Monthly Archives: January 2008

VFS In Victoria

Victoria Film FestivalTomorrow marks the start of the Victoria Film Festival – and VFS will be there!

Film grad Tiffany Munro‘s Grave Consequences will be screening as an official Festival selection. The film has already seen great success in the last year, screening at festivals in L.A., Miami, Utah, and Norway. Check it out in Victoria on February 7th at 7:15pm.

Both Bernie Wong‘s Book Squad and Esteban Azuela‘s Swing are screening as part of the 60-minute Family Programming show on February 10th at 3:30pm.

VFS is also now an official sponsor of the festival. Before all screenings, audiences coming into the theatres will enjoy a 30-minute reel of student shorts, including live action and animated pieces. So head to your screenings early!

VFS Festivals & Awards – 2008

Animex Nominees

Animex

The Animex International Festival of Animation & Computer Games is slated for February 4th to 8th, and you readers in northeast England are in for a treat – five VFS films and reels are up for awards (and will be screened) at the prestigious event held at the University of Teesside in Middlesbrough.

VFS nominees hail from the 3D Animation & Visual Effects, Classical Animation, Digital Design, and Game Design programs. By category, our nominees are:

2D Animation Award
Hold the Mustard
Tammy Dubinsky (Classical Animation)

Games Art Award
Bloom
Brennan Massicotte, with Adrian Audet, Guilherme Ramos, Brian Vidovic, and Mike Wilson (Game Design)

Motion Graphics Award
Typographics
Marcos “Boca” Ceravolo & Ryan Uhrich (Digital Design)

Visual Effects Award
My Love
Natasha Ali (Digital Design)

Visual Effects Piece
Teh-Wei Yeh (3D Animation & Visual Effects)

Good luck to all! And if you’re in the neighbourhood, check the Animex site for ticket info.

Need for Sound

sd_1.jpgJoel Deziel, Sound Design for Visual Media grad and Audio Specialist for game developer EA Black Box, took the scenic route on his way to sound design. He earned a Bachelor of Computer Science as well as a BA in Film Studies before landing at VFS and discovering the wonders of field recording and game audio.

He jumped from VFS to EA on a contract, worked on Black Box’s acclaimed Skate for eight months, and signed on to a permanent position leading into the holidays. He’s now on the long-running Need for Speed series of racing games (what is it with Sound alumni starting with skateboards and moving on to fast cars?) where his job is to, as he puts it, “take care of all audio requirements for the PS2, Wii, DS, and PSP.”

When we found out, we cornered Joel to get some details. Oh, and if you want to know more about our one-year Sound Design program, there’s no better way than to register ASAP for our Sound Design Open House on Thursday, January 31, 2008. But we digress…

For readers who don’t necessarily know, what does it mean to “take care of all audio requirements” on a game like Need for Speed?

I get to have my hands in all aspects of the audio: speech, music, sound effects, and cut scenes. This is a lot of work, but fortunately for me, NFS has a long history, and therefore each new title in the series starts with a great base of work from the previous year, and as well, I greatly benefit from all the work done by my colleagues that are developing for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC versions of the game.

Continue reading →

Acting Like A Hilton

Sara CanningYou never know where you’re going to land when you decide to become an actor. Sometimes you play the downtrodden, luckless victim, other times you’re…well, acting like a celebrity. Recent VFS Acting grad Sara Canning’s first gig is the latter — she’s Nicky Hilton in a TV movie called Hollywood Brats that just finished production up here in Vancouver.

We caught up with Sara to find out more.

“We finished up with filming Hollywood Brats in Canada about a week and a half ago,” Sara told us, “I feel so blessed that my first experience on set since graduating from VFS was as a supporting lead.”

What was your first thought when you found out you got the role of such a well-known pop culture figure and celebrity heiress?

Continue reading →

Instructor’s Feature Release

Love & Other DilemmasWriting instructor Deb Peraya‘s debut feature is being released this weekend! Love and Other Dilemmas, a romantic comedy starring Gabrielle Miller (Corner Gas), will open in Vancouver and Toronto this Friday, February 1st.

Dilemmas, which premiered at the Vancouver International Film Festival, was written by Deb and directed by her husband, Larry Di Stefano. Deb says, “People are always really curious about what it’s like to work with my husband. If I was scripting it, I’d write in some really juicy, dramatic fights. But the reality is, we have a great time. Our skills are complimentary and we challenge each other in good ways. That’s the truth 99% of the time. The other 1% of the time, he sleeps on the couch.”

In Vancouver, catch the film at Empire Granville 7.

In Toronto, check it out at the Cineplex Odeon Carlton.

Until then, enjoy the trailer on YouTube:

Grad Already in Motion

Still from “Dreams”Always good to see: Antonio Suarez, a recent grad of our Digital Design program, has been featured by Partfaliaz, a well-respected French blog that highlights a wide range of design work.

Antonio’s blog is worth checking out for the motion-design-inclined. His work is extremely fluid and colourful – easy to see why Partfaliaz chose to give it props.

You can also see a piece he co-created with classmate Bartosz Barlowski, Dreams, over on our YouTube channel.

Script Readings Tonight

script-reading-event.jpgJust a reminder that the Cold Reading event, hosted by Writing, is tonight! Come down to the VFS Cafe, 390 W. Hastings St., 7pm. Have a beer*, and enjoy short scripts written by Writing students and performed by Acting students and grads.

The scripts selected to be read at tonight’s event are:

Keith Opatovsky – The Politcs of Ei Tait
Phil Schroeder – Sports Desk
Rosely Cortes Bolio – Jesus!
Miguel Lopez – A Brotherly Drink
Liam Crosbie – Post-Happy Hour
Merike Bruen – Performance

*Licensed event – as always, bring 2 pieces of ID.

SPARK VFX ’08 is Next Week

SPARK VFX ‘08Looks like we’re having popcorn for dinner next week. The Vancouver chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH, and the Vancouver International Film Centre present us with five days of must-see big screen eye-poppers.

From January 30 to February 4, SPARK VFX ’08 will screen a selection of the most mind-blowing visual effects films in the history of cinema, picked from the “VES 50,” a list of the 50 most influential and awe-inspiring VFX films as selected by the Visual Effects Society.

OMG, our prayers have been answered: They are screening Tron.

Along with all the awesome films, SPARK will host a series of speaker events featuring industry veterans discussing the history of movie special effects. Our very own Larry Bafia, Head of the Animation program, will host a panel discussion on the opening night, January 30th, on the subject “Innovation & Inspiration: The Most Influential Visual Effects Films of All Time.” Panelists for the event include George Borshukov (The Matrix Trilogy, What Dreams May Come, MI2…), Ed Jones (Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Empire Strikes Back, Who Framed Roger Rabbit…), and Frank Vitz (Tron, Stargate, X-Men, X2...)

Then on Saturday, February 2, at 9:00 am, VFS Visual Effects supervisor Alastair Macleod (The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions…), goes “Inside the Visual Effects Industry.” According to the program, in his talk, Alastair “will take you on the journey of how he went from working on never-to-be-seen television pilots to working on some of the largest Visual Effects films of our time. He will give inside knowledge of how the visual effects industry works and will be available to answer questions.” Cool!

Visit the SPARK website for details on all the guest speakers, the complete lineup of films, and how to snap up tickets.

VFS Student Life: The Game

Screenshot: Meet the DeadlineAt VFS, working to deadlines is a way of life. We’re talking rigorous one-year programs here, and we don’t exactly shy away from it – when you come to VFS, you’ll learn to work, and that’s a good thing.

Learning how to treat yourself right when you’re on a deadline is just as important. So when we found out that three Digital Design students, Tim Clayton, Deepak Nailwal, and Jamie Peterson created an awesome Flash game for their Term 2 Interactive Design assignment about this very subject, we knew we had to pass it along. It’s called Meet the Deadline: VFS Students and Lifestyle Choices.

The game, which took about seven weeks to make from concept to its current state (the team is still soliciting feedback), is a fast-paced bit of edutainment that asks you to make healthy lifestyle choices while still getting your assignment done on time. (It ain’t easy.) When you lose – and you will lose – the game tells you where you went wrong.

Jamie explains how the project came about: “We wanted to create an application that was fun, and provided information on what was happening to your body and healthy alternatives.”

But why tap directly into the VFS experience for the project? “From the beginning, we wanted to think of projects that would be useful to our target audience but also something that wasn’t currently available. What attracted us to the topic we chose was that it was something personal.”

The knowing chuckles are already echoing through the halls of all 14 of our programs. Enjoy!

Reminder: Sound Open House

Sound Design Open House, Jan. 31Our Sound Design Open House is only a week away!

If you’ve ever been curious about what goes into creating the audio in films, TV shows, and video games, here’s your chance to witness it for yourself while exploring our one-year Sound Design for Visual Media program.

This is an interactive, hands-on evening, where you’ll meet Head of Department and industry veteran Robert Grieve, directly participate in a recording session, watch students at work in mix labs and Foley rooms, and wander our state-of-the-art facility. And let’s not forget the door prizes.

Interested? Don’t wait – register now.

Thursday, January 31st, 2008, 6pm
Sound Design Campus
1380 Burrard St. (3rd Floor)

Register for this Open House at openhouse@vfs.com or call 604.631.3591.