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!

Recent 3D grad Jean-Julien Pous had his VFS film featured on Motionographer last week!

Jean-Julien’s synopsis of the film: “ A man lost his love. He decides to go out and find her in the night of Hong Kong, only to realize that it’s not with her he’s in love, but with the city itself.”

The film is a mixed-media thing of beauty. Watch it now.

The Motionographer write-up includes links to the official film site that includes thoughts about Jean-Julien’s inspirations for the film. Read all about it here.

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!

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.

There’s a nice surprise over at Frederator — all three of the animations on their latest webcast are final projects by VFS students who just graduated from Classical Animation less than three weeks ago! The three films are Pedro Eboli’s “A Pug’s Life,” Debbie Sun’s “Gulu Gulu,” and Korik Jones with “Mi.” Check ‘em out!

Makeup grad Michael Nickiforek has been keeping very busy… since graduating, he’s become a T.A. in the Makeup Design for Film & Television program – you might remember seeing some of his work at Halloween last year.

But Michael has also been doing contract work at WCT Productions, working on makeup effects for productions like Reaper, Smallville, the pilot for The Middleman, the feature I Love You, Beth Cooper – and some projects that can’t yet be discussed (but you can be sure we’ll let you know when they can!).

Michael, tell us how you got hired on at WCT.

I knew they were looking for workers at the shop, as another VFS alumni Crissy Renaud was working there. I had been working at another FX shop, SFX Studio Inc., prior to WCT. So I emailed WCT my resume and then went for an interview, of course bringing my portfolio. At a shop you are usually only going to show off FX work, plus sculpting and mold-making capabilities. The interview went well… I think the best thing you can do is let them know and feel how excited and interested you are in your work. I can talk anyone’s ear off about makeup FX for hours.

Do you have an official title? What kind of work, generally, are you doing there?

There’s no title, really. If you only sculpt and make molds, then you might say you’re a sculptor/mold maker. I do it all though, from sculpting to painting. I just consider myself a makeup effects artist. The one thing you really don’t do much of in the shop is application. I have done some for make up tests, but not too often.

I usually sculpt, make molds, and run molds, in either foam latex, gelatin, or silicone. I seam props or prosthetics, whether it’s foam latex or silicone. I help paint the silicone props, and have pre-painted a bit of foam appliances. Most of my painting has been with silicone, though. The other thing I do is fabricate directly out of silicone. An example would be if you had a fake arm, you could then create the gory stump by building up silicone and sculpting it while it sets up.

We also create colour-matched gelatin and silicone to have on hand for when we need to run it in the molds.

What’s been the most fun makeup you’ve done at WCT?

The most fun was actually the most recent thing I worked on there. [A co-worker] Erin and I had the task of creating a expanding bleeding bladder for a silicone chest cut appliance. The appliance was a full torso-covering prosthetic made out of platsil gel 10 silicone. Before the silicone piece was made we had to create the blood bladder that would go underneath it. So we ended up pumping blood for a good few hours trying to get the results we needed. There were so many times the blood came out too hard and too far and got us both. I spent a lot of time laughing that night, it was awesome. You forget this is “work” sometimes.

Thanks, Michael! (Stay tuned for more stories about big projects later this summer…)

Legendary designer, artist, and ‘visual futurist’ Syd Mead came to Vancouver last night, to speak to a sold-out crowd at the Empire Theatre.

But before the designer for Blade Runner, Tron, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and Aliens talked to the public - he spent the day with us.

Syd enjoyed a tour of the Animation & Visual Effects and Sound Design programs, sharing thoughts about his process, anecdotes about his experiences, and signing the occasional autograph (as well as his own drawing in a Classical Animation class).

He then spent time with students at computers in labs and in the “ant farm”, offering thoughts on work in progress, and advice to the next generation of artists.

Syd’s impression of the work coming out of VFS was that he loved the sense of humour in so many students’ pieces.

As far as how VFS enjoyed Syd’s visit, one 3D instructor was heard speaking to a few students in low tones: “God is here today”.

Thank you so much for the visit, Mr. Mead - you’ve been an inspiration for decades, and we thank you for your work, your time, and your words.

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:

VFS has a stack of student work up for 2008 Adobe Design Achievement Awards. Most come from our Digital Design program, but Foundation Visual Art & Design and Film Production are in the mix as well.

(You’ll recall that Digital Design’s Boca ended up with a trip to San Francisco after his Drop was a finalist for one of the awards last year.)

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)

Event planning and management is a big part of our Entertainment Business Management program, and it’s a busy month for those EBMers - here’s three places to be in the coming weeks.

On Saturday, May 17, there’s Where Were You in ‘92, a love letter to ’90s dance music produced by Ian McDonell, Tony Huang, Anna Pesavento, and Rico Amezquita, then Click & Sip on Wednesday, May 21 - that’s the handiwork of Annie Dumitrescu and Jasmyn Pozzo, with Ian DJing this celebration of amateur photography - and finally Beautiful Struggle on Thursday, May 29, a screening of the film Diamonds in the Rough which will include a performance and Q&A with Silas.

Whew! Check the sites for tickets, times, and locations!