NYU Tisch graduate Stephen Neary competed at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival. Neary's animated film "Dr. Breakfast" was created using only an old laptop and a lightbox during his daily commute from Brooklyn to the Blue Sky Studios in Connecticut.
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A story about the rejuvenating nature of friendship, the film portrays a breakfast scene that is anything but ordinary.
"A man's soul bursts out of his eyeball," Neary said. "While the soul flies around eating stuff, two deer dress and bathe the man's catatonic body."
Neary identifies his roots as an explanation for his odd creativity.
"It's in my guts, I guess," Neary said. "My dad is a commercial writer and producer, and my mom's a painter, so genetics might have kept me from becoming anything else."
Neary came to NYU in 2004 from Indiana with little idea of what the school had to offer.
"My NYU education was indispensable," he said. "And inspiring, too. Even as a sophomore, I'd have professors like John Canemaker bringing his newly-won Oscar to class."
Canemaker, an Academy Award winning filmmaker and the executive director at NYU's Kanbar Institue of Film & Television, has fond memories of Neary as a student.
"[Neary] was, and is, ambitious, imaginative [and] a marvelous visual storyteller and a hard worker who never quit developing his talents," Canemaker said. "His great sense of humor made him a joy to be around."
Dean Lennert, an NYU professor of animation, said it was clear from the beginning that Neary had a unique imagination.
"He soon thereafter demonstrated a very strong professional ethic in that he was someone I could count on for hitting deadlines," Lennert said. "I'm convinced, based on the volume of work he produced while going to school and also working professionally, that Stephen Neary has the ability to bend time."
Since graduation, Neary has been at Blue Sky and working on side projects in his spare time.
Neary said his experience with packed theaters at the Utah-based Sundance festival, which lasted from Jan. 19 until Jan. 29, ran opposite to the solitary experience of creating the film.
"I really just made this film for myself, but I'm extremely happy it has something to offer others as well," he said. "And people laugh at the funny parts, so that's a relief."
Jon Korn, a shorts programmer at this year's festival, saw great potential in Neary's work.
"This year we watched over 7,600 short finds and selected only 64 for our program," said Korn. "'Dr. Breakfast' combines a gleeful, anarchic spirit with surprising heart. In addition, the animation is wonderfully elastic and fun."
