When asked to describe the cinematic masterpiece that is Cocaine Bear, Scott Seiss ’16, media and communication studies, didn’t mince any words to deliver his thoughts on the hit film based on true events.

“I think ‘cocaine’ and ‘bear,’ just those two words pretty much sum it up. A wild rollercoaster ride of gore and jokes.”

What started as a Facebook message to then-agentless Seiss’ spam folder with the suspicious but apt subject line “COCAINE” has led to a debut on the silver screen and launched this Retriever from Dundalk onto the national comedy stage.

Bear for now, dog for life

Seiss, who plays the ill-fated paramedic Tom in Elizabeth Banks’ recent romp, Cocaine Bear, credits much of his comedic career to the opportunities and support he got while attending UMBC.

“There were a lot of things that came from UMBC that I think really just helped me along the comedy journey and gave me a lot of confidence and experience and skills that I might not have necessarily had going somewhere else,” says Seiss.

At this point in his career, there are a few places you may have seen Seiss—on stage performing with Dog-Collar Comedy Troupe (he was a part of the founding group at UMBC 10 years ago), on TikTok with his viral “Angry Ikea Guy” series, or opening for the likes of Patton Oswalt (on tour in 2022) or for Bo Burnham at UMBC in 2014. (At the time he thought, “Well, I’ve peaked. This is the coolest thing I’ll ever get to do in comedy.”)

Seiss got his start on UMBC’s Flat Tuesdays stage and then started bouncing around Baltimore to begin his stand-up journey. He eventually moved to New Jersey, pursued stand up in New York every night, and then the pandemic happened. That’s when he turned to TikTok. Drawing on his own experiences in customer service, Seiss soon amassed a massive following and, once a compilation video of his hits started making the rounds, Hollywood took notice.

Seiss explains, “Elizabeth Banks and her husband and producing partner Max Handelman saw the videos and loved them, thought they were funny, and they were like, ‘We got to see this guy screaming for his life.’”

Retriever skills on the silver screen

They got their money’s worth from Seiss’ shouts. On set, he says, “I had to do one day of all screaming, where I was just screaming and getting attacked.” He credits Lynn Watson, theatre, for his vocal technique. “I did all the stuff that she had taught me, the Fitzmaurice diaphragmatic breathing, tremors, all this kind of stuff, to be able to project and scream. I never lost my voice.”

In fact, Seiss often thought of advice he got from UMBC while filming. “Eve Muson, who is the best acting professor of all time, is also the best acting coach of all time. It was always her voice in my head when I was acting. I could just hear her saying, ‘Don’t pretend to be afraid of the bear, be afraid of the bear.’ That was one of her go-tos: don’t pretend, actually do it,” says Seiss. “So, every time I did a take on Cocaine Bear, I would just go back and I’d go, ‘Oh my God, would Eve have liked that?’ That was my barometer for if it was good.”

It’s a mutual admiration for Muson. “I loved working with Scott when he was a student here at UMBC. He was my assistant director for our epic production of Rhinoceros. Scott was our chief script doctor—every night I would send him home with notes to update this classic work of political theatre,” said Muson, who has been at UMBC since 2009. “Every day he’d come in with really funny gags and jokes for the actors to try out. I’m delighted (but hardly surprised) that Scott’s considerable comedic talents are being recognized by his TikTok following and now the film industry.”

The mentorship he received from the UMBC faculty played a huge part in his success. “Jason Loviglio from media and communications is just incredible. He really encouraged me when it came to comedy, specifically,” remembers Seiss.

Seiss also attributes some of his comedy prowess to his peers, including the other performers in UMBC’s Dog-Collar Comedy Troupe. “It was just nice being around such a creative and funny and supportive group of people who just wanted to push each other and try to be as funny as possible,” says Seiss.

Sitting down to write for stand up

Cocaine Bear may have wrapped, but fans looking for more can catch him in Randall Park’s directorial debut, Shortcomings, which premiered at Sundance earlier this year. He’s also working on new content for his stand-up tour.

“My writing style is pretty chaotic. Sometimes I’ll sit down and try to go through some sort of free-write exercise to pull an idea out, and then sometimes it’s just like you’re walking around, you get an idea,” says Seiss.

For any budding creatives looking to break into the business, Seiss says, “The most important thing is that you have to make your own stuff and you have to show people that you can do it before they will start letting you.”

Well, that and always check your spam messages on Facebook (proceed with caution).

Daniel Sebrosky,‘24 chemical engineering - environmental engineering & sustainability track

When did you do your Research Experience?

Summer 2023. As part of the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) https://www.ndsu.edu/cpm/summer_undergraduate_research_experience/

Where was your Research Experience ?

Dr. Andriy Voronov, Department of Coatings and Polymeric Materials, North Dakota State University

What is the focus of your Research?

Nanoparticle synthesis

What are you looking forward to the most about your Research Experience? 

I am excited to see North Dakota and learn more about the research in my field.

What advice do you have for students who are interested in getting involved in research or an internship?

Use your resources. Don't be afraid to ask your friends or professors if they have any internship recommendations or connections that you can use to your benefit.

Are you a member of any clubs/campus organizations?

Teaching fellow, CBEE student ambassador, AIChE

What are your goals after graduation?

My goal is to do anything involved with the environment after I graduate.

Learn more about Daniel Sebrosky: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danny-sebrosky-26b45a255 

When Chris Peregoy ’81, visual and performing arts, M.F.A. ’99, intermedia and digital arts, received a tin full of Christmas cookies from his sister around the year 2000, he immediately dumped the contents out on the table to eat later. He had a moment of inspiration staring at the empty container—“This tin would make a great camera.”

If you’ve ever looked at an oatmeal container, a hollowed-out book, a mailbox, or an entire room, and thought, “This object would make a great camera,” chances are you are familiar with the concept of a pinhole camera. It’s photography distilled to its most basic elements: a light-proof box, a lens—which is often just a literal hole made from a pin—and some film or photographic paper.

Peregoy, the lab manager for the Department of Visual Arts, has worked at UMBC since graduating from the photography program in 1981 and will retire this summer, but he leaves behind a substantial legacy in his 6-foot 8-inch wake. He’s also leaving behind a few dozen handcrafted pinhole cameras from his company Pinhole Blender for students to keep using in their photo classes.

In addition to the helpful labels on each camera describing exposure time in different types of light, Peregoy has some useful hints for the rest of us who might want to dabble in the non-digital world of making photos.

Tools of the Trade:

• A light-proof container—a great second life for the shipping tube your diploma arrives in
• A pin to make the eponymous pinhole
• Small square of black tape to act as a shutter
• Film or photo paper
• Access to a darkroom (but if not, you can still make it work)

Step 1: MAKE YOUR CAMERA (OR BUY ONE FROM PEREGOY’S COMPANY).

Cookie tins aside, Peregoy says he isn’t someone who makes cameras out of odd objects for the most part, although those people are out there. Shipping tubes and oatmeal containers (especially before Quaker changed their lids to transparent plastic) are his go-tos (although he’s making a camera for his retirement party out of an old whiskey barrel the brewery near his house is giving him).

You need an opening large enough to arrange the film in the containers and a way to reseal the box/tube/pumpkin/ etc. When you make the pinhole, Peregoy recommends pushing a pin through a small square of soda-can material and smoothing out any burrs with fine sandpaper. Affix this metal piece to the camera body with black tape. Then you need to attach a shutter— something that ends the light exposure—like a piece of black electrical tape.

Step 2: LOAD YOUR CAMERA.

Load the camera with the film or photo paper in a darkroom (you can improvise with cardboard taped over your bathroom window, in a pinch). Now you need to choose your subject. “One of the aspects of the pinhole camera is that although it might not create a sharp picture like a real lens, it has an incredible range of focus,” says Peregoy. “So things a quarter inch away from the pinhole will be as focused as things that are 30 feet away.” In his own pinhole work, Peregoy often uses miniature dolls or statues as subjects in the photos, using the strength of the camera to play with perspectives.

Most often, when students are released from the classroom to go take photos, for time reasons, they don’t stray far. “I’ve seen a lot of pictures of the Fine Arts building,” laughs Peregoy. But even so, he’s still surprised sometimes. In one image of a rocky scene with a building in the background, Peregoy did a double take; despite his many decades on this campus and specifically in this building, he didn’t recognize the shot. The student revealed they had laid down in a drainage ditch, and yes, indeed, it was still Fine Arts in the background.

Step 3: DEVELOP YOUR FILM.

Next comes film development. For students, that means learning the rules of the darkroom. “I didn’t know what a pinhole camera was,” says Erin Cusick, a sophomore who is taking the class for elective credit. “It’s been so fun to see how exposing the paper to light and then using time to play with the way the image develops,” says Cusick as she leans over a tray of chemicals in the darkroom watching her image appear.

But Peregoy offers two alternatives for a darkroom-free pinhole experience—solargraphy and lumen photography. Solargraphy uses a pinhole camera and exposes the image outside for several months, burning the path of the sun and the stars into the paper. Lumen prints use photo paper overlaid with flowers or other objects, which after exposure to sunlight will create an ethereal image on the paper. It’s a fragile process, says Peregoy, and the paper should be scanned digitally because eventually the image will fade from the paper.

Step 4: KEEP PLAYING AROUND WITH ANALOG.

“Digital has taken most of the cameras away from us,” says Peregoy. “But there are lots of old options and ways to turn old things into film or pinhole.” Cusick, in the photo class, is struck by how simple-seeming the whole process is, “but the simplicity makes it all the more confusing how it works,” she marvels.

Outside Fine Arts, the sun shines brightly on the building and Jamal Jackson, a visual arts major who transferred from Montgomery College, aligns his pinhole camera just so. “The versatility of the camera makes it so fun to play with,” he says. “It’s letting me capture my own voice in photos.”

The more you know: Discover more pinhole resources.

Jasmine Ives, '26 chemical engineering - environmental engineering & sustainability track

When did you begin your research experience?

May 2023

Where was your research experience ?

Ghosh Lab at UMBC

What is the focus of your research experience?

The focus of my research is to analyze the organic carbon content in soil samples. This relates to how the soil will adhere to PCBs in water.

What was the best part of your OR What was the biggest learning moment of your research experience ?

The best part of my research experience so far has been the willingness of members of the lab to teach me new things as I am starting out. I have also enjoyed learning new concepts as well as getting to see their applications directly in the lab.

What advice do you have for students who are interested in getting involved in research or an internship?

My advice for students who are interested in getting involved in research would be to reach out to professors who do research you are interested in.

Are you a member of any clubs/campus organizations?

I am a member of Society of Women Engineers. I am a part of the C21 cohort of Center for Women in Technology (CWIT). I am hoping to become a peer mentor for CWIT next semester. 

What are your goals after graduation?

My goals for after graduation are to go into industry or continue with research. 

Learn more about Jasmine Ives: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasmine-ives-964a8a23a/