CSI-TV’s newest show Student Film Series continues with our entry for March, Dominic Moore’s iSky. CSI Today caught up with Moore, who graduated in 2024 after transferring in from the University of Albany in 2021, to discuss the project, viewable now on CSI-TV.

Since graduating, Moore has stayed close with the CSI program, and he hopes to parlay everything he has learned at CSI into a career as a film editor, specifically for movie trailers. He credits filmmakers like Christopher Nolan as inspiration, namely for rejecting CGI in favor of live action to accomplish some of the more technical or impossible scenes in film.

See below the full conversation with student filmmaker Dominic Moore

CSI Today: What was iSky created for?  Was it for a school project or a freelance project?

Dominic Moore: – iSky was created for my final cinema class, CIN 312, Non Linear and Multi Media Production. My classmates and I were allowed to create any work of any genre, whether it was single channel, multi channel or expanded cinema, in which at least one element involved a live performance. We also created treatments and pitch decks for a project.

CSIT: What inspired you to create this film and tell this particular story?

DM: The funny thing is, I was actually struggling to find an idea at first. In my last semester, I was also enrolled in a new communication class called COM 331, AI & The Future of Creativity, where, besides working on AI software, we would often discuss the level of impact AI itself has on us as people and in the world. A few weeks before the first treatments in class were due, I was scrolling on YouTube and found a video by Neil Degrasse Tyson on ranking his favorite sci-fi films of all time. When watching it, I noticed that he put the film called 2001: A Space Odyssey in the highest category, which piqued my interest to go watch it. During my watch, what stuck out the most to me was the AI character HAL and how similarly shaped it resembled my night projector called “Sky”. After noticing this similarity between my projector and HAL and the fact that I was in a class discussing the state of AI in the world currently; it became a lot clear to me that the story that I wanted to make was centered around a not so distant future, where AI is eroding the line between the computer performing a task versus the computer doing what it thinks is best due its the close proximity or Involvement with humans personal lives.

CSIT: What was your favorite part(s) of making the film?

DM: After I had got my idea, I was determined that for my last project in class, I wanted to do something that I’ve never done before in terms of filming. With that being said, I decided to teach myself the Blender application in order to do a 3-D animation of me in the film in the VR world. It was honestly the toughest part of the entire film, but the most fun at the same time. After learning the basics, I was able to design the set for my character to walk around in the scene. What I love the most about making this animation was the level of creativity that I felt I had in designing what the space looks like.

CSIT: How do you feel you’ve grown as a filmmaker in your time at CSI?

DM: I believe I’ve grown as a filmmaker here at CSI by having greater technical skills behind the camera, learning how to better develop stronger narratives, write better scripts, or experiment with different genres/style and most importantly, learning how to collaborate and develop a good rapport.

CSIT: What advice would you give to aspiring filmmakers at CSI?

DM: The best advice I can give any filmmakers and CSI would be to try to be helpful as much as you can. I say this because I believe that it’s very important that you keep a good rapport with peers and others to show that you take the work seriously and you want to pursue a career with this. Not only that, you are also essentially training yourself doing crew member activities like helping your classmates, setting up their cameras for their projects, modifying the lightboard, working with the audio, and green screens etc.

Check out iSky below, and be sure to subscribe to CSI-TV for updates on new shows premiering each month.