Fido– a comedy about “a boy and his zombie” starring Billy Connolly and Vancouver’s own Carrie-Anne Moss – is one of the most anticipated Canadian films of the year. And VFS was on the front lines!
Makeupinstructor Rebeccah Delchambre was the makeup effects artist responsible for turning Billy Connolly into Fido the Zombie. See photos of the process. Is it just us, or does that look like a heck of a fun way to spend your work day?
Of course, we’re hoping you’ll vote for Larson. Larson was written by VFS WritingGrad Curry Hitchborn, directed by Writing Department Program Assistant Nicholas Humphries, shot by ActingAlum/Instructor Andrew Moxham and stars Acting Program Production Manager Michael Chase, Writing Alum/TA Wade Fennig & Acting Instructor/Production Assistant Hilary Marsh.
Beyond involving about a kajillion VFS folks, the film is also really ambitious, following a character you’re not quite sure you can get behind. If you’ve seen it, you know what I mean.
If you haven’t, you should.
Voting closes on Friday, so ignore your Inbox for a few more minutes and get over there!
A few months ago, a VFS 3D grad’s film (Ori Ben-Shabat’s Piece of Mind) made the YouTube home page… and boy, did people respond! Hundreds of people commented… and asked questions. Like: “How did you do this?” and “What is the film about?” and “Who did the music?” and (several times) “Who’s that hot actor?”
So we interviewed Ori and asked… and he walked us through the whole process, from the kernel of inspiration to first render tests. It’s amazing– check it out:
Thespians unite! The VFS Acting Open House is less than a month away.
Natural talent gets you in the door, but to nail the audition you need to sharpen your craft, be in control of the performance, never miss a cue, and wow the professionals every time. That’s where VFS can help!
We are so stoked to announce that the first class of Entertainment Business Management (EBM) students will graduate from their intensive one year program this Wednesday February 21, 2007. You know you’re all going to have your own piece of sweet real estate in Jeff Young’s heart from this day forward.
The EBM program at VFS is the only one of its kind in British Columbia. Combining professional faculty, an amazing speaker series (previous guests have included Jim Vallance (songwriter for Bryan Adams!), Spencer Proffer (music and media executive), and Jon Festinger (Executive Vice President, Business, Vancouver Canucks & Orca Bay Sports & Entertainment) and Jack Endino (produced Nirvana!!), field trips and industry projects (for a professional sports team, a music agency, and a television and film production company) and in-depth classes targeted specifically at the entertainment arts industry. Giving graduates a leg up when it comes to achieving their career goals is the objective of this program, whether it’s with an entertainment management organization or an entrepreneurial pursuit of their own.
Last weekend, Vancouver was bustling with parades with dragons, parties with red envelopes of gift money, and lots of firecrackers, all to welcome in the Lunar New Year, aka Gung Hei Fat Choy! Welcome to the Year of the Pig. Many experts, such as Paul Ng, a geomancer and master of feng shui, agree that this is the Year of the Fire Pig, which only comes every 60 years. “This is a record year to get married and to have babies because the Fire Pig Year is inherited with a lucky sign,” Mr. Ng, told the Globe and Mail newspaper. “I think a baby born this year will benefit the parents financially. And the kids will tend to be a bit luckier.”
In celebration of the Fire Pig, check out this beautiful animation piece by VFSAnimationstudentChristine Lee, who created a fully-three dimensional representation of Vancouver’s historic Chinatown, located only a few blocks from the school. Watch and compare to pictures of the real thing.
It’s that time again, folks: time for EA Reveal 07, Electronic Arts’s competition for graduating animation/film/design students.
The top prize for “Best Short Digital Animation” takes home twenty thousand bucks. But there are also cash prizes for the top three submissions in Animation, Modeling/Texturing, Lighting/Rendering, and - new this year - EA is awarding $1,000 to the best Level Design for a video game. Submissions are due April 6th, so get on it!
Last year, 3 VFS grads received EA Reveal awards, including 3D grad Dominic Cheung who won 1st place in the Modeling category. (Dominic, how did you do so much in one little year?!)
Move over Robert McKee: Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder is the hot new guide to screenwriting… and Mr. Snyder himself is in Vancouver this weekend (February 17-18) giving a two-day seminar for writers looking to make their scripts stronger and more marketable. (And unlike other screenwriting “gurus”, Blake Snyder is a produced writer himself…)
The event is hosted by our good friends just around the corner at Biz Books. (Nice work, Bronwen!)
Seating is limited to 30 participants, so if you need help with your current opus — or you’re just dying to know what saving the cat means, exactly — you might want to sign up ASAP.
New episodes of Corner Gas air on Monday nights at 8 pm on CTV until March 12th.
And did you know that at the Corner Gas site you can download autographed photos of your favourite Dog Riverers? (All you folks who have yet to buy a Valentine’s Day gift for your honey? You’re welcome!)
Here at VFSblog we like to keep one eye on what’s happening on campus and the other eye rolling around on the lookout for what our grads are doing. Picture that eyeball landing on Lifecapture Interactive, a new design company out of Toronto we’ve been happily watching because the co-founder is a VFS Film Production grad. Jordan Eady is vice-president and director of photography at the company which has won 12th Place in the 18th Annual PROFIT HOT 50 Ranking of Canada’s Fastest Growing Companies as well as taking in Toronto Star’s Business Challenge, a series of articles that will run through the spring doing profiles of nine Toronto businesses and the unique challenges that surround the start-up of their companies.
The newspaper paired Lifecapture with Thomas Åstebro, a business consultant and Professor at Rotman School of Management. Åstebro came into their office, studied their business plan, and offered solutions to some of their growing pains.
“They’re doing well, they’ve got a concept of the market and they’re aggressive about going after clients – that’s a huge bonus. That’s what separates the good from the bad in the early stages,” Åstebro is quoted as saying in the company’s Toronto Star profile. He also offers an expert’s observation that they might be “playing too much off the cuff. They’re rookies, and they might run into financing problems down the road.” His advice to Lifecapture is that it might not take an MBA to start a company, “but you need an MBA to run a company.”
Fido – a comedy about “a boy and his zombie” starring Billy Connolly and Vancouver’s own Carrie-Anne Moss – is one of the most anticipated Canadian films of the year. And VFS was on the front lines!
