruggiero tries to balance the perceptions of the technology as neither good nor bad. He warns them that entering a string of words into AI software might not produce an ideal graphic or video, but he also lets them know that AI can be a time-saving tool.
“Technology changes and you have to kind of understand how to navigate that change. I think everyone feels that AI is going to be around and it’s going to be useful in many ways,” said Ruggiero. “It’s just how to harness it in a way that’s productive and not destructive. It can help the creative process because instead of doing something menial, you can free up that time to do your next creative thing.”
Whether he’s working on his next thing or navigating new technology, Ruggiero involves his students, adding value to the learning process on both sides.
“Sometimes we don’t see through our own narrow vision,” he said. “Anytime you get any outside feedback, it might point you in a different direction.” And he’s happy to let students know he works through difficulties too, going back to the drawing board until the problem is fixed. “You have to solve it. You don’t have an option of not solving challenges in this business.”
