AIR Time interview: 7:00 – 7:45pm Movie: begins promptly at 7:45pm Serving as Associate Professor of Computer Animation, Todd Fechter is the current Interim Dean of the school of Arts, Technology and Emerging Communication at the University of Texas at Dallas. Graduating with an MFA in Computer Animation and Visualization from The Ohio State University in 2002, Fechter has worked in and around the animation industry for the past thirteen years, having worked as a modeler, rigger, and modeling supervisor for studios including DNA Productions and Reel FX. Fechter currently teaches courses in modeling and pre-production design. He continues to work professionally as a freelance 3D modeler. Discover what Fechter and his students are capable of achieving as he shares two short films — “Snatch” and “Terminal B” — during his interview. It’s amazing what can be done in a mere 1 minute and 27 seconds or less! Then hang around for THE MATRIX (136 min). This 1999 film features a stellar cast including Keanu Reeves as Neo (aka Thomas Anderson), Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus and Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity. It seems that Anderson is a man living two lives. During the day he’s a computer programmer and at night becomes a hacker known as Neo. As Neo, he continuously questions his reality, but discovers the truth exceeds his imagination. Neo finds himself a police target after he is contacted by Morpheus, a legendary computer hacker branded as a terrorist by the government. Morpheus awakens Neo to the real world, including an artificial reality known as the Matrix. Serving as a rebel against the machines, Neo must return to the Matrix and confront the agents: super-powerful computer programs which are dedicated to annihilating Neo and the human rebellion.