Member Profile: Richard C. Thompson
1. What do you do, and how long have you been doing it?
I am an associate professor and coordinator of Digital Design at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. My instruction, research, and creative works center around bringing virtual characters to life, visual storytelling through animation, environmental narrative, and immersive game world design. I have been teaching at the college level since 2006 and previously oversaw the creation and development of the Gaming and Animation degree program at Middlesex College.
2. What was your first job?
Working student security.
3. Where did you complete your formal education?
I have an MFA in acting from the Catholic University of America and a BA in History and French from Georgetown University.
4. How did you first get involved with ACM SIGGRAPH?
I attended my first SIGGRAPH in Vancouver in 2014. My fondest memory of that trip was that I brought my oldest son – a budding filmmaker – along with me. I had heard about SIGGRAPH from Glenn Goldman a few years before. I quickly realized that I had to attend to stay current while developing the Gaming and Animation degree at Middlesex College. I also started encouraging my students to apply for the Student Volunteer program and I began submitting their work to the FSSW Exhibit. Since then, I have only missed the conferences during COVID.
5. What is your favorite memory of a SIGGRAPH conference?
Seeing the eye-opening and life-changing experience it can be for my students who were selected for the SV program and meeting up with them in California, far from our basement labs in New Jersey. And then attending the Electronic Theater – particularly the year it opened with the animated short film Beans. I contacted the producers of Beans and asked if they would let me share their film with my students as a teaching moment. Since the short was not yet on YouTube, they were very kind to send me a copy (for classroom/teaching purposes only!) and included their “making of” video as well. It showed me how important it was to make contact with other professionals, and demonstrated the support of the community at large.
6. Describe a project that you would like to share with the ACM SIGGRAPH community.
Using experiences from my past career as a professional actor, over 35 years of creative arts industry collaboration, and the latest advances in inertia-based and AI-driven motion capture, I aim to study movement – specifically what makes us recognize life in movement. I posit that authenticity in movement trumps all else in creating an empathetic link between real and virtual humans. Foremost in the recognition of authenticity in animation, life-like movement must be characterized by fluidity and intentionality: we need to interpret it as having agency, rather than random or mechanical. Living things, by their nature, react to environmental stimuli with purpose. There is no greater human reference for animation than the performances of Charlie Chaplin. An animated short film of mine, M0D3RN T1M3Z, largely influenced by Chaplin’s performance as an animatronic in The Circus, has to date been accepted at 13 film festivals and an award-winner at five of these.
7. If you could have dinner with one living or non-living person, who would it be and why?
David Bowie – genius and consummate artist.
8. What is something most people don’t know about you?
I was a professional actor for 17 years, appearing in Tony and OBIE Award-winning productions in New York. I was hand-picked by Arthur Miller for the role of Bernard and stood on stage with him on the opening night of the Broadway revival of Death of a Salesman in 1999.
I am also an avid cyclist and have climbed the mountain peaks used in both the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia.
9. From which single individual have you learned the most in your life? What did they teach you?
Rev. Dr. Alan Megahey was my housemaster and history teacher at my boarding school. He was in many ways a surrogate father figure as well during the most formative years of my life between the ages of 13-18. He not only taught me in the classroom about history but also outside of it about life. I don’t doubt that his example influenced my chosen second career as a professor. I am still in touch with his widow in England.
10. Is there someone in particular who has influenced your decision to work with ACM SIGGRAPH?
Glenn Goldman.
11. What can you point to in your career as your proudest moment?
When former students email me or visit my classroom – it validates what I do and helps confirm that, in some small way, I have changed a few lives.