Spoiler Alert Radio

We were fortunate to catch a glimpse into the world of renowned animator Bill Plympton.Bill Plympton started out as an illustrator and cartoonist whose work has appeared in such magazines as The Village Voice, Vogue, and Rolling Stone.His first animated film was a film of Jules Feiffer's song, Boomtown. By 1987, he had garnered an Oscar nomination for his short film Your Face.His feature length work has included such films as I Married A Strange Person and Hair High.He has also tried his hand at live-action feature films, including Guns On The Clackamas and J. Lyle.Over the years, he has made dozens of award winning short films including the more recent Dog series of films.His most recent project is an animated feature film titled Idiots and Angels, a dark comedy about a man’s battle for his soul.

Mason Daring is a talented film composer, musician, and record label head.As a musician with a law degree, Mason was legal counsel to director John Sayles for his first film The Return of the Secaucus Seven. Daring ended up composing the score to that film, as well as John Sayles’ other films up to and including Honeydripper, a story of blues musicians in 1950s Alabama. Mason has done television scoring as well, including the themes to the series Nova and Frontline on PBS. He also releases some of his and his collaborators recordings on his label Daring Records, a sub-label of Rounder Records. Mason currently splits his time between his studio and home in New England and a place in the Hollywood area.

Geoff Thompson is a BAFTA winning writer, teacher, and martial artist.Geoff Thompson has worked through a plethora of menial jobs, from glass collector to floor sweeper; he even spent a decade working as a nightclub bouncer.Geoff decided to become a martial arts instructor and then followed this by living out his dream of becoming a writer.He is now the author of over thirty books, a stage play, a BAFTA winning short film, Brown Paper Bag, and two feature films. He wrote a screenplay to the award winning short film, Romans 12:20, which won the Grand Prize International Discovery Award at the Rhode Island International Film Festival.His latest feature film, Clubbed, about a lonely factory worker whose life is transformed when he becomes a nightclub doorman, has screened a variety of film festivals including the Raindance Film Festival.

William Donaruma has years of production experience having worked for Universal Studios as well as a variety of production companies and major television networks.

Returning to Notre Dame to teach production courses, he has won the Kaneb Teaching Award and was granted a fellowship at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

He is currently worked on a documentary about the Bengal Bouts impact on the Holy Cross missions in Bangladesh, called Strong Bodies Fight. He has directed of several award wining short films including Ball in the Woods, Finding your Way, and Free to Good Home.

His short films screened in the Feel Good Film Festival, the Chicago International Film Festival, and the MergingArts Short Short Story Film Festival.

Based in Auckland, New Zealand, Justine Simei-Barton has worked in film, television, and theater, as director, writer, producer, and instructor. She heads her own film production company, Tala Pasifika Productions.

Justine has won a number of awards including the Senior Pacific Artists’ Award, a Rockefeller Foundation Grant, and a QE II Arts Council Travel Grant.

Her recent film The Trophy, portrays a young Samoan girl whose science project wins her a trophy, but creates tension within her tradition-oriented family.

The Trophy has played in film festivals around the world, including the Berlin International Film Festival, the Fajr Iran International Film Festival, and the Chicago International Children's Film Festival.

We spoke with members of the Toronto film collective team, Flemish Beauty, behind a number of films including the 1 minute animated short, The Inquisitive Snail.The Inquisitive Snail is the story of Luke, an average, everyday nosy neighbor and his newly acquired pet, an inquisitive snail. When the inquisitive snail is dispatched by Luke to spy on the inhabitants of a small town, the snail soon discovers that all is not what it seems and other people's secrets can be absolutely delicious.The Inquisitive Snail has been selected for a variety of film festivals including Annecy, DC Shorts, The Seattle International Film Festival, and the Rhode Island International Film Festival, Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, and the MergingArts Short Short Story Film Festival.

Ryan Gielen was born and raised in Columbia, MD. Ryan attended Washington and Lee University, where he majored in Journalism. He taught himself editing by sneaking into the editing suites after the Broadcast Journalism students left for the night. Following graduation, Ryan Gielen started his own production company we have creates, training and promotional videos for clients like Johns Hopkins University and MADD. The steady work funded his first documentary, Larry Keel: Beautiful Thing, following a year in the life of an underground bluegrass legend. Since moving to New York, Ryan has focused on screenwriting, producing and directing including his first short film, Deleted Scenes. His feature film, The Graduates was inspired by his experiences growing up in Columbia, and attending several Senior Weeks in Ocean City. It has played several film festivals and has won the Directorial Discovery Award at the Rhode Island International Film Festival.

Marlyn Mason has been an acting professional from the age of 9. By the mid 1960s, she was playing a recurring role of Sally Welden on TV's Ben Casey.

In 1967, she starred as Carrie Pipperidge in a television version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel and in 1969, she made her big-screen debut opposite Elvis Presley in The Trouble With Girls and as Nikki Bel in the 1970s series Longstreet.

After a long absence, Marlyn returned to television in the early 1990s in a variety of roles. Most recently, she has written, produced, and starred in award winning short, Model Rules.

Model Rules is film about a 70 year old woman who works as an artists’ model posing nude for a classroom full of men. During the session, she begins to fantasize about one of the artists as he draws her nude form. Model Rules has screened a variety of festivals including LA Shorts and has received the Grand Prize for Screenplay at the Rhode Island International Film Festival.

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Trey Gunn, based in Seattle by way of Texas, has an impressive list of credits as a musician, most memorably with the seminal progressive rock band King Crimson, as well as with other artists such as David Sylvian, Brian Eno and the band Tool. As a solo artist, he has released seven CDs.He has moved into the world of film and television scoring, and with Joe Mendelson has developed Quodia concerts, which integrate film, music, language, and storytelling.Trey Gunn's latest CD release is a compilation of film score pieces entitled Music For Pictures, for which he is soliciting animators to contribute visual interpretations.

This was recorded from the 12th year of RIIFF, which over the years has brought in talented visiting filmmakers from across the globe.We spoke with creators of the short films: Invulnerable, My Inventions, Behind My Eyes, Hugo, and Eclipse.