Not too long ago, we told you about an artwork competition for VFS students and grads. At stake? That attractive package you see above: 16 Total Textures CDs by 3D Total, valued at around $1000.
Again, we’re looking for high-quality, high-res renderings of student work, to be used in upcoming advertising campaigns and posters. Submitting means you get entered into a draw for the CDs.
You can get all the specs and submission info here.
The deadline is May 20, 2009. The deadline has now passed! Thanks to all who entered!
Digital Design grad Jeff Greenberg has won a spot to represent Canada in the Young Lions Competition at the 56th Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. Part of a two-person team, he’ll go to France in June to compete against the best young minds from around the world in the Cyber category. Click here to see the banner ad that secured his spot as Canada’s best, and convinced The Globe and Mail to pay his way to Cannes. Jeff and his teammate (both of whom work at Burnkit) will once again have 24 hours to create a new ad, but this time it will be judged by representatives from advertising companies from 23 countries. Good luck, Jeff!
A team of Film Production grads, lead by Jonathan Fleet and including Kelvin Tseng, Pat Henry, Naim Sutherland, Devin Schule, David Jevons, and David Roncin, recently created a musical (yes, a musical) about Whistler’s ski bums for the TELUS 72hr Filmmaker Showdown. The fact that they even completed a film in that time is reason enough for congrats, but they actually won first place! Check out the write-up they got in The Province. Beating out over 40 teams for a prize of $5,750, Fleet and company had their film screened to a crowd of almost 2,000 people in the Whistler Conference Centre. “I think, with projects like this, you really are reminded why you make movies in the first place,” says David Roncin, who was an actor, production assistant, and camera operator on the film. “No one’s sleeping or eating as much as they’d like… But you’re working with people you respect, and everyone’s moving towards a common goal of telling a story that we’re proud to have our names on.” Thanks, David. And congrats to the whole team! You can catch their award-winning musical, The Staff: A Ski Bum Musical here. Update: SBC Skier has a nice Q&A with Pat here!
Introducing Ashley Hogan, the winner of the Makeup Design Achievement Award for the April 2009 graduating class! The award was presented by actor David Palffy (Stargate SG-1, The X-Files) at a graduation ceremony last Thursday. Along with the award, Ashley received a personal reference letter from Makeup Design Head Stan Edmonds, a makeup prize pack including products from MAC and Taut by Leonard Engelman, and a one-year subscription to Make-Up Artist Magazine. Ashley’s portfolio will be showcased right here at vfs.com. “Every class in Makeup Design turns out many talented makeup artists,” Stan says. “But it is the one student who excels in every area of our program while also managing to maintain a consistently high grade average with exams that is awarded this honour. Ashley Hogan is that student.” “It feels good,” Ashley says. “The hard work has shown through.” Ashley, a Calgary native who was one of the students who participated in the TRANSGUARD I emergency exercise last year, originally thought she’d pursue a career in animation. But she also loved how tactile and social makeup design can be. “I’ve always loved makeup. I can’t go into a makeup store and not put my hands and fingers in everything. And I like being with people.” “I know I’ll never be bored.” Congratulations, Ashley! You can see her amazing portfolio, showcasing the full scope of her work from her year at VFS, right here: Head of Makeup Design Stan Edmonds with award winner Ashley Hogan on graduation day.
Teri Meri Duniya, a 40-episode series from writer/director/producer Jaspreet Kaur, will begin airing on VisionTV on May 2nd. Originally from Chandigarh, India, Jaspreet is a Film Production grad who came to VFS after training as an electrical engineer. The series follows an extended Punjabi family trying to adapt to living in B.C. while preserving their traditions. Check VisionTV’s website for more info. Update: Check out The Vancouver Sun‘s coverage of Teri Meri Duniya and their interview with Jaspreet. Nice work!
But that’s not where it ends – he contributes regularly to the VFX community, as a blogger, a moderator, a mentor, and now founder of the new service VFXWages – a site that enables professionals and students to get real data on wages in the industry. As Aruna points out, this type of data has been floating around in bits and pieces – just never with this scope. “Some guilds, such as the Animation Guild and the VES [Visual Effects Society], have polled their members in the past and released wage and salary information,” he explains. “We’re taking it one step further and polling everyone in the industries, globally.” It’s all in the name of informing and empowering a very fluid workforce in a rapidly evolving industry. We caught up with Aruna just as he was beginning to wrap up his work on Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and he gave us the lowdown on VFXWages. Do you feel that this kind of initiative is particularly important in the visual effects industry? The visual effects industry, in addition to gaming, motion graphics, and the computer graphics industries, are global phenomena. An artist can work virtually anywhere and produce great work. One of the big unknowns within these industries can be the lack of knowledge of monetary reimbursement for your work that arises when looking for new work or contracting work overseas and in other markets. We’ve taken the initiative in aggregating all wages, globally, in your choice of currency, to establish a rough baseline of what you might be paid based on the years of experience. You’ve also at some point been involved in VFXTalk, too. And your blog, Digital Gypsy – you’re offering real insight. Especially now that your career is pretty established and you might not have quite the immediate need to schmooze, what drives you to stay involved in the community in these ways?
So we’re pretty happy that Acting for Film & Television grad Magda Apanowicz is right in the middle of it. Magda, coming off a lead role on the series Kyle XY, plays key character Lacy Rand on the show. And with the DVD’s release, the coverage just keeps coming: Sun Media interviewed her, and E! Online Canada caught up with her as one of the “Babes of Caprica”, and that’s just a small sample of the press she’s gotten so far. You can buy Caprica now at your finer DVD retailers. SCI FI’s got a nice promo video to whet your appetite.
Supported and sponsored by VFS, Angela and Mohamed will land in Gulu, an area particularly hard-hit by 21 years of civil war and strife. They’ll be turning the cameras on the project’s progress for an online video series on OA’s YouTube channel. OA is working with local partner the Youth Coalition for Peace on the multi-phased project’s many initiatives, which include reconstructing a soccer field, running week-long soccer camps for young Ugandans, and training local coaches. Mohamed, who was born in Egypt, worked for four years as an engineer before coming to VFS. Angela has several years as a business manager for Dior Cosmetics under her belt. They left those careers behind to become filmmakers and to make With only a couple of weeks between being invited and their departure, it’s been a whirlwind of preparation, but we managed to catch up with Mohamed and Angela in the middle of it all. How did you come to be involved in Project Uganda and OA? Angela: (To Mohamed) Cari called you one day. Mohamed: Yeah. Angela: And said, “There’s a project in Uganda, and we need two filmmakers. Do you want to go?” “Yeah, we want to go!” And we met with her the next day. We met Gavin, the head of OA, and we met with [VFS President] James [Griffin], and they told us what the deal was – that we were going to go there for about a month, and this is what they wanted us to film, and if we wanted to go, we could go. And we were just, like, “Yeah, let’s do it!” So, you’re leaving soon. What are you hoping, specifically, to bring to this project and OA? Angela: I think we just want to make something creative. We just want to go out there and source out all the personal stories that they’re trying to tell. Rather than just having something that looks really cool, we want to actually tell a lot of different stories that link together. How do you feel, now that you’re about to get going? Mohamed: I think there’s two parts to it. The first part is really trying to get organized and taking care of all the logistics. And then, whenever you feel that things are getting a little stressed out, you just look back and see what all this is for, and as soon as you realize what all this is for, you know what? It’s fine. Mohamed: No matter what amount of stress. Angela: This is what we came to film school to do, is exactly this kind of thing – be a documentary filmmaker, for a good cause. I don’t think we’ve had a chance to really absorb that we’re actually going to Uganda for a month. Mohamed: I think it’ll sink in once we’re actually in the airport. “Okay, we’re going to Uganda now.” We feel lucky that we got that chance to actually go there. Thanks, guys, and good luck! We can’t wait to hear all about it! Interested in getting involved in OA? You can support this cause by donating, volunteering, fundraising, or buying a ’1 for 1′ t-shirt at oaprojects.org. Stay tuned – we’ll be hearing plenty from the project over the coming weeks!
By that, of course, we actually mean “vote for Perfectland“. What’s in it for you? You never know – maybe more Perfectland. How can you say no to the prospect of more “flying, parasitic tadpoles that lay eggs into the brains of the entire human population”? To find out more about the series, check out the Q&A we did with Ben last year.
Way back in the summer of 2007, Digital Design instructor Sergio Toporek gave a master class at VFS called Digital Art: A Poetic Vision. Sergio has turned that very talk into a 35-minute animated video, which has seen acclaim both online and off. It’s been featured on Creative Commons Mexico, prompted a personal response from CC guru Lawrence Lessig, and screened to a packed theatre at the Universidad Iberoamericana. A side story to this thought-provoking work: not a motion designer by trade, Sergio learned After Effects from scratch in making the video. Giving him advice? Digital Design grad Ryan Uhrich. You can see more of Sergio’s work at his site. Below, Digital Art: A Poetic Vision. Enjoy!
Digital Design’s Young Lion Headed to Cannes
VFS Grads Win in Whistler
Since we’re only two hours away from one of the best mountain resorts on this side of the world, it’s no wonder our grads develop some serious skiing and snowboarding skills. But who knew there was so much singing in Whistler?
Makeup Achievement Award Winner: April 2009
One student in every graduating class in Makeup Design for Film & Television is presented with the Makeup Design Achievement Award, to recognize their outstanding work in the acclaimed one-year program.
Teri Meri Duniya to Air on VisionTV
Compositor Giving Back to VFX Community
3D Animation & Visual Effects grad Aruna Inversin is a successful (and Emmy-nominated) compositor whose career has included long stints at Tippett Studios and now Digital Domain. Since graduating from VFS in 1998, he’s accumulated a hefty list of credits – including this summer’s Transformers sequel and the fast-approaching J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboot.
There have been many talks that I’ve been listening to about VFX and gaming unions, for the better part of 10 years! But nothing has really come of it, to establish a baseline for artists. With the information that is now available on the internet, knowledge is much easier to acquire, however monetary knowledge can take some wrangling.Acting Grad Lands on Caprica
If you hadn’t heard, Caprica dropped on DVD this week. The long-anticipated Battlestar Galactica prequel – the idea is that it leads to a SCI FI series beginning in 2010 – has come out to rave reviews, praising the feature-length pilot for its dark character drama.Rebuilding Uganda Through Soccer
On Saturday, two recent VFS Film Production grads, Angela Buhr and Mohamed Soliman, begin a journey to Northern Uganda. There, they’ll be helping to document a six-week peace and community-building project by Opportunitas Aequa, a not-for-profit organization helping to rebuild war-ravaged communities for children and youth through the unifying power of soccer.
a difference in the world, so Project Uganda marks a kind of culmination of their own journeys.
Mohamed: And then came the part of actually dealing with all the preproduction things. You know, what kind of gear we want, getting all the vaccinations, shots and stuff.
Angela: It’s awesome.Perfectland Up for a Webby
Perfectland, the MTV-commissioned animated shorts by Classical Animation grad Ben Meinhardt, is a finalist for a Webby Award! And as part of People’s Voice, you can have your say. Just head on over to the Webby Awards, register (it’s easy), choose “Online Film & Video”, then “Animation”, and cast your vote!Digital Art: A Poetic Vision