Write a commentOver 100 SUNY Oswego students were given the chance to collaborate in a unique way with the opening of this year's Graphic Flash 4. "An explosion of creativity," Graphic Flash allows students in disciplines such as creative writing, digital art, and cinema and screen studies, comes together to make a story come alive.
Graphic Flash began about two years ago as a collaboration between the creative writing and art departments. Writers in professor Leigh Wilson's advanced creative writing fiction class are first assigned to work on flash fiction pieces of 250 word or less. After the story leaves the hands of the creative writer, they go to a digital illustration class as well as a filmmaking class, a music class, and ultimately, a digital publishing class. Each digital illustrator also created a movie poster for the film of the flash fiction, while music students created unique pieces that coincide thematically with the stories.
Senior graphic design major Sarah Rose, participated in her first Graphic Flash this year by creating a digital illustration of a flash fiction story titled "A Change of Scenery" written by student Seamus Lyman. 
"The story was about a man named Mike sitting in his office writing a cop thriller and imagining the scene as it played out," Rose said. "There is an air of mystery, as the audience does not know much about the man.Reading it immediately brought a picture in mind and I set out to draw Mike in a dimly lit office, brooding over the story he knew he would write."
Rose said the writers and the graphic illustrators didn't communicate much over the course of the project, so the aesthetic and style of the image was determined by the imaginings of the illustrator who did their best to stay true to the story.
"Being able to see the different interpretations made by both the illustrators and filmmakers was very exciting," Rose said.
A week after the exhibition opened, students who participated in all parts of the project came together to show off their work with live performances. Student authors read while the illustration was projected on the big screen behind them, and after each reading, there was a showing of the related film.
To celebrate the students’ final product, Wilson said they had a vanilla cake that read "GRAPHIC" and another chocolate cake that read “FLASH."
"Next semester, the digital publishing class under professor Cara Thompson will be responsible for pulling together all of the resources around each story--the illustration, the short film, the movie poster, the music, an mp3 of the author reading the story--plus a digital ‘magazine’ of all the materials," Wilson said.
The Graphic Flash 4 exhibition will be held at the Oswego State Downtown art gallery, located at the corner of West First and Bridge streets until Jan. 28, and is open from noon to 5 p.m. on Wednesdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Fridays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays.
