Philadelphia, Pa. – Jan. 15, 2020 – When local DeVry University student, Ricky Clover, received a TV CAMMY Award for Excellence in Production by PhillyCAM for his computer-animated short film “Marky,” he was elated. Clover had been working on Marky for more than a year, spending all the time he could to complete his project at PhillyCAM, the Philadelphia Community Television training center, before reporting to his full-time security job on weekday afternoons.
Clover’s animated short film is about a 12-year-old boy struggling with how his hair looks, a concept that came to Clover in 6th grade when he saw a boy his age with a horrible haircut. At the time Clover, now 41, wondered how the boy would get through school with such a bad haircut. “I couldn’t understand how this kid was going to make it through the day, and then the next day, and so on. I felt for him and not knowing how I’d cope really stuck with me,” said Clover.
In the animated short, Marky suffered an injury to his head, causing his hair to grow back the same miserable way every time. Clover added, “Marky is an exaggerated version of my teenage life and he helped me find the comedy in the everyday concern we have over how we look.”
“Marky” was a passion project for Clover, who leveraged the animation classes he was taking at PhillyCAM and the multimedia design and development classes he was taking online at DeVry, coupled with his earlier comic book training. With the TV CAMMY Award, Clover has started working on the second episode of Marky.
“I’m proud to have ‘Marky’ awarded for its production excellence. It means I’m getting closer to fueling my vision to bring Marky to the masses,” said Clover. “I always had a talent for drawing and a love for animation, and I’m starting to see the fruits of my efforts.”
