SUNY Oswego - Alumni Association

July 2010 • Vol 6 No 4

Indie Filmmaker Takes ‘Corny’ Doc on the Road

If a film title like Cornhole furrows your brow, that’s precisely what Elaine Mello-Clarke ’90 and her husband, Tim, are after.

Elaine Mello-Clarke '90 stands under the Palace marquee in Syracuse. The couple’s four-year labor of love is finally on the big screen – and a really big screen when Cornhole: The Movie plays on stadium TVs July 17 at Soldier Field in Chicago.

The provocatively named film follows four fictional teams in their quest to become national champions of cornhole. The object of this simple, tailgate-friendly game is to toss a bag filled with corn kernels onto a board with a hole in it: Points are awarded for landing on the board or in the hole and the first player/team to 21 wins.

The mock documentary style of the film derives its humor from the simplicity and peculiar name the game, which is particularly popular in the Midwest. The film will play and make its DVD debut this month in Chicago at Soldier Field, an NFL stadium that is hosting a major tournament.

Mello-Clarke produced the film, directed by Tim Clarke, and plays self-absorbed cornhole superstar Gina Rosenstones. Mello-Clarke’s career in independent film did not start in the theatre department at Oswego, where she studied creative writing and psychology.

“There was a guy who offered me a part once, but it was Christmas time and it would have cut my vacation short, so I said no,” the Syracuse native recalled. As a student, she also unsuccessfully auditioned for a part.

Mello-Clarke settled in San Francisco following a summer as a camp counselor with a group traveling cross-country to California. She got involved in Bay Area theater through a friend and eventually she made her way to Los Angeles, where she currently works as a freelance writer, actor and producer.

"I felt like there was a lot of creative energy at Oswego,” Mello-Clarke said just before a Syracuse Film Festival screening of Cornhole. “The creative writing teachers were phenomenal.”

— Shane M. Liebler

PHOTO CAPTION:
Elaine Mello-Clarke ’90 visited her hometown of Syracuse for a special screening of Cornhole: The Movie in June at the Palace Theater.

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Who doesn’t want to save the world? Michael Kite ’02 does that for a living through World Wildlife Fund.

As marketing specialist for one of the world’s leading conservation organizations, Kite and his team of three work to raise more than $5 million each year. The majority of that money comes from licensing partnerships and promotions with the likes of Barnes & Noble, Gap, Hewlett-Packard, Dial and Coinstar.

Retail partnerships help WWF spread its message to the general public and raise funds for its conservation work around the globe. For example, Bank of America contributes $100 for every special Visa account opened and Nabisco is supporting WWF’s “Year of the Tiger” initiative with special packaging and a $100,000 donation. The new CVS Green Bag Tag program rewards reusable bag-toting customers, and generates five cents for WWF for each tag sold.

All support WWF’s mission of protecting the future of nature, down to the finest details, Kite said.

“We like to see that the product is made from recycled material and is recyclable itself, and somehow ties into our mission,” Kite said. The Green Bag Tag, for instance, is made from a corn-based material and features a 100 percent recycled silicone lanyard.

As a broadcasting major at Oswego, Kite got involved with WRVO-FM and WNYO-FM.

“I think it gave me a lot more confidence in talking to people,” he said. It was an important part of his early career in broadcast sales and remains an important piece in the message he “sells” today.

“The best part of my job is seeing a product in the store with the WWF logo after months of working with a company to launch it,” said Kite, who joined the organization in 2006. “It’s rewarding to give people a fun, unique way to protect our planet.”

— Shane M. Liebler