It didn’t take very long after graduating from VFS Digital Design for Ghassan Naji and Jordan Scott to make the jump from classmates to colleagues. That opportunity came as motion designers at Vancouver-based video production and interactive marketing agency Blink Media Works, working on projects for TELUS Mobility alongside Blink Creative Director and Digital Design Industry Mentor Brian Fox.
The Canadian mobile giant was looking for a series of instructional videos to coincide with the release of a range of smartphones and cellular platforms, so it turned to Blink for a video campaign that was on-brand, communicated all the right info, and was easy to watch and understand.
Enter Ghassan and Jordan. They worked on 10 two-minutes videos in English and French for 15 different handsets, using 3D models of the phones animated to highlight the various features and functions. These videos were then made available to the public on the TELUS Mobility website and YouTube.
Brian, a strong supporter of and contributor to VFS Digital Design, recognized something special in these two grads. “Ghassan and Jordan were critical components in this TELUS project,” he says. “Both designers came to the team with a great understanding of the software necessary to get the job done, a fantastic attitude, a willingness to be part of a team, and a great level of creativity.”
In fact, the project allowed Jordan to experience the role of lead designer, meaning he was responsible for the day-to-day workings of the four-person team, dealing with final script approvals, overseeing voice over sessions with the producer, and coordinating all elements with the others designers to ultimately deliver the videos on time.
Making that first foray into the professional world is a special thing for any grad. “Working for Blink Media Works as part of the creative team has been a great experience – inspiring designers, intelligent colleagues, engaging work, and a very good boss,” says Ghassan. “I feel my work is valued and important. There are a lot of very smart people working here and a lot of opportunities to form fruitful relationships.”
For Jordan, working at Blink represented an opportunity to make a smooth transition from student to pro. “Being able to take the incredible amount of knowledge and experience that I acquired during my year at VFS and apply it in a fast-paced studio that deals with high-profile clients and have it feel seamless really was a testament to the Digital Design program,” he says. “The motion designers I work with are super talented guys and, as much as I learn from them, I also feel like I’m equally able to contribute.”
“And it’s a plus to work with Ghassan.”
Ultimately, the TELUS Mobility project is a kind of testament to the tight connection between Digital Design and the industry at large. “Since joining the VFS mentoring program, I’ve been extremely impressed with the quality of student work, the talent level, creativity, and professionalism,” Brian says. “Digital Design is an outstanding program that gives students the necessary skills to step out into real-world situations and future careers.”
Want to see what else Blink Media Works get up to? Check out their website. You’d also do well to take a look at the impressive online portfolios of both Ghassan Naji and Jordan Scott.
In other news, while we were putting this story together, we learned that an image Ghassan created at VFS was chosen for a Photoshop Facebook project, meaning it’ll be featured at Adobe in San Jose! Congrats!
For one whole week, the Sound Design for Visual Media program played host to Academy Award-winning Sound Mixer Ray Beckett. As Sound Design alum John Born then recounted, Ray took students through his pre-production, production, and post-production processes, sharing his 30 years of experience working on films like The Hurt Locker — for which he won an Oscar. Head of Department Shane Rees sat down with Ray to talk about his big win, the challenges of recording good location sound, and his time spent at VFS. You can also watch this video on our YouTube channel — which is turning 5 this year!
“Commanding audience attention is not as easy as it might appear,” says Digital Design instructor Miles Nurse. That was the motivation behind a challenge he gave to four teams of Term 3 students: take all that knowledge, savvy, and talent you’re amassing during your year and focus it on increasing awareness for three great causes. “The Interactive and Information Design course is a seven-week bullet train ride through the creative process,” he explains. “Students present information across multiple mediums to increase audience understanding, influence opinions, and encourage action. It was VFS students tackling real issues, providing real solutions, to get real results.” That’s a lot of reality. Digital Design makes it happen by working with actual not-for-profit organizations with very real design needs. Client Proxies act as intermediaries to facilitate the process and ensure that students are getting what they need out of the experience, from an educational point of view. All of that means that students are experiencing the reality of the design world – in other words, it’s a lot more than just an academic exercise. Here are the three causes: Hope Air “As a designer myself, I was heartened to see the team’s professionalism, dedication and attention to detail, and look forward to working with them in the future.” Cyber Bullying Mission accomplished: this project has already seen real success, earning some serious press coverage. “It was evident that this team was very committed from the beginning and presented themselves and their deliverables in a professional way.” LOCO BC “Both teams presented design concepts that are creative and forward-thinking while delivering on the project objectives,” she says. “The quality of deliverables was extremely professional and clearly outlined a sophisticated thought process.” “The students were confident and engaging in their presentations, as well as being a pleasure to work with. I’m excited to share both of these projects with the LOCO board!” Three causes, four teams, happy clients all around. And, above all, the kind of firsthand experience these students wouldn’t get any other way. That’s the reality.
The last time we mentioned Sound Design for Visual Media grad Allan Levy he was working on the PS3 exclusive ModNation Racers, which Game Chronicles called a “masterpiece” and “the best kart-racing title in the history of gaming. Allan worked for United Front Games in automatic dialogue replacement (ADR) integration, and now freelances and does sound design for Thought Bubble, a not-for-profit motion graphics studio that promotes social justice, working with clients such as the David Suzuki Foundation. Allan found time in his schedule to chat with us about his career and his time at VFS. You’ve done a lot of work in video games. Can you talk about the particular challenges in working with sound in that medium? Allan: Yes, indeed, video games have been a source of bread and butter since around 2001 when I landed my first gig at Radical Entertainment as a freelance composer on the game Dark Summit, and then again in 2003 when I landed the same role on The Simpsons Hit and Run. Around that time, though, many game studios employed a common practice of having Hollywood film composers do the score. As a musician and composer, I had no real experience in sound design and as such was out of the gaming industry for a few years. This changed once I had graduated from VFS. In fact, the day after my graduation I began working as the Lead Sound Designer on the game Crash: Mind over Mutant at Radical Entertainment. How so soon, you ask? Well, I was actually freelancing for Radical while attending VFS (I don’t recommend doing this, though … way too stressful) and handled all the dialogue editing and mastering for the game Timeshift while in my third term. It’s true that Radical had its eye on me, but it’s also true that without my experiences at VFS I would not have been able to deliver quality assets and mixing on my first game as a sound designer in a timely and professional manner. In terms of the challenges, there are many. The biggest perhaps is learning to use proprietary implementation software specific to a particular game studio or game. No school can prepare you for this; however, conceptually, VFS was able to provide exercises that were extremely helpful in getting an understanding of the steps necessary to get your sound effects and or music from a Pro Tools session into an implementation platform. How did your time in VFS Sound Design help prepare you for your current employment? Did you feel “industry-ready” after graduation? Allan: VFS was instrumental in my preparation for my current employment. In a workplace with both newcomers and industry veterans, it’s important that we are all speaking the same language. Whether you’re an audio designer, a picture editor, a script writer, a project manager or producer, we must all understand a common language: ADR, DIA, M&E, VO, EDL, stems – to name a few things we speak of in this industry on a daily basis. Aside from the terminology, though, VFS instructors and curriculum introduced me to industry standard editing, layering, session setups, mixing techniques and deliverable etiquette that I could have only learned by trial and error on the job. But who would have hired me without this understanding in the first place? Quite a gamble in such a fast-paced industry. What kind of advice would you offer to aspiring sound designers looking to work in that industry? Allan: The greatest piece of advice I can give anyone looking to work in this industry (or any industry for that matter) is to be respectful of your colleagues and open to advice and criticism from peers. The hotshot attitude usually only makes enemies and alienates those with whom you eventually work. Confidence in your capabilities is one thing…being a jerk is another. Also, remember it’s a small industry so you’ll inevitably bump into former colleagues in different game studios. Obviously if they are all your friends it makes for an enjoyable workplace! Thanks, Allan! Readers can follow Allan’s work at AllanLevy.com and ThoughtBubble.org.
Three times a year, Digital Design hosts what’s called a Digital Design Slam: an all-day design marathon that hurtles from early-morning client brief toward a presentation of finished work in front of a panel. Here’s an inside look at this intense, exciting Digital Design rite of passage!
Tomorrow, British Columbians unite against bullies. It’s called Pink Shirt Day, and it’s a symbolic stand against bullying in all its forms – at school, at work, online. For Digital Design students Paul Belen, Luis Francisco, Felipe Dos Santos, and Tamish Aswani, it’s also launch time for their new initiative, Cyber Aware. The team developed the entire project – including a logo, tagline, the video you see above, and a website at cyberaware.info - as part of their Information Design course in Digital Design. It’s an incredibly polished project, as you will see… but most importantly, it’s both timely and eye-opening. Want to take a stand against cyber bullying? Visit cyberaware.info and click the Facebook ”Like” or “Tweet” buttons. Get the word out!
Graduating Game Design student Zach Williams will begin a four-month internship at Relic Entertainment, developers of the popular Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War and Company of Heroes franchises. The internship, awarded three times annually, celebrates the life of Relic employee Brian Wood, who was killed in a tragic car accident last year. “Zach’s personal drive to become a great game developer, his broad skill base across a number of the disciplines, as well as his passion for Relic and knowledge of the culture and practices that we maintain were the things that made him stand out as a clear choice for this internship,” says Relic General Manager Jonathan Dowdeswell. “He even had a Relic shirt ready to put on when we announced the winner to the class!” Prior to his year at VFS, Zach worked in QA in the game industry. It was especially his work on the student game Kinesis that caught the eye of Relic representatives at the recent Pitch and Play industry night. “There was a good variety of games on display at VFS’s recent final night, and we were very impressed with the calibre of all the students,” Dowdeswell says. “Kinesis was among some very good company. We were very impressed with the bold artistic direction in the game and how it weaved into the puzzles they used, we liked the front end, and Zach in particular helped many different areas of the game’s development, which we thought reflected well in the final product.” “We’re looking forward to working with Zach soon, and giving him a chance to see what working at Relic is really like.”
Are you a fan of biking culture and films? You will be after this trailer. The project is called Life Cycles and it’s being touted as one of the best films to showcase moutain biking culture since. well, ever. Sound Design for Visual Media grads Travis Cameron and Leonardo Barragan were brought on to the project to design the sound, from concept to final mix, in surround 5.1 sound. “When we got the film it had absolutely no audio attached to it aside from the voice over and some temporary music tracks,” says Leonardo. That meant a lot of legwork to get the perfect sounds to match the film, “right down to the bike tires on the trails,” Travis adds. When Stance Films, the production company behind Life Cycles, mentioned that they also needed of a strong composer to really make things shine, Travis and Leonardo brought in fellow Sound Design grad Ajay Bhattacharyya whose group, Data Romance, created most of the soundtrack — which is now available on iTunes and attracting positive reviews. Leonardo, who mentions he’s been receiving queries from as far away as Australia to do sound for sports movies now, gives us a bit more info about what went into the sound recording process: “We had the opportunity to do field recording with pro rider Thomas Vanderham on a secluded and very quiet trail in North Vancouver. We got unique sounds of tires in dirt, jumps, bicycle chains, and riding through leaves and rocks that we used for the movie and we probably couldn’t have gotten without a pro rider’s help.” “There is a big scene in the movie that shows a bike shop mechanic tuning a dirt jumping bike and we used our own Foley sounds to do the entire scene — every part of the mechanical process down to the spokes and changing the oil on the suspension.” Travis attended the Las Vegas premiere and described for us the frenetic buzz that has been surrounding Life Cycles lately, which is possibly due in part to a glowing write-up on ESPN.com and online fan reviews: “Throughout the film, the crowd cheered, gasped, and praised some of the incredible shots that these guys captured. This film has already started winning awards [such as Best Film at the X-Dance Action Sports Film Festival in Salt Lake City, Utah]. It has played in theatres literally all over the world and close to 100 places in the US and Canada.” Thanks for sharing, Travis and Leonardo — and congrats to all three of you on an amazing project! You can visit the Life Cycles website here to learn more about the film and how you can see (and hear!) it all on the big screen, DVD, Blu-ray, and iTunes.
The Zeros to Heroes-created property is nominated for an Interactive Award in Motion Graphics at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive festival (March 11-15). It features the work of the following VFSers from Entertainment Business Management, Writing for Film & Television, Digital Design, Sound Design for Visual Media, and Foundation Visual Art & Design: Jessica Leigh Clark-Bojin, Head of Entertainment Business Management (Producer) The motion comic pilot was produced in partnership with Unlimited Digital Communications, an aboriginal filmmaking studio, and the series will air on Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN). Click here to check out the first six chapters of the Animism story.
Illuminate Yaletown is a light and projection artists’ event held each February, brightening the winter nights in the downtown neighbourhood. Digital Design student Stuart Ward is a video installation artist who cut his teeth in Tokyo before returning to Canada to enroll at VFS. His projected art is largely concerned with play and visual stimulation. Stuart’s Yaletown Project Mapping Test #2 installation uses the emerging art form of “mapping” to transform a building into a screen, making it a light-driven moving sculpture. Digital Design student Stuart Ward's Yaletown Project Mapping Test #2 Guest Post by Stuart Ward Recent technologies have broken the rectangular barriers of media presentation formats. The limitations of 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios are becoming a thing of the past. The same goes for 2D screens. What if, in addition to making the content 3D, the screen was also 3D? Why even have traditional screens? Contemporary media pioneers are exploring the possibilities of video projection on alternative surfaces – primarily architecture – but also on sculpture, vehicles, and other physical objects. This, itself, is not a new art form, but the creation of visual media to harmonize with the physical shapes of a projected surface has been a recent development, originating in Europe in the past 10 years. The advances of computer processing power, as well as video projection systems, have made this art form, called “mapping”, possible. The content being presented is not in a traditional start-to-finish linear narrative. Rather, individual pieces have been made to match the building’s shapes, and graphical imagery has been broken into themes. Using a real-time media playback system, different parts of the building’s projected imagery can be changed, creating a non-linear and manipulable narrative. I was fortunate enough to collaborate with music producers James Teej, and Marc Nyiti to create a soundtrack for the installation. The sounds are translated by video filters, in real-time, to adjust the video output, creating a synesthetic effect. I’ve got a large presentation surface for use as an artist with no corporate limitations. In addition to the visual delights and intrigues that most people come to see, is there a message I want to convey as an artist? Absolutely. Globally, we can see the problems that result when we fail to communicate or fail to listen, but we can also see evidence of the unbounded possibilities resulting from understanding and mutual respect. I want to send this message, but only if the audience wants to see it. Also at Illuminate Yaletown: Sound Clouds by Alex Beim and Daito Manabe My intention isn’t to hijack the show, but instead to have the audience embrace the experience, thereby ‘adjusting their vision’ and seeing the graphic imagery of possibility, hope, fear, truth, and freedom. I asked Digital Design Senior Instructor Casey Yee, who is an accomplished interface developer, if he was interested in building an interactive aspect to this piece. He agreed, and went on to develop an audience-controlled adjustable tuner. It can unlock some emotionally charged and inspirational content when used by an interactive viewer. Illuminate Yaletown is still in its infancy, but is in good standing to become one of Canada’s premier light installation expos. That’s why it’s so incredibly thrilling to have been able to be a part of this event. I would like to thank James Teej, Marc Nyiti, Casey Yee, Josef Chung, Mac Station, and the Yaletown Business Improvement Association for all their help and efforts.
A Conversation with Oscar-winner Ray Beckett
Digital Design Students Spark Action for Non-Profits
Team: Kristina Lyne, Kim Oxlund, Charla Zapanta, Pedro Magalhaes
The Challenge: An organization dedicated to “getting Canadians to getting better,” Hope Air believes that everyone in Canada should have access to the healthcare they need, regardless of distance or cost of travel. Donations, awareness, and corporate sponsorship are all key to the success of this organization.
“I was very impressed with the team’s creativity and enthusiasm,” says this project’s Client Proxy, Gagan Diesh. “It was a pleasure to work with designers who do great creative work, and also follow a structured process. The team took the time to learn about Hope Air’s business, their target objectives, and audiences. The result is a beautifully visualized, informative interactive microsite.”
Team: Paul Belen, Felipe Dos Santos, Luis Francisco Coutinho, Tamish Aswani
The Challenge: Today, bullying is a 24/7 problem. Social networks, email, text, and chat rooms have increased the exposure that children and young adults have with cyber bullies. Empowering and educating both parents and children is the first step in understanding and preventing cyber bullying.
“The team was able to carefully interweave education on a serious topic with a compelling story told through great video shots and innovative animated overlays,” says Client Proxy Tiffany Hamilton. “They definitely brought much more than I had expected by delivering a polished, well-thought-through design project that met the majority of the brief’s goals.”
Team 1: Aaron Traversy, Ricardo Torres, Erian Trotland, Thomas McKeen
Team 2: Teresa Chang, Robert Soo, Anita Kwan, Scott Strathern
The Challenge: “Own your Own” is a campaign to inspire awareness of what makes Vancouver innovative, unique, and fun. This organization is committed to supporting local businesses that strive to source local products and services. Creating a campaign that encourages Vancouverites to support local businesses will create employment, increase the number of boutique shops and reduce environmental impacts.
Two teams actually made projects for this cause. Team 1 developed a motion-based solution – that’s a still on the left. Team 2, meanwhile, created a project that combines print, interactive, and mobile elements – you can get an idea of how it works below.
“Overall, I was really impressed with the students and the work they produced,” says Client Proxy and LOCO internet strategist Katja Macura.Sound Freelancer On the Value of Respect
Digital Design Slam: Design Under Pressure
Cyber Bullying Exposed by Digital Design Students
Inaugural Brian Wood Memorial Internship Awarded
It’s our pleasure to announce the first-ever recipient of the new Brian Wood Memorial Internship!
The Sound of Life Cycles
VFSers’ Work in ‘Animism’ Nominated at SXSW Interactive
VFS grads and faculty continue to lead the way in interactive media. Want proof? Check out Animism: The Gods’ Lake. It’s a multi-platform project that includes a motion comic TV series, a mobile application, an alternate reality game (ARG), and a social network.
Matt Toner, Writing grad (Executive Producer/Writer)
Morgan Jeske, Foundation grad/TA (Assoc. Producer, Storyboards, Layout & Background)
Ryan Eves, EBM instructor (Associate Creative Director)
Natasha Ali, Digital Design and Foundation grad/instructor (Animator)
Shi-Won Jang, Digital Design grad (Animator)
Aaron Bell, Digital Design grad (Front-End Developer)
Alan Wong-Moon, Sound Design grad/ Digital Design instructor (Sound Design & Music Score)
Jai Field, Digital Design grad (Designer)
Ryan Nadel, EBM instructor (Content Strategist)Guest Post: Digital Design Student Lights Up Vancouver
Digital Design Student 
The presentation surface can now play a role in the artistic narrative of a media piece. In most cases, this means that the architectural narrative of form and space can be considered during the creative process. What ‘fits’ the aesthetic, the shape, and the story?
But what does it all mean?
