Just a note to say that if you’re playing Valve’s Left 4 Dead 2 this week – and if you have a gaming PC or a 360, you very likely are – keep an eye out for the handiwork of VFS 3D Animation & Visual Effects grad (’02) Nick Maggiore, an animator on the critically acclaimed title.
Nick goes a ways back with the beloved Valve, including work on both Half-Life 2: Episode 1 and Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Portal, and, naturally, the first Left 4 Dead. Take a glance at the Metacritic score for the sequel – overwhelming praise from all sides. Congrats, Nick!
Love. Rock. Revolution. is a show by Entertainment Business Management student Kevin Mattice, working as project manager, event planner, and coordinator. Headliners Scatterheart (MySpace), who packed the late Richard’s on Richards in June and also toured with Bif Naked this summer, will be joined by openers Sweetheart and The Left. This event is already well on its way to selling out. “All together,” Kevin says, “this is one powerhouse lineup of super fun rock that will make everyone who missed it wish they would’ve gotten a ticket before they sold out.” Kevin’s fellow EBM classmate Christine Wolfe is also behind the scenes as camera team manager/street team manager, and a number of Foundation Visual Art & Design students – including Jakob Breitling, Alexandra Archer, and Mauro Gagliega – will be working the show as camera team heads. Says Kevin: “It is big, and truly will showcase what passion, endless sleepless nights, knowing the right people, hard work, and collaboration can truly achieve.” What else can we say? Get your tix while you can. Love. Rock. Revolution. Tickets can be purchased online at scatterheart.ca/shop or at Scratch Records, Zulu Records, or RedCat Records.
The day began with Brown speaking to a large contingent of VFS students at the Vancouver International Film Centre. Even the overflow area, where students could watch a simulcast of the presentation, was packed. Brown began by walking through his own long history with Pixar, dating to 1995, two months before Toy Story would change the industry as we knew it. He was working on CD-ROMs (remember those?) and learning everything he could. ”I would animate Luxo endlessly,” he said. “I would just wander around and ask people questions. And I didn’t sleep much.” The many highlights of Brown’s tenure at Pixar include Finding Nemo and Ratatouille, on which he served as Supervising Animator. Brown also animated on A Bug’s Life, Monsters, Inc., The Incredibles, and Presto. He was Directing Animator on Toy Story 2. His talk focused on truth in character performance (“It sounds a little hoity-toity,” he said) – not the “how” so much as the ever-elusive “why”. Using clips, sketches, and tests from Ratatouille, he walked students through big-picture challenges like authenticity, and why it’s so much more important to Pixar than realism. (Why did they use cartoonish eyes in Finding Nemo? “Have you ever seen a real fish eye?” Yes, fair enough.) It is, he explained, about “finding the truth within a story” – using subtleties of posture, movement, and dynamics to get at the truth of a character and his or her arc. ”There must be purpose,” he said, which is how a single sequence between Linguini and Colette can, largely through movement and positioning, show their status relative to each other as it grows from professional disdain to a personal connection. He also pulled back the curtains a bit on the development that went into Ratatouille, and just how close it came to being a very different – and much less successful – film. “Pixar fails all the time,” he said. “We’re just really good at recovering from failure.” Of course, he also spoke a little about the new Vancouver studio, the sort of work they will be doing there, and what they’re looking for in new talent. The presentation closed with a Q&A. From there, it was on to the VFS Animation & Visual Effects campus, where he spent the entire afternoon with students, discussing their work and seeing what goes on behind the scenes of our programs. All in all, it was a great experience for everyone at VFS, and we were delighted to welcome him. Visit us on Flickr to see photo highlights of Dylan Brown’s talk and his VFS visit. Pixar Canada Creative Director Dylan Brown (right) meets VFS Digital Character Animation students, as Senior Instructor Greg Berridge (centre) looks on.
And now the results are in: The Twilight Saga: New Moon hits theatres this week. A Twi-stravaganza (sorry) of VFS connections on this one: among the alumni who worked on New Moon are Lighting Technical Director Dominic Cheung (3D Animation & Visual Effects) and Assistant Makeup Artist Amy St. Jean (Makeup Design for Film & Television). Makeup Design Advisory Board Member Norma Hill-Patton was Makeup Designer on the film, and was recently profiled by our friends at Make-Up Artist Magazine for her work on star Robert Pattinson. (You might also remember that Charlie Bewley, who plays Demetri, starred in a Film Production short. Find out more about it here. We knew him when!) This week’s other release with VFS ties is the animated Planet 51. A trio of 3D grads worked on the film out of the Madrid-based Ilion Animation Studios: Effects Animators Gianfranco Valle and Sandro Di Segni and Modeler Jorge Kirschner Torres. Might be worth checking out for its clever twist on the extraterrestrials-among-us idea, its Giger-esque alien puppies, and as a possible antidote for a case of vampire angst (apply as needed).
We’re giving away 15 double passes for tomorrow night’s screening of Old Dogs. The film stars John Travolta and Robin Williams as two single men who are suddenly charged with the care of six-year-old twins. (Hilarity ensues.) The screening is at 7:00pm on Thursday, November 19, at Scotiabank Theatre in Vancouver. To win a double pass, be one of the first 15 people to email us at blog@vfs.com with your contact information and the subject line: “Old Dogs Ticket Giveaway”. Good luck!
As we wrote back in October, VFS was a proud supporter of Gratitude Week, an important initiative to involve the local community in ending homelessness. Our Film Production program led the way – students volunteered en masse, and their contributions included shooting and editing footage from the goings-on. After a rainy morning shoot, VFS Instructor Peter Helm said, “I was really impressed by [the students'] commitment as much to filmmaking in difficult conditions as to their passion for the cause.” To find out more about Gratitude Week, visit gratitudeweek.org. Below, you can watch some of the results for yourself – a short documentary about the event…
Is it just us, or is there a run on must-buy games right now? It’s tough on the pocketbook, but we’re not complaining. Today’s big release is Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed II and, with the setting now moved to Renaissance-era Italy, the sequel promises more high-flying craziness in all-new gorgeously rendered environments. A series of shorts, collectively called Assassin’s Creed Lineage, were created by Ubisoft in advance of the game’s release, and there you’ll see the talents of modeler and 3D Animation & Visual Effects grad Magdalena Dadela. You can find out a little about what she was responsible for on her blog. Great stuff! Here’s the three-part series in full:
This year’s judging panel included some big industry players, such as actor-comedian Jamie Kennedy, VP of Animation at Nickelodeon Roland Poindexter, and DreamWorks Producer Melissa Cobb (Kung Fu Panda). Bianca’s win is sure to open some doors for her, which is great timing, considering she only graduated in April of this year! We asked her a few questions about her career and where she’s headed; here’s what Bianca said. Hi, Bianca. First of all, congratulations! Are you surprised by your win? Bianca: Thank you! Yes, I am very surprised. I never expected any of this when I was making the film, or even when it got selected by the festival. To be honest, it was a complete shock. There seems to be a lot of thematic material in Popped. What did you want to express in this film?
Makeup artists are born for Halloween, and our Makeup Design for Film & Television program shone particularly brightly during this year’s festivities. Everywhere we looked, they were out there making us proud. For starters, student Mandy Imeson got the chance to show off her handiwork with a Halloween makeup application on Global BC weather reporter Arran Henn. On the popular Vancouver morning show Breakfast Television, Head of Department Stan Edmonds could also be seen doing a live demo. Meanwhile, 11 VFS students and alumni volunteered to apply zombie makeup to participants in Thrill the World Vancouver. For more about the Michael Jackson themed event and the work of the VFSers involved, check out this piece by The Express on Vancouver’s Shaw TV!
Quite a few 3D Animation & Visual Effects alumni worked on the film as well, including Compositor Jessica Alcorn, Texture Artist Jamie Bowers, Previz Supervisor Zeke Norton, Technical Director Anuj Patil, and Compositor Christine Peterson. It’s tough to argue. 2012 hits theatres this Friday.
Love. Rock. Revolution. At Venue Next Week!
Hey, Vancouver – do you need a little party to carry you into the pre-holiday rush? Then clear your calendar for December 3, and take in power pop band Scatterheart at Venue downtown.
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 (doors 8pm, show 9pm)
Venue Nightclub, 881 Granville Street, Vancouver (19+, so bring ID)
Tickets: $10 in advance, $15 at the door (if they’re not sold out already!)Pixar Canada Creative Director Comes to VFS
This week, students in 3D Animation & Visual Effects, Classical Animation, Digital Character Animation, and a few other programs were treated to a visit by Dylan Brown, a longtime Pixar animator and currently the creative director for the brand-new Vancouver-based Pixar Canada.
The Eve of Twilight! Also: Planet 51
Vancouverites are no strangers to the Twilight phenomenon. Since the sequels began filming here, it’s been the talk of the town.
Old Dogs’ Ticket Giveaway
A Look Back: Gratitude Week
And then some behind-the-scenes footage.
The VFS student filmmakers and editors: Arun Fryer, Stijn Jonkhart, Forrest Wang, Isaiah Lester, Alex Evans, Hillary Hodges, Joshua Stern, Ross Zieroth, Pedro (Patricio) Pacheco, Layth Alkhatti, and Nathan Rogers. We’re incredibly proud of everyone who got involved!
Assassin’s Creed Lineage Features 3D Grad’s Work
Popped’ Wins $10,000 Nickelodeon Prize
We’re extremely proud of Classical Animation grad Bianca Beneduci, who recently won the 2009 Nickelodeon Animation Festival‘s $10,000 Grand Jury Prize for her VFS student short, Popped.Makeup Design’s Big Halloween
It’s the End of the World (But Our Grads Feel Fine)
Roland Emmerich knows how to destroy the world better than anyone working in Hollywood, and 2012, starring John Cusack, promises to top his previous efforts to build the perfect ridiculously-over-the-top spectacle. 2012 was shot in Vancouver, and VFSers are all over the credits. For one, you might remember that Head of Animation & Visual Effects Alastair Macleod consulted on the film, and took a group of students onto the set for a day in late 2008.
On top of that, Acting for Film & Television grad (and longtime faculty member) Andrew Moxham plays a cop, and Film Production‘s Gary Hawes served as an assistant director. When we caught up with Gary in September, he called 2012 “the most ambitious movie I have ever worked on,” and had a dose of perspective when it came to the oft-maligned Emmerich: “Love his movies or hate them, Roland knows the type of movie he is making and doesn’t apologize for that.”