Foley is named for Jack Foley, the American artist who invented the modern techniques still used today whenever a film requires added sound effects in post-production. VFS has its own Foley studios full of all the usual and unusual props. To get the sound of feet walking over snow, the Foley artist will often walk over corn starch. Smashing a watermelon stuffed with crackers makes a great replacement for the sound of a crushed human head. In this documentary, Foley instructor Shane Rees takes you through the fascinating art of Foley. Chair-sits, glass-downs, glass touches, footsteps, clothing, props, and plops, are all mixed to match the image by an expert Foley artist. At VFS, your Foley project will have you collaborating with students in Film Production, Foundation Visual Art & Design, Game Design, or one of the Animation programs to create high quality Foley sound effects for student projects.
The awards continue to pour in for VFS students’ films! Congratulations to all our graduates making names for themselves on the festival circuit. The CanWest Comedy Fest in Vancouver hosted its first annual “Destination Funny Shorts” Competition. Of 15 comic short films screened, 7 were by VFS students. Nominated films were screened and judged at the event on September 18, 2006. Heather’s Prom, directed by Film Production grad Jacqueline La Sorda, was nominated for Best Direction and Best Actress. Skulltron Vision, by Film Production grad Jimi Cuell, was nominated for Best Direction and Best Actor. The Recliner, by 3D grad Phanthep Wiantrakoon, and Spider vs. Man, by 3D grad Craig George, were both nominated for Best Animated Film. Ruby Writes Through, directed by Film Production grad Sarah Schwartz, received a nomination for Best Actress. The Death of Theodore Graham, directed by Film Production grad Erik Hecht, received a nomination for Best Screenplay. Vancouver Student Film Festival The Vancouver Student Film Festival (VSFF) screened 17 student-created films on September 15th and 16th at the new Vancouver International Film Centre’s Vancity Theatre. The festival was a huge success, with the Saturday evening screening selling out. Awards for VFS students included: Ian Whittlesey, Film Production graduate, won Best Cinematography for his film Grover’s Mill. Grover’s Mill also received Best Supporting Actor for Jason Logan. While we’re at it, congratulations to our award winners at the BC Student Film Festival held this past May. The following graduates received Post-Secondary awards in these categories: Animation 1st Place – The Heart Collector, Michael Fallik, Classical Animation graduate 2nd Place – Documentary, Lawrence Chung, Classical Animation graduate 3rd Place – Gorilla, Eric Choi, Classical Animation graduate Narrative 2nd Place – The Shortest Dream, Jee-won Sul, Kyoko Nagata, Ahmad Al-Tamimi, Felipe de Lara, WooJo Jeon, Graham Kew – Film Production graduates Experimental 2nd Place – The sound of, Jaidene Veda Belavy – Sound Design graduate All of our award winners received 3 out of a possible 3 stars (project rated as “outstanding”) from the panel of judges.
During his last weeks at VFS, Cesar Montero laboured over his final project: a commercial for energy-saving light bulbs designed to showcase his 3D graphics skills as well as his storytelling abilities. VFS caught up with Cesar to talk about sex. And the socket.
The Cannes Film Festival has given rise to some of the most influential filmmakers ever known – and this year, they asked Bun Lee to join Adobe Systems Incorporated in the execution of the American Pavilion “Reel Ideas” Student Filmmaker Program. 50 Students from over 30 countries have been invited to attend the Cannes film festival and to take part in Reel Ideas, headed up by Adobe. A select group of instructors from the best filmmaking schools in the world have been invited to teach these 50 students in the art of filmmaking.
“I just want to bring the crazy ideas I have in my head to life!” Dallas Bolton says of his reasons for joining the war, “Animation is one of the most creative ways to express yourself fully and to the point.” After years of hard labor in the grocery and seafood industry, Dallas looked to animation as his way out. He volunteered his services in 1998 and was immediately sent to animation boot camp: “VFS was a lot of fun! My class was one of the rowdy classes – a lot of strong personalities that usually worked well together but annoyed a lot of the people outside our group.” Dallas says.Dallas’ talent with the pencil soon became known amongst his teachers, “I was lucky enough to have Mike Grimshaw as one of my teachers. He helped me get a small gig at A.K.A Cartoon.”
Mark’s film A Great Big Robot From Outer Space Ate My Homework is typical amongst VFS 3D Animation & Visual Effects student films in that it was created in one year, yet is atypical in that it shows superior storytelling intuition, imaginative humour, and extreme technical skill – exactly the combination that Siggraph applauds. Out of the seven hundred and twenty six submissions to the festival, Robot was one of the 97 chosen to screen. “Word is out that the Siggraph|2006 Computer Animation Festival is one of the premier venues for showcasing artistic talent in the film world,” says Terrence Masson, the Siggraph|2006 Computer Animation Festival Chair. ”In fact, we witnessed a remarkable 25% increase in submissions from 2005 to 2006, and with that increase the competition amongst films is fierce. The bar of excellence has risen even higher and this year’s crop of accepted pieces is diverse, thought-provoking, and technically superb.” The acceptance comes hot on the heels of Mark’s recent hiring at Pixar. Stay tuned to VFS.com for an upcoming story on all of Mark Shirra’s post-graduation adventures.
Danesh hails from Canada – an all-Canadian boy with all-Canadian sensibilities. No one knew, especially Danesh, that his Canadian sensibilities would be such a good fit in a foreign land. Through a bit of luck and a whole lot of talent, Danesh convinced India and himself that he was the man to change the face of India’s music industry. VFS sat down with Danesh in Mumbai for some curry vindaloo.
Diesh will provide tips for successful web design and discuss the essentials of the user experience, one of the most important subjects in modern design. Diesh has “five steps to better visual web design,” which he will describe using examples. As well, Diesh will offer a brief history of the web, the state of design in the present-day (good, bad, and ugly), and what to expect from web design in the years to come.
The celebrated Hollywood Sound Designer Randy Thom visited the VFS Sound Design department on Wednesday July 26, 2006 to talk with a packed theatre of students and faculty about his many experiences working in the field for over twenty years. Randy Thom began his career as an assistant to the preeminent Sound Designer Walter Murch on Francis Ford Coppola’s classic war film Apocalypse Now, and he shared with the VFS audience some of the challenges he faced to put together that film. Apocalypse Now was mixed for nine months, one of the most intense periods of work being the week before the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, seven days during which Thom worked 142 hours. Thom showed one of the most famous clips from the film, often noted for its masterful sound design, the opening scene with Martin Sheen’s character hung-over in his hotel room in Saigon, listening to the fan spinning on the ceiling and the sound of helicopters in his memories of the war. Once finished Apocalypse Now, Thom began working for another independent filmmaker named George Lucas. Thom worked with the sound departments on the final two installments of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. He told VFS that Ben Burtt had recorded sound effects for a full year in advance of the beginning of principal photography on the original Star Wars film. Thom was quick to point out that the longer you have to work on something, the more opportunity there is for experimentation, error, and improvement, and ultimately, the better the film turns out. In today’s film world, time is a much-needed commodity, and if Thom had any criticism of the film world today, it was that tighter schedules and large crews can sometimes mean that the sound design suffers. Today, Thom is a full-time Sound Designer for LucasArts and was recently promoted to Director of Sound Design for Skywalker Sound, and has worked as head Sound Designer on The Incredibles, Forrest Gump, Polar Express, and more than sixty other films. For Cast Away starring Tom Hanks, the director Bob Zemeckis gave Thom perhaps his greatest creative challenge as a Sound Designer, one that he described in great detail to the VFS students. Zemeckis told Thom that for the first hour of the movie there would be no music, and that he could not use the sounds of birds, insects, just wind and surf – an incredibly limited palette of sound and difficult to record. Using only these two sources, Thom was required to paint a portrait in sound of the solitude, suffering, and resilience of Hanks’s character Chuck Noland. Thom explained the process of recording hundreds of waves breaking on the beach and layering them in the studio to create the right levels of wetness, white noise, and intensity to match the mood of the scene. Wind was just as tricky, Thom said. His Foley assistants squeezed and twisted wicker to match the sounds of palm trees creaking, and the whole crew traveled to the deserts of Arizona to capture the sound of wind and trees separate from ocean sounds. After the event was over, students had an opportunity to get Thom’s autograph and ask him questions one-on-one, which he was more than happy to oblige. The event was a great success, and VFS looks forward to the next time Randy Thom has a chance to drop in.
Shortly after, Jeff’s life got very interesting, “I found out that Skunkworks was the name of the secret weapons division of Lockheed Space and Missiles that began during World War II.” Under the threat of legal injunction and physical torture – that has neither been confirmed nor denied – Jeff changed his company’s name to Skunkfilms. Since then, things have been relatively injury-free.
Grads Screened at CanWest Comedy Fest
I, Stalker, written by Writing graduate Kevin McComiskie, took the award for Best Actor. Congrats to actor Paul Hebert, Kevin, and director Katrin Bowen who was nominated for Best Direction.
Other nominations included:
Gregoire Bedard, Film Production graduate, won Best Director for his film Alibi Inc.Grad Wins Gold at MI6 Advertising Awards
The result was Sex and the Socket, a commercial following the romantic trials of a sexy light socket looking for the right bulb. The project won Gold for Best Student Marketing in the prestigious MI6 Advertising Awards, and has been featured on countless influential computer graphics websites including CG Talk, CG Society, 3dtotal, and cgchannel.
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Digital Design Instructor Teaches at Cannes
VFS Digital Design instructor Bun Lee has been invited to lead a “master class” on the finer arts of cinematography, lighting, nonlinear video editing, and sound engineering at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.One Man Army Plots World Domination
Animation companies worldwide are fighting for your attention – on your TV, your game console, even your mobile phone. And Dallas Bolton’s One Man Army is caught in the fray.A Great Big Robot Screens at Siggraph
ACM Siggraph, the world’s preeminent authority on computer-generated imagery, has honoured Mark Shirra, a recent VFS graduate, by selecting his student film to screen at the Siggraph|2006 Computer Animation Festival.Danesh Kumar Conquers Parents’ Homeland
With MTV India and Indian Idol, India’s music video industry has changed a lot in six years – and a lot of it’s due to Film Production grad Danesh Kumar and his work at Sony BMG. Web Design Makeover Presentation and Contest
Gagan Diesh, a senior instructor for the Digital Design program and founder of DesignStamp, will deliver a web design presentation at the Vancouver Public Library on Tuesday, July 18.Skywalker Sound Design Director Visits VFS
Photos: Tin Wong (Sound Design Student)
Jeff Pohorski Manufactures Weapons-Grade Films
“My former boss would use the term ‘skunkworks’ when referring to projects he was working on that nobody else knew or cared about but him,” says Jeff Pohorski, Film grad. “So I borrowed the name and started up Skunkworks, Inc.”