We are proud to announce that the August 2012 winners of the Makeup Design Achievement Award are Jackie Hopson, Rose Pudzis, Toryn Reed, and Randa Yoshida!
Each Makeup Design for Film & Television graduating class recognizes one student for their outstanding work throughout their year at VFS. In this particular class, four students were worthy of the award!
Says Jackie Hopson, “Throughout my year at VFS, I tried my hardest in any and every aspect of the program. Keeping my standards high in the quality of work I produce has always been important to me but being commended for it by others, especially by those who I look up to, is even better! I knew about the award but I honestly didn’t think I would be the one to receive it. The idea of winning seemed out of reach and a little unrealistic to me, but I think that mindset helped me to just stay focused on consistently producing the best work that I could. When my name was called I was a little shocked but instantly proud of what I had accomplished when I got to hold the award in my hands.”
“I was separated from loved ones by thousands of miles. I was surrounded by amazing talent; so, to have earned this title is a great honour,” said Rose Pudzis. “Hard work, sacrifice, perseverance, and glue covered fingers pays off!”
“Ever since I saw the portfolios of previous Achievement Award winners on the VFS website, it became my dream to attend VFS and come out with a similarly strong portfolio,” shared Toryn Reed. “My classmates are all so talented – I’m really proud that our class had four winners! I feel so honoured that I am one of them.”
“Winning the Achievement Award meant so much to me, more than I think anybody realized,” said Randa Yoshida. “I knew before I started the program that this award was given out, so I set my sights high and decided that this would be my ultimate goal for the year. With the level of skill and creativity being so exceptional in my class, it really motivated me to produce work I can say that I am very proud of. This award pushed me very hard but thankfully I had the best support team ever of my family and friends. I was ecstatic when after this incredible year, I heard my name called for the award. I did it! Now time for my next goal… An Oscar perhaps?”
Head of Department Stan Edmonds presented the awards at a recent graduation ceremony. These four women will receive a personal reference letter from Stan and a prize pack that includes top-of-the-line makeup products.
Congratulations!
Check out their award-winning portfolios:
View Jackie Hopson’s Portfolio
View Randa Yoshida’s Portfolio
The Possession, a new horror film that opens today, tells the story of a young girl who, after buying an antique box at a yard sale, becomes possessed by a malicious spirit known as a “dybbuk” that lives inside. Six VFS grads worked on the film, from three different programs. Makeup Design for Film & Television Michael Nickiforek, Prosthetic and Creature Effects Fabrication Chad Fitz, Trainee Assistant Director Elaine Fung, Visual Effects Artist Check out the trailer below but be warned – it’s scary!
The name Annabelle Kent has a come up a few times here on the VFS Blog, for one very simple reason: she works a ton. Her credits as a compositor include everything from The Hunger Games and Prometheus to Sanctuary and Zombieland and her career has taken the Digital Design alum all over the world. She’s currently back in Vancouver, working on 3D Animation & Visual Effects grad Neill Blomkamp‘s much-anticipated Elysium (aka Baja Dunes). Oomph, the Digital Design community site, caught up with Annabelle this week for an interview about her career and the somewhat unusual path from Digital Design graduate to compositor. Here’s a choice quote about what she loves most about her job: “I love great/epic shots. I love that the work is always changing. It’s always different. I love being a part of something that takes a lot of people, talent and hard work to accomplish. I think people can take that all for granted, but it’s not easy to make a film. I also love that it allows me to travel.” Read the rest of the story on Oomph!
The second episode of Face Off, a makeup reality competition series featuring Makeup Design for Film & Television grad Sarah Elizabeth, aired last night. In case you missed it, the episode is available online on Space in Canada and Syfy in the US. You can also take a look at our Episode 1 recap and a Q&A with Sarah about the show. Recap below – contains spoilers! Episode 2 kicked off with the first individual challenge of the season and the first challenge of the series to have a cash prize for first place. $5,000 to be exact. The 11 remaining contestants were all very keen to prove themselves, and of course, to win the cash. The challenge was to create an original pirate character that has become one with the sea. Each makeup artist was given a pirate themed item as inspiration for their character. From netting to barnacles to a spyglass, it was interesting to see the wheels turning as they considered what to do. After the judges saw everyone’s work, Sarah, Laura, and Roy found themselves in the top spots but in the end, it was Sarah’s slime oozing pirate wench who took first place! The judges said Sarah “exudes confidence” and called her creation “amazing”, saying that it had a “wonderful rhythm that kept it dynamic and your eyes interested.” If that wasn’t high enough praise, one judge even said that character’s haunted look took their breathe away! Sarah’s plan with the cash? Flying her parents and brother from Indiana to Vancouver for a visit. Going home this week was CC, an Atlanta-based makeup artist who had considerably less experience than many of the competitors on the show. The judges felt her pirate character lacked direction and that she needs to work on her skill set. Congrats on your win this week, Sarah! Check out a a preview for next week’s episode, Year of the Dragon. Take a look at our recaps of episodes One, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, and Nine as well as a Q&A with Sarah about the show.
With a list of credits growing by the month, Adolfo Hernandez, a 2008 graduate of the VFS Sound Design for Visual Media program, knows what it means to be a freelancer. Yesterday, Adolfo returned to VFS to give a talk to current Sound Design students about the pros and cons of freelancing, with a special focus on Latin America. His tips include the absolutely vital step of leveraging your global VFS network after you graduate. Best of all, he was kind enough to let us share his entire presentation with all of you. Check it out:
Two thrillers – one action and one horror – hit theatres today, with the assistance of four VFS grads. Premium Rush stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a Manhattan bike messenger who picks up the wrong envelope one day and is relentlessly pursued throughout the city by a serious bad guy. The film features some incredible chase scenes and very intense stunts. Two of the Digital Compositors on the film were Annabelle Kent, a New Media grad (now known as Digital Design) and Christine Peterson, a 3D Animation & Visual Effects grad. Maybe horror is more your thing, and you enjoy being terrified in a controlled environment. If so, check out The Apparition, which features a young couple haunted by a supernatural presence that was unleashed during an experiment gone horribly, horribly awry. Two 3D Animation & Visual Effects graduates lent their talents to the film, Freddy Chavez Olmos (Visual Effects Compositor) and Bernhard Kimbacher (Compositor).
The good news keeps coming for the recent graduates behind the student game Pulse, which they created during their year in the VFS Game Design program. The team has just won Best Student Project at the 2012 Unity Awards ceremony in Amsterdam! Pulse was up against very stiff competition, so we couldn’t be prouder of the team for getting the win. Congratulations! Here’s the press release announcing the winners. Want to know what all the hubbub is about? You can play Pulse yourself right now! Just head over to the team’s site to check it out.
Sleeping Dogs is an open world action-adventure video game developed by United Front Games (UFG) and published by Square Enix for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Since it’s release on August 14, it’s been flying off the shelves, and it’s had some great reviews – with GameRankings and Metacritic, giving it an aggregate score of 85 and 82 percent, respectively. This is also some source of pride for VFS, given that a range of some 30 people (students and faculty), from Game Design, Sound Design, 3D Animation and Visual VFX, Digital Character Animation, Film Production, Classical Animation, and Digital Design were involved in its development: including Game Design Instructor Victor Kam, who was Senior World Artist at UFG, Game Design Industry Mentor Dan Sochan, who has also been a Producer at UFG since 2007, and alumnus Jeffrie Wu, who was Technical Designer at UFG, and is currently Technical Level Designer at Next Level Games. We spoke recently with Jeffrie about his experience working on the game (starting back in 2009):
Season 3 of Face Off, featuring our very own Makeup Design for Film & Television grad Sarah Elizabeth, premiered last night on Syfy and Space! This unique reality competition series features 12 makeup artists battling it out for a 2012 Toyota Camry hybrid, $100,000 cash, and the opportunity to teach a Makeup Forever Master Class in New York and Paris. In case you missed it, the full episode is available for streaming online. If you are in the US, visit Syfy. In Canada, Space has the episode for you. Read below for a quick recap of Episode 1 – A Force To Be Reckoned With. Warning – contains spoilers! To kick off the season, the makeup artists converged on a Los Angeles rooftop to meet and mingle at a pool party hosted by actor and guest judge, Sean Astin. Face Off host McKenzie Westmore got things started with the first challenge – to create an original face makeup that showcases their artistic sensibility. Sarah created a superhero look that, while striking, wasn’t enough to earn her top spot and immunity in the next challenge. That big challenge came the following day. The artists, each paired off with another contestant, were given three days to create a character that could be found in the famous cantina scene in Star Wars. The artists worked in stages to create their prosthetic pieces, first coming up with a design, then creating the sculpture, molding it, and then finally applying it to their model. Sarah and her partner, Laura, created an elaborate makeup to portray a femme fatale, bounty hunter who would have looked right at home in the film. The judges, three-time Oscar winner Ve Neill (Pirates of the Caribbean, Edward Scissorhands), Glenn Hetrick (Heroes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Patrick Tatopoulos (Underworld, Independence Day), and Neville Page (Avatar, Prometheus) had high praise for Sarah and Laura, calling their character “clever”, “beautiful”, and “the cleanest makeup” they’ve ever seen on the show. While they loved the sculpting, makeup application, and costuming of Sarah and Laura’s character, the judges decided that seasoned vets Rod and Roy deserved first place for their original and ambitious creation that included an elaborate prosthetic body and an exoskeleton. Ultimately, Sarah and Laura finished in second place, which shows great promise for Sarah in episodes to come. While the show did have some character related drama. including one contestant walking off the show near the end of the episode, the series focuses a great deal on the artistry and skill that is required to work in makeup at this level. Each week, contestants will be required to step up their game to stay on the show and have a shot at making it to the live finale, which airs on October 31st. Check out the video below for a sneak peak of next week’s episode, Pirate Treasure, and tune into Syfy or Space next Tuesday night to catch the full episode. Take a look at our recaps of episodes Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, and Nine as well as a Q&A with Sarah about the show.
You think that after four years we’d be a little less excited? Think again. We love sharing the VFS experience and the Summer Intensives allow us to do exactly that. Now, with our 2012 Intensives wrapped, we can look back at another great year – and so much new talent on our campuses! This year we had participants from Brazil, Italy, Australia… you name it. That’s 145 students from 17 countries in all, and we’d like to thank everyone who joined us. We sincerely hope it was amazing for you as it was for us – and we hope we’ll see you on campus again soon! The next best thing to being there? Following along from home with one of our guest bloggers embedded in the Intensives! Here’s a roundup of their dispatches from inside VFS. Acting for Film & Television Animation & Visual Effects Digital Design Game Design Sound Design for Visual Media Writing for Film & Television And finally, here’s a video recap by Heather Hill (aka Sokolum79) of her Makeup Design for Film & Television experience! We also had a photographer (the lovely and sharp-eyed Arcelia) dropping in on our Intensives throughout the summer. Here’s a selection of the moments she captured: Couldn’t make it to our 2012 Intensives? There’s always next year, so why not sign up for the mailing list to get all the latest about 2013? And remember, the Intensives are designed as a taste of the full-time one-year VFS experience. If you’re interested in joining us, consider speaking with an Advisor to see if VFS is right for you. They won’t bite!
Six VFS Grads Bring The Possession To Life
Frida Norrman, Special Makeup Effects Shop Technician
Amy St. Jean, Assistant Makeup
Tessa Mol, Third Assistant DirectorLearning How to Learn: A Compositor on Her Evolving Career
Face Off – Episode 2 Recap
The artists had three days to create their character, beginning with the sculpting phase, followed by the molding phase, and finally finishing it off with the application phase and last looks. Sarah received sea urchins as her items of inspiration and her creation was a pirate wench who has become infested by sea urchins. The urchins have since begun crawling out of her body. After Sarah received glowing comments from resident judge Ve Neill during the molding phase and compliments on her costume work, it was clear that Sarah was once again a front runner in the week’s challenge.Presentation: Freelancing as a Sound Designer in Latin America
Four Grads, Two Movies, One Weekend
VFS Student Game Pulse Wins at 2012 Unity Awards
UFG’s Sleeping Dogs : The VFS Connection
Face Off – Episode 1 Recap
Summer Intensives 2012: A Look Back
Dispatches from the Classroom
Voice & Movement for Actors by Miss604
Animation Summer Intensive by Lindsay MacKinley
Branding A Superhero by Michael Boyce
The Superhero Branding Element by Michael Boyce
The Fundamentals of Game Theory by Michael Boyce
Level, Story, Art by Michael Boyce
Flash Games! by Michael Boyce
Intro to Sound Design by Miss604
The Business of Screenwriting by Miss604Show, Don’t Tell
See You Next Summer… Or Sooner?