“Laugh At Me”, an anti-homophobia music video by Acting Essentials instructor David C. Jones, will be featured twice at the Out On Screen Festival in August.

“This was a moving master that traveled three city blocks with 22 actors in an uncontrolled environment,” David explains. “The film was shot in just three takes the version on screen is the third take - we had a terrible crash with the joggers on the first take.”

The video stars Acting for Film & Television grad Peter Breeze and features Acting alumni Michael Aaron Keith and Jillian Pasquayak, who did both Acting Essentials and the one-year Acting program at VFS.

David is hosting a fundraiser on Saturday, where the full festival lineup will be announced. Keep your eyes on outonscreen.com for more festival details!

Kris Krug, Internet Technologies instructor in Entertainment Business Management, was profiled this week in the free daily newspaper Metro. For more on how arts and business combine to make for one exciting career, read the article now.

Three — I mean, THREE — VFS productions are screening as part of the Cannes Film Festival this year. That’s awesome. Presented as part of theShort Film Corner’s Reel Ideas program, Cannes will screen A Brief Guide for Bridesmaids created by Digital Design students Nicolas Alexander, Yaniv Fridman and Amber MacKay, Happy Thoughts, created by Writing student Rosely Cortes and directed by Cory Kinney, and last but not least, the feature-length documentary 1000 Days To Live, based on the 2007 Reel Ideas award-winning short by Film Production faculty member Glen Tedham and award-winning Film grad Aaron Beckum. Wow, congrats to everyone involved.

You might remember one of our big stories last year: a team made up of VFS Film Production instructor Glen Tedham, his wife Jeannie, and a host of grads from the Film program made a short documentary called Documenting Charity (and the Art of Street Shaving) that won a contest at Cannes through Reel Ideas Studio.

That success led to the team embarking on the fundraising motorcycle trip ALS Ride Across Canada, which they documented along the way. It became the feature-length 1000 Days to Live.

Well, Glen and the team is back in Cannes promoting the film, and they’ve got a five-minute trailer for all to see:

Filmmaker, artist, and Classical Animation instructor Marv Newland is featured in the latest major exhibit at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Opening on May 17, KRAZY! The Delirious World of Anime + Comics + Video Games + Art promises to be jam-packed with original pages and sketches from the most famous and infamous newspaper comics, underground comix, graphic novels, animated cartoons, anime, manga, computer/video games and visual art that covers a century of artists.

There’s a whole bunch of Krazy lectures planned to coincide with the show, and Marv will be one of them. Marv, you may remember, is the genius behind Bambi Meets Godzilla, a cult classic in the field of independent animation, and at 7pm on Tuesday, May 20, he’ll be at the gallery to present a history of animation in Vancouver. See you there!

VFS is very proud to welcome TV veteran Michael Baser as our new Head of Writing for Film & Television.

As some of you might know, our past Head of Writing, Maria Jacquemetton, has returned to L.A. to continue writing and producing the award-winning TV drama Mad Men. For the last few months, the acting Head of Department has been our own Senior Instructor Rodger Cove, who’s done a great job holding down the fort while we searched for our new leader.

Well, our new leader’s here!

Michael has worked as a writer and producer on some of TV’s biggest hits and most beloved sitcoms. His 30-year career has entailed writing, producing, creating, and showrunning TV series including Good Times, Three’s Company, The Jeffersons, One Day At A Time, Maude, A Year At The Top, Carter Country, 9 to 5, What’s Happening, Melba, Full House, We Got It Made, Campus Cops, Rhythm & Blues, Smart Guy, and So Little Time, as well as at least a dozen half-hour and hour-long pilots for ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox.

Michael views his new position as a natural extension of his career and an opportunity to give back. About Writing at VFS, he says “What’s nice about a program like this is that it’s one year, it’s concentrated, you get your basic skillset, and then you move on to actually doing. That’s always the key to anything in television or film — the doing.” In particular, Michael is excited about the level of intensity in the program compared to university and college: “When you go to an undergraduate program, you kind of tread water. You don’t get the sense that people here are treading water – they’re on a mission.”

There’s no doubt Writing students are on a mission… we’re happy they have a new captain to lead them! Welcome, Michael.

We love a little symmetry.

First, Game Design instructor Jacob Tran continues his appearances on G4TechTV’s The Lab with Leo Laporte, this time to talk about the development process and playtesting with Little Boy Games founder Ivan Tung. The indie developer had tapped our Game Design students to help test their XBLA game Go! Go! Break Steady. (Not a bad way to put some of the concepts our students are learning to work, by the way.)

Incidentally, Classical Animation grad Eric Montero was an animator on Go! Go! Break Steady. Small world!

You can see the segment - and this one, which has Jacob talking generative art - on Jacob’s site.

Meanwhile, a Game Design class - hard at work on their final games - had the chance to get valuable playtesting from a bunch of Grade 10 students recently. There’s a good mention of this on the Synchrony team’s dev blog.

Digital Design instructor Eric Karjaluoto, with Design Can Change, has made TIME Magazine’s The Design 100, a list of today’s most influential designers.

Eric’s creative director and principal of smashLAB, the mover behind Design Can Change. It’s a passionate call-to-arms for the design community in the face of climate change. Sustainability and graphic design seem like an unlikely pairing until you consider graphic design’s ongoing reliance on the paper industry.

The TIME feature covers everything from architecture to technology to hotels - Design Can Change is filed under ‘Initiatives’ - you can see the whole list here.

Nicky Forsman likes a challenge. She followed her year in Foundation at VFS with another in Entertainment Business Management, and now, in addition to working in Program Development & Production at Vancouver’s Shavick Entertainment, she’s tackling the monumental job of producing an independent feature called The Coming.

You might remember it – we’ve touched base with the production a few times. It’s written and directed by Film grad and Foundation instructor Chad Costen and Nicky estimates that 90% of the crew were friends and colleagues from VFS.

Nicky’s Foundation experience mirrors that of many other students. It’s not just a way to lay the groundwork for continuing on in another VFS program - it’s a place to experiment, to try disciplines on for size, and to discover career paths they might never have found otherwise.

When it was over, she had a revelation: “After working on a variety of indie shows in varying capacities and after having many many conversations with Foundation TA [now instructor] Chad Costen, I realized what was really lacking from our local independent scene - young aspiring producers,” she says. “I saw an opportunity to grow in the industry, outside of the creative, but I had no idea how.”

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Drillbit Taylor, the new Owen Wilson comedy, comes out tomorrow — and our very own Robert Grieve, Head of Sound Design for Visual Media, was Sound Designer on the film. Bob has, of course, worked on a ton of prestigious films in the past, including Children of a Lesser God and The Big Chill. But lately, he’s been doing a lot of work on blockbuster comedies like Walk Hard and another huge Owen Wilson hit, Zoolander.

We asked Bob for some thoughts about his work on the new flick. Bob says, “I always enjoy working on a good comedy, but this one is a cut above. Drillbit Taylor is aimed at the target audience and it really delivers. It’s not just a straight ahead comedy, but has a lot of heart. The original story is by John Hughes (The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Home Alone, and on and on), the script is by Judd Apatow, (Walk Hard, Superbad, Knocked Up, and on and on), it was directed by Steve Brill. And we shouldn’t forget Owen Wilson as the star. This all adds up to fun right out of the chute. I’ve worked with all these guys before with the exception of Steve Brill, and it’s always been a blast.”

“For anyone who likes Owen Wilson, you’re in for a treat. In real life I have to say that Owen Wilson is one of the nicest actors or individuals that I’ve ever met. He always fully cooperates with everything we have to do in ADR (Automatic Dialogue Replacement) and most actors are not too fond of that process.”

“Another really nice thing about this movie is that the studio was 100% behind the project, and everyone was in high spirits throughout.”

Sounds like a truly fun experience! For anyone wanting to follow Bob’s professional career, be sure to keep tabs on his website - it’s full of behind-the-sounds info.