{"id":780,"date":"2024-03-20T12:52:33","date_gmt":"2024-03-20T12:52:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/success-stories\/?p=780"},"modified":"2024-03-20T12:52:54","modified_gmt":"2024-03-20T12:52:54","slug":"sundance-and-sxsw-film-festival-award-winner-phoebe-jane-hart-found-her-passion-at-wcsu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/success-stories\/2024\/03\/20\/sundance-and-sxsw-film-festival-award-winner-phoebe-jane-hart-found-her-passion-at-wcsu\/","title":{"rendered":"Sundance and SXSW film festival award winner Phoebe Jane Hart found her passion at WCSU"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Phoebe

Phoebe Jane Hart on the set of “Bug Diner”<\/p><\/div>\n

Growing up in Redding, Connecticut, Phoebe Jane Hart had a fascination with film. She figured her entry into the movie business one day would be as an actress, so after graduating from Joel Barlow High School, Hart moved to New York City to attend an acting conservatory. In January, she received the Jury\u00a0Award<\/a>\u00a0at the\u00a02024 Sundance Film Festival<\/a>, and in March, she earned the Special Jury\u00a0Award<\/a>\u00a0at\u00a0SXSW<\/a>, but it wasn\u2019t Hart\u2019s acting that led her to these prestigious awards \u2013 it was her animation skills \u2013 which she developed as a\u00a0Visual Arts<\/a>\u00a0student at\u00a0Western Connecticut State University<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Catching up with her after an exciting week in Park City, Utah, where the Sundance Festival was held, Hart said, \u201cAttending Western Connecticut State University was the beginning of a big journey for me. I was working as a waitress in New York City while trying to find acting gigs, and I was drawing all the time. I ended up moving back in with my parents, who by then had moved to Newtown, Connecticut, enrolled at WCSU, commuted and paid as I went.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few years older than the typical freshman when she began her studies at WCSU, Hart said she had the maturity to appreciate the opportunities before her. \u201cI was not that interested in high school,\u201d she said. \u201cComing to WCSU when I did, I realized how much school can do for you if you take advantage of it. If you really use all the resources available to you, it can change your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of those resources was a personal introduction Hart obtained from WCSU Art Professor Darby Cardonsky that enabled her to intern with notable sculptor\u00a0James Grashow<\/a>. Another was the opportunity to create her own study-abroad opportunity in Florence, Italy, through\u00a0Studio Arts College International<\/a>\u00a0(SACI).<\/p>\n

\u201cUp until that point, WCSU did not have a consortium with SACI,\u201d Hart explained. \u201cWCSU Art Department Chair Cathy Vanaria helped me with the necessary paperwork to create a collaboration that enabled me to go using my WCSU scholarship toward my study-abroad program, and it was an amazing opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hart, who could have cared less about her grade point average in high school, realized she did care, and became a member of\u00a0WCSU\u2019s Kathwari Honors Program<\/a>. As part of the program, faculty from many disciplines teach Honors students enhanced classes. Associate Professor of Art and subsequent Kathwari Honors Program Director Sabrina Marques gave students a course in experimental animation, and Hart realized she had found not only her calling, but also her way into the film industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cSabrina is the reason I became an animator. She changed my life,\u201d Hart said. \u201cI found my passion and it became everything to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon, Hart was being pursued by out-of-state fine arts programs while still an undergraduate at WCSU. Marques told her there was no need to take out loans to attend any of those other schools, when WCSU would \u201cmake the program work for you.\u201d Hart studied Studio Art, Color Theory and Painting in Marques\u2019 classes. She also created her senior portfolio project \u201cher way\u201d with encouragement from Marques. That project featured the same kind of stop motion animation work that is featured in Hart\u2019s Sundance Award-Winning short film, \u201cBug Diner<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Due to the portfolio of work she created as a student at WCSU, Hart said she was offered the Lillian Disney Scholarship at the California Institute of the Arts to pursue an M.F.A. in Experimental Animation. The three-year program has enabled Hart to enhance the animation skills that she began developing at WCSU: \u201cBug Diner\u201d was her CalArts capstone thesis project. It also provided the opportunity to receive a paid, post-graduate teaching fellowship, which has ignited her desire to teach art at the college level.<\/p>\n

Simultaneously the writer, producer, model maker, cinematographer and editor of her film, Hart spent many solo hours in her studio. The dedication paid off. At Sundance, Hart said, there were more than 12,000 short films submitted and only 53 were selected. Of those, seven received awards, and only \u201cBug Diner\u201d received the Short Film Jury Award for Animation.<\/p>\n

For now, Hart is riding the wave of success. Prior to submitting her work to the Sundance Film Festival, she had submitted it to the\u00a0South by Southwest Festival<\/a>, where it also was accepted. They allowed her to proceed with her Sundance submission first, since SXSW wasn\u2019t until March. Hot on the heels of her Sundance win, Hart also won recognition at SXSW.<\/p>\n

\u201cTechnically, my Sundance Award makes \u2018Bug Diner\u2019 Oscar-qualifying,\u201d Hart said. \u201cIt will be on the short list of films that could be nominated.\u201d Regardless of the outcome, Hart said that since her January Sundance win, she\u2019s receiving \u201ctons of emails\u201d from other festivals, producers, agents, PR people and others who want to work with her. \u201cIt\u2019s exciting,\u201d she said. \u201cWestConn really changed my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Western Connecticut State University changes lives by providing all students with a high-quality education that fosters their growth as individuals, scholars, professionals and leaders in a global society. Our vision: To be widely recognized as a premier public university with outstanding teachers and scholars who prepare students to contribute to the world in a meaningful way.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Growing up in Redding, Connecticut, Phoebe Jane Hart had a fascination with film. She figured her entry into the movie business one day would be as an actress, so after graduating from Joel Barlow High School, Hart moved to New …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":781,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[10,6],"class_list":["post-780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-success-stories","tag-art","tag-success-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/success-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/success-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/success-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/success-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/success-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/success-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/success-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/success-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/success-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/success-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}