The Man in the Refrigeratorwas Erik R. Trinidad's senior project for the College Honors Program at Rutgers University, Campus at Newark, where he graduated from in May 1997. It is a "live-action cartoon": a video and animation piece which blends live-action video with computer animation (like Jurassic Park, but with a far, far lower budget). It took over a year to complete, as Trinidad entailed all of the duties of filmmaking, from writing to directing to producing, as well as many of the other but very important production tasks such as animating, editing, modeling, storyboarding, photographing, acting, etc....all of course, without any previous moviemaking experience or formal film training.

TMITR has already gone far beyond what Trinidad has expected. He, a graphic design major at the time, made the video-movie out of personal interests, just to see if he could accomplish anything remotely close to the Hollywood blockbusters and cartoons he grew up watching. In the end, he came up with a movie that amazes people; many people can't believe that it was made by a guy who had no previous film experience, and still went to school and held a job.

During its first months of "release," TMITR was seen by professors and students at Rutgers University, Stevens Institute of Technology, New York University, School of Visual Arts, and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Trinidad's efforts also won him the Rutgers University-wide Dean Richard Robey Memorial Award, the annual award given to those who achieve "highest achievement based on creative accomplishments and academic excellence." Soon afterwards, TMITR was entered in The 23rd Annual New Jersey Young Film and Videomakers' Festival (1997), where it received a Director's Citation Award from John Columbus, who also directs the more prestigious Black Maria Film Festival.

Trinidad didn't expect to receive as much attention as he did to his little "home video on acid." But with the tremendous response that it had already gotten, he continued to enter it in other festivals, starting with the The 1997 Central Florida Film and Video Festival, a "real" film festival in his eyes, just to see what other people had to say. He didn't really care if he received anything in terms of awards---he just wanted as many people as he could get to see the little thing that started out as a plan to see how far he could get with a camcorder and a computer.

In the late summer of 1997, Trinidad got his evaulations from the Central Florida Film and Video Festival judges. In a nutshell, TMITR pretty much bombed. All the "fancy schmancy" indie film connaisseurs just thought it was stupid, and that Trinidad was a "sell out" to do an action film like "everyone else." Perhaps he was misunderstood; he always thought that most indie filmmakers were only doing serious drama films with no animation at all, and that he was the one doing something different. Who else has attempted to bring computer animation into the "toon" realm, while blending it with our own reality?


Well, to each his/her own taste. TMITR treks on, most recently at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival this fall season. Check it out and decide for yourself. And make sure you check out the movie trailer on the Downloads page.

If you're interested in seeing the actual video, look for it on the student film festival circuit, or e-mail ert@eeyartee.com for details.