Academy Grad Pete Infelise Captures America’s Love Affair With the Automobile in his “Illinois Route 66 Road Trip” Interactive Project
Pete Infelise (MFA09 Web Design + New Media) portrays the legendary Route 66 in his interactive project, capturing its legacy and landmarks through the decades.
Once known as the “Main Street of America,” Route 66 wound from Chicago to L.A., pulling a footloose America into the automobile age. Pete Infelise (MFA09 Web Design + New Media) has revived that era in his interactive project “Illinois Route 66 Road Trip,” claiming awards and attracting national admiration along the way.
Captivating vintage graphics merge with interactive finesse and irresistible storytelling in Illinois Route 66 Road Trip, which began as Infelise’s thesis and allowed him to be the first online student to win the top award at the Academy’s annual Spring Show. Among additional awards are a second in the 2009 SIGGRAPH International Student Interactive Competition. And now the project’s been selected for publication in the April 2010 Interactive Annual of HOW magazine.
Infelise says his goal with the interactive project was to “give the viewer an experience,” a statement that doesn’t explain why it’s so hard to pull yourself away from it. No doubt the era he captures has something to do with it: Middle-class America was entering its love affair with the automobile, and the allure of independent travel was exhilarating. Infelise is from Berwyn, Ill., and grew up around some of the original Route 66 landmarks still in existence.
To recreate this almost-vanished world, Infelise immersed himself in Route 66 lore and traveled the Illinois portion of the highway, taking his own photos and absorbing small town life and historical remnants along the road. His visual portrayal of the route is atmospherically portrayed via the technique of matte painting, most often used in the movie world.
An accomplished web designer, Infelise used his own photography, Photoshop, After Effects and motion and interactive design in his project. Thanks to his studies at the Academy, he was also able to learn the technique of matte painting, most often seen in movies, from an industry professional, Alan Sonneman.
To help Infelise study the technique, School of Web Design + New Media Director Lourdes Livingston put him in touch with a pro. “I hooked him up with industry professional Alan Sonneman, a matte painter for over a dozen films such as The Matrix Revolutions, Antz and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor,” Livingston recalls. “The beauty of Directed Study is coordinating the perfect match of student and advisor, and Pete’s final project beams with a high degree of both digital imaging and interactive animation that has taken him to the next level.”
Infelise, currently a full-time instructor at the Illinois Institute of Art, is grateful for the individual attention and exposure to working creative artists. “I really do feel very lucky, though, to have had the opportunity to work on a project that incorporates so many things I love: photography and Photoshop, After Effects and motion design, and finally interactive design,” he says. “Of course, another big part was the road trips — 11 total — and the people and places I had the opportunity to meet and experience along the way.”
Pete Infelise is currently teaching at the Illinois Institute of Art.
You can view Infelise’s digital portfolio here. His sculpture and mask work can be viewed here.
