2011 has been a year of incredible accomplishments by VFS students and alumni.
For the first time, we saw a Writing for Film & Television student screenplay produced on a global stage with grad Seth Lochhead‘s Hanna. A team of Entertainment Business Management students took their Compendium short down to Screamfest LA and beat out seasoned pros for the Best Short Film award. And Digital Character Animation grad Rafael Cardenas took home his first Ariel Award – Mexico’s answer to the Oscars.
As any regular reader of this blog knows, that’s just the tip of the iceberg for VFS alumni achievements this year. Students and grads from all programs raised the bar even higher for the next wave of artists to come out of VFS, and we’ve pulled all of their stories together at vfs.com/2011.
Browse through the milestones of 2011, month by month. You’ll see a special video feature, VFS Blog and In Focus magazine stories, YouTube highlights, and what the wider VFS community had to say about it all.
Congratulations to everyone on an amazing year – and thanks for letting us tell your inspiring stories!
A MMORPG steeped in Star Wars lore, it’s BioWare’s biggest release to date and naturally features the amazing talents of VFS alumni — including Game Design grad Tyler Hitchings (Associate Writer), and 3D Animation & Visual Effects grads Justin Walters (Environment Artist) and Jason Shum (Cinematic Animator). If the game sounds familiar, it might be because we’ve mentioned it before: Game Design Expo 2012 speaker Emmanuel Lusinchi of BioWare Austin served as Associate Lead Designer and will be presenting a talk on Industry Speaker Day titled “It Seems Pretty Obvious When You Put It Like That – Lessons Learned While Designing a AAA MMO”. We can’t wait to hear more about all the work that went into what could be the highest-budgeted game ever (over $150 million!). Congratulations to Emmanuel and all the VFS grads who are celebrating today!
Digital Design grad — and the Creative Director at Buck — Ryan Honey visited VFS recently to give back some of the experience he’s gained in the industry. (He even wrote a diary of his time here!) During Ryan’s visit, he sat down for an on-camera conversation with Head of Digital Design, Amber Bezahler, where they talked about Buck’s work, Ryan’s interaction with students, and what it takes to be a successful designer today. Check out the video here, or watch it on the VFS YouTube channel!
As this year’s speakers prepare their presentations on everything from “Dynamically Created Content in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” to “Creating Cohesive Combat Systems” to “Competitive Multiplayer Design for iOS”, we’re getting excited for a weekend of game design fun and insight. After three years of offering talented women a great opportunity to bring their game design skills to the next level, the full-tuition Women in Games scholarship to the Game Design program at VFS is back. Application details will be announced at the Sunday, January 22 Open House inside VFS’s new Game Design campus. PLUS: There will also be a host of industry-sponsored scholarships (for women and men) from G4TechTV, Radical Entertainment, Slant Six Games, Annex Pro, and BigPark. Register to attend, if you haven’t already! There will be more Game Design Expo news as we get closer to the sixth annual event. To stay in the loop, follow @GameDesignExpo on Twitter and “like” the Facebook page!
Things kick off today with the release of Alvin & The Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked and the much-anticipated Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. In Chip-Wrecked, you’ll see the work of Digital Character Animation grad Adam Yaniv (Animation Supervisor) and 3D Animation & Visual Effects grad Derek Tannehill (Animation Supervisor), while Game of Shadows showcases the talents of 3D grads Andrew Juano (Roto/Prep), Paul Rodgers (Digital Matte Painter), Ryan Clarke (Senior Compositor), Steven Davies (Roto Prep Artist), Teh-wei Yeh (Lighting TD), and Rommel Shamoun (Compositor) — along with Foundation Visual Art & Design grad Bradey Strong (Shading & Lighting TD) and Film Production grad Stephanie Meyerink (VFX Coordinator). Then next week, on December 21, we’ll see the debut of two big-budget films that will be sure to draw large crowds: Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and The Adventures of Tintin. Ghost Protocol features the technical artistry of 3D grads SriKalyan Tallapragada (Technical Director), Geeta Basantani (Digital Compositor), and Santhoshi Bala (Compositor/Digital Artist) — and in Tintin you’ll see the handiwork of 3D grads Aaron Gilman (Senior Animator), Carolyn Wong (Creature Technical Director), Chrystia Siolkowsky (Motion Editor), Kristin Sedore (Lighting TD), Matt Weaver (Animator), Nick Craven (Animation Sequence Supervisor), Roland Vallet (Animator), and Tamir Diab (Lighting Technical Director). Digital Character Animation grad Chad Moffit also lent his talents here as a Previs Animator. Congrats to all the alumni whose work will keep us entertained over the holidays!
“Everything is mediated by an illusion, meaning anything we create as an illusion can be considered real.” Peter uses scientific research into perception and brain activity (he was formerly a marine biologist and geneticist) to inform the decisions he makes as a user experience designer. But he says his best advice for new designers is advice he was given when he started his career: “Go out and live”. After Peter’s opening remarks, each member of Digital Design’s graduating class had three minutes to impress the crowd, made up primarily of industry professionals, with descriptions of their final projects. It was a truly international and cross-disciplinary affair, with students coming from China, Turkey, Hungary, and Indonesia, and from backgrounds as diverse as biology, psychology, and full-ride hockey scholarships. From real-world problems such as brain injuries and child poverty, to social networking sites for sandwich lovers and collectors, the final projects offered a diverse selection of talent and interests. Appetizers is just one of the ways Digital Design students integrate with the industry. To find out more, head over to the Digital Design program page.
How did he create his winning, and very disturbing, track? Well, in Gordon’s own words, “by manipulating a sample of a Cicada I recorded in South Korea and a sample a friend recorded of a baby goat being slaughtered in Sierre Leone (been waiting for a reason to use that!) along with minimal instrumentation in Ableton Live.” If you hang onto sounds like those, you must be destined to be a sound designer. Coming in second and third, and receiving a $10,000 scholarship each, were Jonas Obermüller and Herve Carpentier. Congratulations, Gordon, Jonas, and Herve! Update: Click here to check out our interview with Gordon upon his arrival at VFS.
Despite having found a specific niche in the world of audio, Robert suggests students keep their skill sets broad to increase their employability. He took time out of his schedule to discuss his career that so far has taken him from film to professional baseball to recording bestselling authors. Could you start off by telling us a bit about your current gig? What does an Audio Producer do? Robert: I produce audiobooks and that means I work with both authors and actors depending on the story being recorded. Some books should be told in the voice of the author (mostly non-fiction or self-help), while other works require us to employ a professional voice actor in order to enhance the story we’re telling. You’ve worked with some pretty well-known writers and personalities. Does your workflow change at all when you’ve got a celebrity in the booth? Robert: Absolutely. Celebrities cannot be waiting around while the engineer troubleshoots signal flow. It all needs to work perfectly the first time and if there’s an unexpected problem of some sort, there has to be a plan B. How did this job come about for you? Were you into audiobooks before? Robert: When I first made the move to New York City, I send out a demo reel, resume, and cover letter to all the audio post houses I could find. Eventually I found myself at a studio called Soundtrack. Mulberry Street, my first IMDB credit (which was Supervising Sound Editor, thanks to the director Jim Mickle) on a real film, happened while I was there. Eventually I parlayed a very limited knowledge of Final Cut into a gig editing video for Major League Baseball. I did that for one season and it was pure trial by fire. It was both my audio and video editing experience that got me the job with Macmillan because they were looking for an audio producer that could shoot and edit author interviews, as well work with Pro Tools. What initially interested you to studying and working with sound? Robert: I played instruments growing up and I’m guessing it started there. That led to a love of music, which led to a love of cinema, which led to a desire to work in a creative field, which led to a desire to work in audio post production. What kind of advice would you offer to someone who wanted to follow a similar path? Robert: Don’t be a one trick pony. I landed my current position because I could do more than edit and mix in Pro Tools. I would encourage anybody in the Sound Design program at VFS to explore video as well. A solid foundation in audio post will only get you so far and if you’re not lucky enough to end up at Skywalker Ranch, experience shooting and editing video (or perhaps music composition, digital effects, etc.) will only help to give yourself options. Thanks, Robert. Looking forward to hearing more of your work!
Game Design Expo 2012 presenters Bethesda Softworks won Studio of the Year (an honour previously held by BioWare). Their big release, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, also won Game of the Year and Best RPG. Congrats, Bethesda! We can’t wait to hear about all the work that went into making Skyrim at Game Design Expo. (Tickets are still available here.) Of course, VFS grads also shared the limelight this weekend as a number of games featuring their talents took home high honours. Batman: Arkham City won Xbox 360 Game of the Year, Best Action Adventure Game, and Best Adapted Video Game — which should make 3D Animation & Visual Effects grad Jason Shum happy, as he served as an Animator. Classical Animation grad Mike Yosh and 3D grad Jason Richmond can gloat a little after their work as Lead Gameplay Animator and Game Director, respectively, contributed to Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception winning Best PS3 Game of the Year and Best Graphics. And finally, Fight Night Champion took home Best Individual Sports Game. So a round of high-fives go out to Classical Animation grads Bernie Wong (UI Engineer) and Brian Hayes (Lead Designer), 3D grads Brad Saunders (Technical Artist) and Michael Miller (Character Modeler), Digital Character Animation grad Damien Abdool (Character Modeler), and Film Production grad Inder Nirwan (Editor).
And it all started with a student reel about seahorses. (Check out A Friend Like Me, featured below.) First off, could you talk a bit about what you currently do in the industry? Humaira: I currently work as an animator for Wrinkled Pants. It’s a software company that creates iPad apps for kids with learning disabilities, and my job is to design all the visuals and try to make them appealing for children about 8 to 12 years old. The app we are working on right now is called “Are Squirrels Smart, or What?”, which is the third installment of the “Smart, or What?” series. The previous two were “Are Whales Smart, or What?” and “Are Bees Smart, or What?” which are already available at the app store. The app basically consists of a story with images and 5 to 6 learning activities. It is a lot of fun getting into the mindset of a child and creating animations and art that would keep them interested and playing the games. How did you land this job after graduation? Humaira: It was pure luck I must say. After graduation I put up my reel on many video hosting sites and one of them was YouAnimator.com. Eight months of a tiring job search and I had almost given up. I was thinking I’d have to end up going back home to Sri Lanka, when I got an email from Selma Wassermann, CEO of Wrinkled Pants. She said that she loved my reel and wanted to interview me for a position at the company. She sent me tasks to create a rascally squirrel for their upcoming app. I had a week to work on it, and then I went to the interview extremely nervous. But Selma Wassermann and John Horodyski (Director of Marketing and Business Development) were absolutely wonderful and immediately put me at ease. The interview went great, and 24 hours later I was an animator at Wrinkled Pants. How would you say the Foundation and 3D programs prepared you for what you do now? Humaira: The Foundation program was wonderful. I was really uncertain about what I wanted to do in the arts field. I had just finished my degree in Business Computing but I always wanted to work in the arts industry, creating drawings and animation that could reach out and help people. Foundation really helped explore my options, just because it exposes us to a variety of subjects, from acting to game design, to 2D and 3D animation, and film. It also helped me to meet people with similar interests and make connections. After Foundation I was clear that I wanted to do 3D animation. So I went into the 3D program. It was very different from Foundation. It was a year of intense learning, and hard work. I learned a LOT about the various aspects of creating an animated film. We had to create our own story and concept and bring it to life by modeling, rigging, texturing, and animating. We also learned a bunch about post-production techniques. I think this was a brilliant idea, because in the industry even though you are usually assigned just one position, it helps with communication with your co-workers because you know how the pipeline works. The 3D program helped me create a fun reel, which in turn landed me a job. At Wrinkled Pants we combine 2D and 3D techniques, creating a 2D look with 3D software. What were the main challenges you faced while creating your student reel, A Friend Like Me? Humaira: Wow, thinking back I’m not too sure how I got through that year, haha. Working on A Friend Like Me was a lot of fun for me, but the main challenge was that I decided not to use human characters. It was a big risk, in terms of animating as well as getting a job in the industry. I decided on using a seahorse as my main character just because I wanted to try out something different. I mean you see humans every day, but how often do you see a seahorse playing with a ball or rescuing a friend? Trying to make my seahorse character relatable and make his emotions believable was difficult. His underwater movement was a challenge all by itself. But I had the best mentors: Casey Kwan, Craig Roberts, and Magic Eslami. They really helped me out every step of the way, and in the end everything worked out well. Lastly, and most importantly, where and when can we see what you’re working on now? Humaira: If all goes well you should be able to see the new “Are Squirrels Smart, or What?” in the iTunes store by January 2012, and I really hope you have as much fun with it as I did making it. Thanks, Humaira! We’re looking forward to seeing more of your work!
Star Wars: The Old Republic Hits Stores Today!
After six years of hard work, Star Wars: The Old Republic has cunningly made it into stores and online markets just before Christmas.Video: Buck Creative Director in Conversation
The Full-Tuition Women in Games Scholarship is Back!
Game Design Expo 2012 is rapidly approaching — January 21-22 is just a month away!Holiday Movie Preview
‘Tis the season to go to the movies! Hollywood continues to churn out big releases this time of year to give us a couple of hours of escape from the Christmas craziness. Looking back on 2011, it’s not surprising to see VFS grads on these big December releases — continuing the trend of alumni-backed blockbusters (which include 9 of the 10 highest-grossing movies of 2011).Peter Jin Hong Shares Experience from Google
“What does sex with geese have to do with user experience? As it turns out, everything.” In terms of unique openings to presentations, Peter Jin Hong’s first few minutes at Digital Design‘s Appetizers event will be very hard to top. The user experience expert, now working at Google+ Photos, and Digital Design alumnus spent a riveting fifteen minutes covering the aforementioned geese “stimulating”, done for tagging purposes as they were shipped to Oklahoma, the amount of time people take to decide on actions, inaction, or opinions, and how our frontal lobes have given us the capacity to make illusions into reality.
SoundCloud Community Picks a Winner!
The SoundCloud and VFS Full Scholarship Challenge started with hundreds of entries from all over the world, and included sounds that represented the birth of an idea, a post-apocalyptic landscape, the colour red, an imaginary animal being born, or falling in love, for the chance at a scholarship to Sound Design for Visual Media. Once we narrowed those down to a top ten, it was up to SoundCloud users to determine the winner – and by a wide margin they chose Gordon McGladdery’s track of an imaginary animal being born!In the Booth with Presidents and Novelists
Sound Design for Visual Media grad Robert Van Kolken has applied the skills he picked up at VFS in a unique way. As an Audio Producer at Macmillan — a worldwide publisher — he’ll sometimes be working directly with authors and celebrities such as Augusten Burroughs, President Jimmy Carter, Dick Cavett, and Paul Auster.
The only audiobook I had listened to prior to my work as an audiobook producer was The Lord of The Rings. I once drove from Seattle, WA to Santa Barbara, CA and I decided to listen to that book during the journey. However, now that I work in the medium I do listen to audiobooks while I walk around Manhattan. They’re oddly addicting.Spike VGAs Crown the Best of 2011
This weekend’s 2011 Spike TV Video Game Awards offered a few surprises and confirmed some widely-shared suspicions about this year’s best games.Animating iPad Apps for Kids
Humaira Thalayan, a graduate of both Foundation Visual Art & Design and 3D Animation & Visual Effects, put her skills to the test when she came out of VFS and hit the job market. As she explains, her new job came at the perfect time and has given her an opportunity to help make a difference.