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.
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.
This year’s BC High School Scholarship Competition was an astounding success — attracting some of the most creative and passionate graduating high school students we’ve ever seen here at VFS. Director of Admissions and Student Services Benjamin Colling says: “I was overwhelmed with the quality level of this year’s BC Grade 12 students. Digital skills in particular seem to have grown by leaps and bounds just in the past 3-4 years.”
Of all the amazing applicants, the person whose portfolio most impressed the panel of VFS judges was Naomi Peter-Simons! Naomi has won a full scholarship to the Foundation Visual Art & Design program, and begins in September. Benjamin noted: “We were intrigued that despite her incredible talent she is still adamant that she needs to explore and discover more. To us, this is the secret of the attitude it takes to be the best!”
For her part, Naomi says: “I’m pleased as punch to have received the full tuition scholarship from VFS. In fact, I can’t express my eternal gratitude in mere, paltry words; suffice to say, whenever I manage to pay another month’s rent or afford such luxuries as breakfast, I will be thanking VFS with every fibre of my being. I hope in future to learn a lot more about various artistic mediums and create something worth creating, or maybe several somethings.”
Congrats also to the phenomenal Houman Behroozynia, co-creator of the award-winning high school website FourtyFour magazine. He has won a $10,000 scholarship and will be bringing his talent to the VFS Film Production program this fall.
The bronze prize of $5000 goes to Karl Schoepp, another award-winning protégé joining our Film Production program, who has what already seems like a lifetime of experience shooting, directing, and editing films.
Welcome, the three of you! We can’t wait to see where your year at VFS takes you.
You can see the full list (and it’s long!) of semi-finalists here. Below, the VFS students and grads who made the grade. Congratulations to all!
Installation Design Ivan Cruz, Gaia: a self-contained environment (Digital Design)
Animation Jadyn Aguilar, Monday (Digital Design)
Live Action Jadyn Aguilar, While You Were Out (Digital Design)
Jordan Clarke, Human Movement(Foundation Visual Art & Design)
Jonathon Corbiere, See Through Me (Film Production)
Simon Haiduk, Nagdeo (Digital Design)
Motion Graphics Yaniv Fridman, Nicolas Alexander & Amber Mackay, A Brief Guide About Bridesmaids(Digital Design)
Ryan Uhrich & Boca, Duelity(Digital Design)
Illustration Jeanette Seah, Surrealism Design (Foundation Visual Art & Design)
Print Communications Everardo Iniguez, typographique abecedarium + compendium of thought process (Digital Design)
Browser-Based Design Pablo Kraus, Pablo’s Garden (Digital Design)
The trio all worked on a program package for Danish national broadcaster DR: Boogie Prisen, a music awards show. Todd breaks down who did what: “Myself initially for cinematography and camera rigging, Ryan for 3D supervision, and Boca for the bulk of the work and tireless hours from concept to mastering.”
Todd’s last dispatch to our fair blog was about some stop-motion work done for MTV Denmark, and this has a similar old-school-meets-new vibe.
“We moved away from the typical flashy graphics one would expect seeing the MTV Video Awards or Teen Choice Awards in favor of an aesthetic that would inspire kids to be creative,” he writes. “The result was a rough approach, where over three days we bombarded our photo studio with illustrations.”
“They were hand-drawn, stenciled, and painted on the studio floor, animated in stop-motion through a two-camera setup (one rigged directly overhead and one at 45 degrees to the left), brought into Cinema 4D, and mapped onto a CG environment. The piece was rendered using HDR projection and v-ray for C4D.”
You can see the end result at thankyou.dk - scroll down to “Boogie Awards”.
Like our old pals Boca and Ryan out of Digital Design, Todd’s stationed in Copenhagen, Denmark, working for Thank You Motion Graphics. For Todd, that recently meant creating a program package for MTV which has caught the attention of Motionographer.com and Feed.
“The piece, which I art directed, animated, and edited, goes by Transistor and airs Monday through Friday on MTV Denmark,” writes Todd. “It was a lot of fun and a lot of hard work.”
“The whole thing is composed of plastic beads which were animated by hand and captured using Canon still cameras. Everything was compiled in Apple Aperture and edited together with Adobe After Effects.” Because of the painstaking animation process, production took about two months.
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.
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.”
Digital Design student (and Foundation grad) Tyler Egeto has just been profiled as “Design Student of the Month” on CanUX, Microsoft’s Canadian user experience blog. They’ve interviewed him, too - he talks about what he’s up to and what he’s hoping to do after graduating. It’s also well worth checking out Tyler’s own blog, where you can follow his projects as he explores user interaction at VFS.
Foundation Visual Art & Design student Jordan Clarke has already hit it big, in a way, by posting his Term 4 Discovery Project - self-directed work meant to allow students to explore their individual artistic abilities - to video site Vimeo. It’s called Human Movement, and it’s garnered an outpouring of positive comments, selection as a Vimeo staff pick, and even a mention in Wired’s Listening Post blog, where writer Eliot Van Buskirk praised it for mixing breakdancing with the moody Canadian indie icon Caribou.
See it for yourself:
Jordan, who is also one of the dancers shown in the film, tells us, “I decided to mix this form of dance with a music style that it’s not usually associated with - lo-fi, down-tempo, indie. I also decided to play it backwards to really show off how unusually the body does move. The point was to associate two very different styles to show off the beauty of human motion, or movement.”
Internet success might be fleeting, but it’s no less satisfying. “It’s definitely been extremely encouraging knowing that people other than myself like my work and understand the point I was trying to get across,” Jordan says. “I feel a lot more a part of the internet film community and have been re-inspired to work on my next project.”
Have you RSVP’d for the upcoming VFS Open House yet?
A chance like this doesn’t come along every day.
This year’s 
VFS has a stack of student work up for 
Todd’s 
Yes, it’s time again for the annual roar from the West — the nominations for the Leo Awards were announced, and VFS is well represented.
Copenhagen, Denmark, working for 
Nicky Forsman likes a challenge. She followed her year in