Monthly Archives: June 2009

Ice Age Thaws (Again)

Ice Age: Dawn of the DinosaursAnother week, another animated blockbuster-to-be! This time it’s Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. It’s not easy to follow the transcendent Up this summer, but the Ice Age series has generally been pretty charming, and this third installment earned a very positive review from Variety.

Among the grads who worked on the production by way of Blue Sky Studios are three who we’ve name-checked before on this very blog: animators Scott Lemmer and Thom Roberts and modeler Brent Wong. Look for their names in lights!

Like most Canadians, we’ll be taking Wednesday off, back later this week. Happy Canada Day, everybody!

Armed with Sound

"The Steel Within" Ad for the Singaporean ArmyIn less than two years since he graduated from the Sound Design for Visual Media program at VFS, Eduardo Castillo has established himself as a pro sound designer, racking up credits on ads for Doritos, Corona, and even the Singaporean Army (when they give a note on your work, you take it) through his employer, Prado Sur Audio in Mexico City. He recently talked to us about how he got started on this career path, and his passion for sound that keeps him going.

Update! We’ve just received word that Eduardo’s earned his first dialogue editing gig for a movie called Labios Rojos which should be hitting theatres later this year. Congrats!

Q: Hi, Eduardo. Thanks for answering some questions for us. Could you begin by talking about what drew you to designing sound?

A: At the beginning, it was all about the music for me. I started listening to a genre called Psychedelic Trance, which is a combination of electronic music with lots of sound design, and that got me into making my own sounds using synths. I think I like this genre because the speaker is always filled with the whole frequency range – it is a very full sound. I try to apply that into my sound designs. Then, I started to pay more attention to the way everything sounded whenever I went to the movies, especially in horror films where the sound design complements the music and vice versa. Sometimes I even lost the plot because of that. I realized that was what I wanted to do, and after some time of searching for schools, I realized VFS was the best option.

Q: Since you graduated, you’ve landed contracts for pretty big companies like GMC, Corona, and Doritos. What’s it like working on such a large scale?
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Acting Grad Shoots 2 Frogs

Dany Papineau in Alibi Inc.Many of us recognized Dany Papineau‘s acting talent when he appeared in the VFS Film Production short Alibi, Inc., directed by Dany’s collaborator and fellow grad Grégoire Bédard. Within a few years of graduating from the Acting for Film & Television program, Dany wrote, directed, co-starred, and produced 2 Frogs in the West, a 21-minute short film based on his own experiences as a young man from Quebec exploring Canada’s West. That initiative opened doors for Dany’s acting career, helping him land a role in the big-budget Underworld: Evolution. 2 Frogs is now getting closer to becoming a full feature, with a projected shoot schedule for this Fall.

Here’s what Dany had to say about his journey up until now:

Q: Being a bilingual actor with experience on screen in both languages, how would you compare the acting opportunities in French-language media to those in English-language media?
A: Hum, I could write an essay on this one but I’ll keep it short. Everyone has a different journey but I think that you have to create your own opportunities. Nowadays, we’re in a global market and (acting) opportunities can be found anywhere on the planet. As an actor or filmmaker, exposure brings work and I believe that the best opportunity that you can get is to have your best film work screening in festivals around the world, in French, English, or any language. Now, if you ever get the luck to be in such a production and you don’t speak English (whatever your first language may be), that’s where you might “lose opportunities.” Whether some Quebecers like this or not, English is currently the language of the world and it sure is an advantage to speak it – in a standard American accent, of course!

Q: How did you land a part in Underworld: Evolution?
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Mad Cow Sacred Cow on CBC Newsworld

Entertainment Business Management graduate Kelly Balon recently acted as Associate Producer on Mad Cow Sacred Cow, a documentary that follows the journey of filmmaker Anand Ramayya as he investigates the connection between the mad cow crisis, the farm crisis, and the global food crisis. You might have already seen it this week on CBC Newsworld, but in case you missed it, put on a pot of coffee or set your DVRs to watch the rebroadcast this Sunday at 3 am ET/ 12 am PT.

Check out CBC’s write-up about the film here.

Watching Surveillance

Surveillance PosterTwo summers ago, we interviewed Brent Krekoski, a Makeup Design for Film & Television grad whose skills were tested on the set of Jennifer Lynch’s Surveillance, starring Julia Ormond and Bill Pullman. Well, it finally premiered on video-on-demand a few weeks ago and today starts a limited theatrical run.

TIME’s Richard Corliss calls Surveillance “Rashomon meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in Twin Peaks.” Fertile ground for a resourceful makeup assistant. “The best part of Surveillance for me, in terms of makeup, was all the deaths that take place throughout the movie,” Brent enthused at the time.

If you’re in New York or L.A., check local listings!

VFS Grads’ Film Wins Saturn Award!

Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer - Saturn Award for Best DVD ReleaseJack Brooks: Monster Slayer, the action-comedy-horror romp directed by VFS Film Production grad Jon Knautz and produced by fellow grad Patrick White, has won a Saturn Award for Best DVD Release! The Saturn Awards are the celebration of the sci-fi/fantasy genre in film and TV.

When we interviewed Patrick last summer, he told us his biggest hope for the film was DVD longevity – “It’s going to be a great party movie down the road.” A theatrical release, cult buzz, and a Fangoria cover story later, it’s great to see that it’s getting recognition on DVD – and hopefully landing in the libraries of genre fans everywhere.

Saturn Awards were also given out to a laundry list of films that had VFS grads behind the scenes (especially alumni from 3D Animation & Visual Effects and Sound Design), including Best Science Fiction Film Iron Man, Best Fantasy Film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Best Horror Film Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Best Action/Adventure Thriller Film The Dark Knight, and Best Animated Film WALL-E.

More Than Meets the Eye

Transformers: Revenge of the FallenBlockbuster season is well underway, so it’s a time when a lot of VFS grads can look for their names up on the big screen when the credits roll.

This week’s highlight is Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – bigger and robot-ier than ever. With much of the animation and VFX work done at ILM and Digital Domain, a number of VFS grads – all from the 3D Animation & Visual Effects program, worked on Transformers, including compositors Aruna Inversin and Bryan Jones, creature TD Henri Tan, digital artist Teh-wei Yeh, and animator Stephen King.

Some are calling the film ‘robot overload’ – we say there’s no such thing. Congrats, guys!

Student’s Film Up for SIGGRAPH Award

A still from Friends?When Sveinbjörn J. Tryggvason‘s 3D Animation & Visual Effects film Friends? hit YouTube, it caused a bit of a sensation. And with SIGGRAPH 2009 coming to New Orleans in early August, it’s about to get a whole new kind of attention – it’s up for an award at the prestigious Computer Animation Festival.

Friends? is one of three nominees for the Well Told Fable Award.

Tongue-in-cheek acronyms aside, it’s obviously a huge honour. “I was really excited about the film being accepted to the festival in the first place, but being nominated? That’s just crazy,” he tells us.

Great news, and we’ll be watching closely! Of course, VFS will also be at Siggraph, so stay tuned for details on where you can find us and what we’ll be doing!

Watch Friends? on YouTube

Don’t Miss Catwalk for Cure

Catwalk for Cure - July 16, 2009A great night and a good cause – what more could a person want on a summer evening in Vancouver?

Catwalk for Cure, a charity fashion show for Rethink Breast Cancer, is coming to the Roundhouse on July 16 and you should be there. The show, produced by five Entertainment Business Management students, will be hosted by Kim Cathers (of Project Runway Canada) and will also feature Canadian Idol performer Carly Rae Jepson.

The student group, known as Head Over Heals, includes Jennifer Becker, Kalee Harris, Kendra Naka, Anita Schipper, and Erin Gilchrist, who have all worked with charity events in the past in one form or another. That made Catwalk for Cure a natural choice for their final project.

“As five young women, the choice of a cause seemed clear, and we decided to raise money for a cause that more than likely will affect one of us in our lives,” says Erin.

We’ve all seen the statistics, but don’t go thinking the evening is just another way to give you the bad news. To the organizers, it’s about raising awareness by focusing on the good – like some of the incredible talent in Vancouver. “Rethink has worked with different fashion outlets across Canada in the past, which gave us the idea of creating a unique fashion show that would showcase some of Vancouver’s thriving local designers and talent,” Erin says.

“It’s a great way for the people of Vancouver to come together for a night of fun and contribute to a worthwhile organization. It’s a celebration of Vancouver that showcases the many talents that this city has to offer.”

Don’t miss it! Tickets are an affordable $30, and judging by the group’s tweets, they’re going fast. Find out how to get your tickets by visiting catwalkforcure.ca.

Catwalk for Cure
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Center
Vancouver, BC

See the poster after the jump!

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Project Uganda on TV

In April, we told you about Project Uganda, a fantastic initiative by Opportunitas Aequa aimed at building community and fostering youth through the power of soccer. To help show our support, VFS sent two Film Production grads, Angela Buhr and Mohamed Soliman, to Uganda with OA. They’ve been documenting the project – you can see some of the video diary entries at youtube.com/oafilms.

A short video covering the project will appear on Saturday, June 20 on the CBC for “Soccer Day in Canada”, so tune in! Project Uganda – and Angela – were also recently featured in a segment on Shaw TV’s The Express! Here it is in full:

Update: CBC has posted the video by Angela and Mohamed, as well as a writeup about OA, from Soccer Day in Canada!