Since we interviewed Acting and Film grad Felipe de Lara in April, a wealth of promotional material for the upcoming Spanish-language movie in which he’s a supporting lead, Viaje Redondo (”Round Trip”), has been released - including a very nice-looking official site.

The cast and crew has also been interviewed in a series of podcasts, giving Felipe the chance to speak about his role - at least, we think that’s what he’s doing. We don’t speak Spanish. For those who do, enjoy!

On Friday, we had the great pleasure of hosting writer/director/actor Christopher Guest on campus. Guest held court to a packed house of Writing, Film, and Acting students. With the moderator stuck in traffic, the evening took shape as a casual, intimate, and often hilarious two-hour Q&A.

Among many other things, Guest discussed his long career, which includes favourites like This is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, and A Mighty Wind, breaking into the industry (”Tonight is actually my big break,” he joked), and his unique brand of improvised documentary-style comedy.

His process - creating histories for the characters which are given to the actors and carefully outlining the story beats while writing no dialogue - may be out of the ordinary but contains many lessons for filmmakers, writers, and actors alike.

For writers, one of the key points is just how completely Guest believes in traditional three-act story structure, that every scene has clearly defined goals that, even improvised, must be achieved for the story to work. “Improvisation is not just people messing around in a room. It’s incredibly strict,” he said.

“When you’re writing comedy, there’s about three good hours in a day,” he said about his daily writing regimen. “The rest of it is a myth.”

His process - “We shoot in 26, 27 days - then I edit for a year” - as well as his tendency to cut down his own part in a film surprised the filmmakers and actors alike.

Guest discussed all his films at various points in the evening, and frequently returned to 1984’s This is Spinal Tap’s long road to production and 1996’s Waiting for Guffman’s memorable characters. “All the people in Waiting for Guffman are narcissistic and untalented,” he said. “My favourite combination.”

While he prefers to work on his own material, Guest is actually in Vancouver shooting a role in Night at the Museum 2. “The part they offered me is Ivan the Terrible, and I read that and thought, ‘I can make that funny.’”

To most, his career began with Spinal Tap, but he’d toiled for years with National Lampoon and had paid his dues on the road to carving out his own place in the industry: “It was a series of steps. It’s not usually one big thing.”

Before wrapping up the evening and spending some time one-on-one with students outside the theatre, he had important advice for young artists. “If you want to be a writer, director, or actor, there’s nothing to think about: you do it. There’s nothing that will stop you from doing it.”

Have you RSVP’d for the upcoming VFS Open House yet?

This Wednesday, July 23 event is a one-of-a-kind opportunity to get a first-hand look at all 13 programs at VFS, meet their Heads of Department and senior faculty, and see award-winning student work.

You’ll also have the chance to meet students and grads, including some we’ve profiled on this very blog - Nicky Forsman and Tihemme Gagnon are but two examples!

VFS Open House
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
6pm – 8pm
VFS Café
390 West Hastings Street

To register for this Open House, email openhouse@vfs.com or call 604.631.3590.

“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!

A chance like this doesn’t come along every day.

Join us on July 23, 2008 to experience a behind-the-scenes look inside all 13 of Vancouver Film School’s programs: an unparalleled introduction to a one-year education in every dimension of film, TV, games, and design, all under one roof.

This evening is not to be missed.

At this unique VFS Open House you will:

- Hear about our 13 programs: 3D Animation & Visual Effects, Classical Animation, Digital Character Animation, Acting for Film & Television, Acting Essentials, Digital Design, Entertainment Business Management, Film Production, Game Design, Makeup Design for Film & Television, Sound Design for Visual Media, Writing for Film & Television, and Foundation Visual Art & Design

- Meet our award-winning leaders, including the producers, writers, sound designers, makeup artists, and execs behind Zoolander, Three’s Company, The Butterfly Effect, Whale Music, EA’s NHL video games, and countless others

- See amazing examples of student films, reels, and portfolios from all of our programs, including incredible never-before-seen work

Wednesday, July 23, 2008
6pm – 8pm
VFS Café
390 West Hastings Street

To register for this Open House, email openhouse@vfs.com or call 604.631.3590.

VFS students and graduates are known for grabbing at any opportunity to create (and build their reels), so we shouldn’t have been surprised to find out that so many VFSers participated in this past weekend’s Diesel Film Racing Tour. Teams were challenged to create an original short in just 24 hours.

A full six teams were led by VFS students and graduates, including:

–”Taking It” by Borrowtime (Darren Borrowman, Film grad)
–”The Rock That Looks Like Elvis” by The Incorrigibles (k. Arie Bird, current Writing student)
–”A Nutty Dilemna” by The Battery Eaters (Steve Stransman, recent Film grad)
–”Drip” by Firing Squad Productions (Diana Donaldson, Writing grad)
–”Pitching a Tent” by OD Films (Miguel Valdez-Lopez, recent Writing grad)
–”Robogreed” by Patrick Henry and friends (Patrick Henry, Film grad)

Want to go see the results of their weekend? The films are screening tonight at The Ridge Theatre, 3131 Arbutus St., Vancouver - 9pm, for $9.

Congratulations to all the teams for finishing! And thank you to the “OD Films” team for providing some pics from the shoot… this team was chock-full of Writing grads including Valdez-Lopez, Keith Opatovsky, Kurt Hoffman, Rosely Cortes Bolio, Paul Ellington (also a graduate of Film), and Alyssa Ciccarelli, and featured the talents of Acting grads Nathan Geoblette, Derek Bedry, Sydney Cochrane, Justine Percy, and Mesha Toor.

Way to keep collaborating outside of class, guys!

We’ve got a TON of fantastic news to share about Food for the Gods! The short, directed by H. Scott Hughes during his year in the Film Production program, is seeing some serious public success.

Last week, the film screened at the New Asia Film Festival at the City of Richmond Cultural Centre. In attendance were VFS Writing grad Phillip Matte (the film’s co-writer) and Acting grad and co-star Beverly Wu, along with co-stars Tara Pratt and Yuki Morita—and the film’s lead Yvette Lu as the guest speaker. Yvette and Food for the Gods were featured in an article in the Burnaby Now newspaper.

Then, the film had its television premiere on Sunday, May 25th — showing on Shaw’s Multicultural Channel during their Filmmakers Showcase.

Congrats to the many VFS graduates — from Film, Acting, Writing, Sound Design, and Makeup – who contributed to this film and its success!

Huge congratulations are in order for Acting for Film & Television grad Emilie Ullerup and Film Production grad Colin Cunningham for picking up Leo Awards this past weekend!

Emilie won the award for Best Lead Performance by a Female in a Dramatic Series for her work on the late, lamented jPod.

Colin, who also happens to be one of Canada’s finest and most in-demand actors, was celebrated for Best Direction in a Short Drama and Best Performance by a Male in a Short Drama for his short film Centigrade - which completed its run by picking up the Leo for Best Short Drama! (It got Sound and Makeup honours too. Wow.)

You can see the full list of winners right here! And here’s the hero shot of Colin with his Leo.

Update: Our bad! We missed telling you about Film Production grad Dennis Ryan’s Leo, “Best Picture Editing in a Music, Comedy, or Variety Program or Series”, for Road Hockey Rumble! The show won several other awards too - and we like to think that’s thanks in no small part to the contributions of Director Dwayne Beaver, a Foundation Visual Art & Design instructor here at VFS. Congrats!

VFS’s Acting for Film & Television program held a free event last weekend called Acting on Camera: An In-Depth Workshop on Professional Acting, and it was a hit. We invited high school acting teachers from all over British Columbia to come along with two of their promising students for a day of workshops with our instructors.

Here’s just a few of the glowing reviews we’ve gotten since the event:

“Just wanted to say thank you so much for the workshop this weekend. I felt that it was a terrific opportunity and a life-changing experience. I feel rejuvenated.”
- Coralee Clark, Carson Graham Secondary School

“Thank you to you and your staff at VFS for a great session on Saturday. Everyone in the van talked about it all the way home – it was such a wonderful time.”
- Grant Sandeman-Allen, Cedar Community Secondary School

“Thanks for all your efforts to make last Saturday’’s workshop such a success for the students and the teachers. We at Sutherland very much appreciated the excellent instruction and dedicated atmosphere of VFS. It was a great day.”
- Cynthia Bunbury, Sutherland Secondary School

“Thanks for the amazing opportunity to visit your school and meet with your staff. The teacher’s workshop was something that I’ll not forget, as I feel changed as a person after that experience.”
- Danielle M. Irvine, Duncan Christian School

Thanks to all those students and teachers who participated, and we hope to see you again soon!

Above, Acting program instructor Debra Thorne poses with some of the participating teachers. Photo courtesy of Danielle M. Irvine.

Felipe de Lara, a graduate of both Acting for Film & Television and Film Production at VFS, is making an impression in his native Mexico, beginning with a small role in Rudo y Cursi, written and directed by Carlos Cuarón. The film stars Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, and is produced by the company started by Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Carlos’ brother Alfonso Cuarón.

After that, it was on to a bigger role for Felipe - he just finished shooting Gerardo Tort’s Viaje redondo (”Round Trip”). We caught up with him to ask about his own round trip, from Mexico to Vancouver and back.

What drew you to acting?

I was born and raised in Monterrey, México. When the decision to become an actor came to mind, I was in university studying International Commerce at the time. One day, I woke up with one of those existential crises and started questioning myself about what was it that I really wanted to be or do in my lifetime.

I used to think that I was going to be a musician when I was a teenager, since I always had music bands with friends in high school. I wanted to change the world by writing lyrics that would make people think about deep things and stuff like that. But I realized that the audience you can get as a musician is limited to the genre and the language in which you write your music.

So I thought about making movies instead, since it’s a more universal language in which I could also perform. I read the bios of a bunch of actors I admired and I thought to myself, “Why not? If those guys could make it, so can I.”

Why did you choose to come all the way to VFS?

I searched for schools around the world looking for a place that could offer me great education in acting, filmmaking, and writing, but if I would’ve taken, say, a conservatory program for acting in New York City, a full-time film production program in Los Angeles, and a writing program anywhere else, I would’ve kept on studying at age 40 or something! Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit.

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