As we mentioned recently, Classical Animation grad Jon Busby and Blatant Studios — which he founded with Digital Character Animation grad Jesse Davidge — teamed up for a second time with Vancouver-based indie crooner Dan Mangan for a music video project.
The video, for Mangan’s “Rows of Houses”, is now up for a 2012 Juno Award for Video of the Year! (That’s the Canadian equivalent of the Grammys, for our international readers.) The awards aren’t until March 26th through April 1st, but you can check out the video now on BlatantStudios.com.
We asked Jon to tell us more about how this project came together.
Could you tell us a bit about the creative treatment for this video? What was the concept at the start?
Jon: Well, when I was first asked to write, I was told the track was lyrically based on the movie Stand by Me and the album was a darker and deeper effort from Dan. I wasn’t interested in doing anything directly related to the movie, so instead I wrote a quick story involving ideas from the song that stuck out to me, such as homogenous urban sprawl and expansion.
I then went over it all with Dan and he had similar concepts in mind, so it actually work out really well.
What’s it like collaborating with Dan Mangan?
Jon: For a guy who has spent so much time building a career on his own, Dan is a great collaborator. I like to get the story nailed down with him to start, and then let the details evolve as we’re making it, both visually and conceptually, and just steer them in the right direction. But if those initial ideas are in place, he is very trusting and lets us run a bit, which is great, though it may be because we’ve worked together before. For this project we were on set together which is always fun, the Mangan crew is a bunch of good dudes.
He seems to have been catapulted to fame in the last while. Does that put any pressure on Blatant to up your game as music video creators?
Jon: Oh for sure, but that’s a very good thing. They’re a great creative outlet, giving a chance to experiment and improve. You’ll see more.
Thanks, Jon. Congrats to everyone at Blatant and good luck at the Junos!
Angelo de Witt was your typical young dreamer in The Netherlands, playing football, when he saw a movie that would alter the course of his life: Transformers. The special effects bonanza changed his dreaming, in his words, “into full colour, 3D, and visual effects, and never let go! Chasing those dreams led to experimenting and action and brought me right to Vancouver Film School.” Angelo found his job at SIGGRAPH 2011, held in Vancouver, while he was still a student, on the strength of his 3D Animation & Visual Effects student reel. “I showed my reel to the Head of TV and Film at The Mill in London, and after five minutes the Talent Manager asked me to come as soon as possible to London after I graduated.” Since then he’s worked on Spiders 3D, the Mass Effect 3 cinematic trailer, and is currently a visual effects artist on the upcoming reboot of Judge Dredd. Congratulations, Angelo! Watch Angelo’s job-securing demo reel below, and see more student reels on the VFS YouTube Channel.
There’s something in the water over at Classical Animation, and the results are all over the internet. A few week’s ago Vimeo chose a grad’s final project as a Staff Highlight, and now animation site Cartoon Brew has posted the final project of alumnus Andres Tapeton. As described on the site, Andres hopes to make it a series: “And well, luckily my life brought me to the point that I actually know how to do that now, hah. And that’s why this one is just a prologue of what hopefully will become a personal animated project.” Well done, Andres! Update: And now it’s on Applied Arts!
Now many of those companies will have access to a local server farm that will help them to strengthen and quicken production on high-profile feature films in the future. And that may mean more ways to see VFS alumni work as more studios — with bigger projects — flock to BC to take advantage of the deep talent pool of artists. The Hollywood Reporter ran this story on Friday as the news broke. “The opening of RenderCloud makes us competitive with such cities as London and New Zealand, and puts Vancouver into consideration for the next generation of Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings productions,” Catherine Winder, president and executive producer of Rainmaker Entertainment, said Friday.
Guest Post by Hugo B. Gauvreau Students in the 3D Animation & Visual Effects program are familiar with the daily routine: get up, get dressed, go to school. But today The Studio had an unusual number of students wearing dress shirts and nice sweater vests. Truth is we had a perfectly good reason to dress up, and it was called Rhythm & Hues. Joe Caggiano, Head of Recruiting, Anjelica Casillas, Digital Production Manager, and Recruiter Maggie Lee not only came down to give us a big presentation on the R&H pipeline and recruiting, but also came in for a tour of our facilities, stopping by The Studio to take a closer look at some of our work. I was lucky enough to be amongst those who got to show off their work. It was a slightly overwhelming experience having not only those industry professionals around me, but also about twenty students grouped around my two computer monitors. As they did for the other work they reviewed, they gave very constructive, straight forward criticism. Now, here is what we all had been waiting for: yes, they hire students straight out of school. Joe went on to tell us about their great in-house one month paid training program, which counts new grads in its ranks. Those “training camps” often happen in the early spring, and they post all the news related to it on their website. R&H uses its own proprietary software, and that month of training is mainly their way of getting people to be familiar with the pipeline before they move them into real-life production. It is important to note that the majority of people that R&H hires (students or not) are put directly into the real-life production pipeline. Maybe I could sum it up like this: if you were not there, you truly missed something. Thanks, Hugo!
“Nobody uses film anymore,” he told the crowd during his acceptance speech. “You should change your name to the Vancouver Digital Motion Picture Critics Circle. I didn’t even know film critics saw my movies.” We spoke with Marv in March about his career, and the satisfaction he gets out of teaching. “Vancouver Film School seems to attract students from all over the world. The interaction of these multilingual students with each other, with Vancouver, and in the making of their motion pictures vitalizes me — in positive ways and in confounding ways.” Congratulations, Marv! Check out Marv’s Bambi vs. Godzilla below.
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!
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!
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).
3D Grad Grinds Killer Animation at The Mill
Classical Animation Grad’s Final Project Featured on Cartoon Brew
RenderCloud Arrives in Vancouver to Pump Up Production
District 9 put Vancouver on the visual effects map, drawing the entire industry’s attention to the many local companies responsible for delivering high-quality work to studios around the world.Guest Post: Rhythm & Hues Visits VFS Animation & Visual Effects Students
Rhythm & Hues, the celebrated studio that recently opened an office in Vancouver, paid a visit to 3D Animation and Visual Effects students earlier this week, to review their work and discuss recruitment. Current student Hugo B. Gauvreau was a beneficiary of their visit, and provides this report.
During their presentation in the Main Theatre a great deal of emphasis was placed on explaining how the studio is in constant contact with its client, and how the client’s critiques direct the work. R&H has a world-wide reputation as a major player in the industry of visual effects. They currently employ over 700 people in five different facilities: Los Angeles, Vancouver, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Kuala Lumpur.VFS Instructor Marv Newland Honoured by Vancouver Film Critics
As we head into awards season, one VFS instructor has gotten a head start. This past Monday the Vancouver Film Critics Circle gathered to recognize the best in Canadian and International film, and Classical Animation instructor Marv Newland was honoured with the Achievement Award for Contribution to the BC Film and Television Industry. Both The Province and The Globe and Mail stories show Marv hasn’t lost his trademark sense of humour that made his Bambi vs. Godzilla short such a cult hit. 2011 Retrospective: Looking Back on an Amazing Year
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.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).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.