There’s never a boring day at VFS. Case in point: This week the school had one of the world’s most audacious and innovative web designers over for a visit. Ever since the launch of his seminal website Praystation and its even more experimental offshoot Once-Upon-A-Forest, Joshua Davis has been considered a true artist in the world of Flash-based graphic design. Joshua’s work incorporates chaos theory, interactivity, and randomized content to create stunning, organic imagery generated by Flash Actionscript at runtime. In other words, each time the code is executed in Flash, Joshua makes a totally unique image.

Buzzing on his own incredible creative energy (plus at least two cans of Red Bull in the space of an hour), Joshua took Digital Design students and guests through a step-by-step Flash presentation that laid out his entire creative process from early code experiments to final results for clients like BMW and Adobe, as well as contemporary art exhibitions across the globe. Many examples of his process can be found at his workshop page, and it’s all open source so you can figure out for yourself how he’s done it. Joshua’s unflinching honesty, unsoaped vocabulary, DIY ethic, and willingness to answer any and all questions made his visit to VFS a unique opportunity to look into the mind of a true master.

While Writing grad Andy Kemp was still at VFS, he had an idea. He wondered what it would be like to see a zombie movie through the eyes of the undead. In class, he wrote a short script called After, exploring the idea. The script was later showcased at Vancouver’s Cold Reading Series. After graduation, Andy produced the short.

Now he needs your help. Here’s Andy’s plea:

My zombie film After is in the Chiller “Dare to Direct” short film competition. Right now it needs votes from online viewers. If my vote totals are high enough, it will make it into the finalist round, where a producer will award a $5000 grand prize, possible TV exposure, and a “Chiller Prize Pack”… which I’m sure has something of equal value to the first two (right?).

Watch the film - and vote - here. Good luck, Andy!

Since graduation, Film grad Dan Lee West has taken seriously the idea that to build a career in film, one must pursue many avenues. At the same time.

In the last year, Dan has served as Assistant to the Producers on the new filmed-in-Vancouver Bionic Woman series (premiering tonight). He also received a prestigious Kick Start Award to make his short film The Visitor, and is shooting a documentary about infamous film director Uwe Boll (who got fed up with his critics and punched them out in a boxing match).

We can’t wait to see that one. Or where Dan’s going next!

Grab a cup of coffee (for morning screenings) and your sunglasses (so you can star-watch without shame) — the Vancouver International Film Festival is beginning!

The fest kicks off with the Vancouver Film & Television Forum, where pros and newbies alike go to hear from the masters. Check out panels with writers, directors, and producers of TV series like House, CSI, and The Office and films like Little Miss Sunshine and Children of Men.

Forum events of note to VFSers:

A Writer’s Journey to the Final Draft
Thursday, Sept. 27th - 3:30 pm
Maria Jacquemetton, Head of Writing, moderates panel with David Arata, screenwriter of Children of Men

Fast Forward: Filmmakers Seize Control
Saturday, Sept. 29th - 9 am
David Hauka, Head of Film, moderates panel about filmmaking in the “digital age”.

Anatomy of a Scene
Saturday, Sept. 29th - 3 pm
Bruce Marchfelder, Film instructor, moderates panel with Jeremy Podeswa, director of Fugitive Pieces.

And coming up at the Festival proper:

Film grad Bertrand Norman’s feature-length documentary Ballerina, and regular Acting guest speaker Larry Kent’s Hastings Street, which was 35 years in the making. See the VIFF Listings for screening times.

EBM grads are out there in the world, making things happen! We caught up with Vernard Goud when we heard he was planning the event of the year…

Tell us what you’re up to?

I’m basically hosting, promoting and selling tickets (without Clubzone tickets, Ticketmaster or specialized record stores) to my very own special and exclusive event. It’s in my nature to do things alone. I am a bit of a control freak, as I like to know what’s going on in every aspect of my event. I understand that this might seem odd, but this works very well for me.

So what’s the event?

It’s an event called the Luv ‘n’ Grace Affair and will be held at Richards on Richards on September 26th. The event is a combination of the now defunct nightclubs Luvafair and Graceland, and their former patrons. It’s a recreation of Vancouver’s former underground/alternative/blitz/glam/avant-garde/glamour/
new-wave scene. Both clubs are sorely missed, and most of the former patrons, myself included, absolutely despise the current clubs and the suburban invasion on Granville Street during the weekends.

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Last time we mentioned Film grad and Clerks Cinematographer David Klein, he was coming to speak to VFS students, on a break from shooting the pilot for a new series called Reaper.

Here he is this past March in the Main Theatre, with Cinematography & Lighting instructor Ricky Choi, and about a gajillion rabid VFS fans.

Well, Reaper premieres tonight, and we just want to wish David and the show well!

Next up for David? His work on the Heroes spinoff, Heroes: Origins, which premieres in 2008. We’re thinking a few VFSers may tune in to that one as well…

As we all know by now, Bartek Kujdbida wasn’t the only 3D grad involved in the Halo 3 juggernaut. Neill Blomkamp, the director attached to the backburnered Halo feature film, has been making a series of live-action shorts to celebrate the launch of the third game. Two have already been released, and today we see the third, Combat Part 2 - a continuation of a savage firefight between UNSC Marines and Brutes wielding all manner of nasty weaponry.

3D Animation & Visual Effects grad Bartek Kujbida took part in what is easily this year’s most anticipated video game - Halo 3, which hits shelves at midnight tonight. As a Character Animator at Montréal 3D character animation and visual effects house damnfx, which was tapped to do some character animation for in-game cinematics, Bartek had a hand in the finale of the blockbuster first-person shooter trilogy.

Working with Maya scenes and layouts provided by Bungie and their Cinematics Director, CJ Cowan, Bartek and the rest of the animation team took the animation of the characters from blocking through to final animation under the direction of Cowan and damnfx Animation Director Emilio Ghorayeb.

Bartek writes in to tell us, “I was responsible for trying to create genuine and memorable performances by characters such as the legendary Master Chief and Cortana, which you’ll see in between gameplay. I was also flown out to Bungie twice. While there, I got the opportunity to see how Bungie creates this behemoth and also the chance to work with some of the most fun and talented people in the industry.”

His career since graduation has mostly been in film, and he’s credited on movies like Night at the Museum and Blades of Glory. Still, for a 3D animator, the two media go hand-in-hand. “Coming out of VFS, I was mainly interested in film work, but now with the advanced game technology, the artistic gap between games and film is getting closer than ever - and this is one of those games that any animator would love to work on.”

“I have always been a gamer,” he says. “Since the Commodore64 era, I’ve been playing video games whenever I can. I must admit that I’m mainly a PC gamer, but the one console game that had me hooked was definitely Halo, so I even got a copy to play on my PC. Rarely do I get sucked into a console game, but Halo 3 will definitely have my attention… and not just because I had a part in it!”

“I never would have imagined I’d get to work together with Bungie on this project, so I’m thrilled to have had a part in bringing the characters in Halo 3 to life, and to have worked with such a talented animation team!”

Tony Hawk, your time has come. There’s a new skateboarding game in town.

Skate (or skate.) was developed by EA Black Box, a stone’s throw from the VFS Hastings Street campuses, and two grads from the very first Game Design class, Charles Lavigne and Chris Klein, were on board.

The game dropped earlier this month to great reviews. IGN gave it an 8.8 score, concluding, “When EA announced Skate, everyone in the IGN office laughed. We’re not laughing anymore. Skate’s pretty awesome.” The game is seen as everything the Tony Hawk series isn’t - realistic and surprisingly challenging, with an innovative control system that gets away from button sequences leading to impossible tricks.

Now that the game’s out, Chris has been kind enough to share his story and his thoughts on the game.

How did you come to be hired at EA Black Box?

Chris: How I got hired is a doozy of a question, so here goes - My career started at school, impressing the right people who could get me work. This not only means instructors, but classmates as well! Having Dave Warfield as the program head was hugely beneficial - the guy has a lot of respect in the industry, so when he says something about you, people listen. Having Instructors from EA and Backbone Entertainment was not only helpful in gaining real-world insight into the industry, but they also proved to be valuable allies in getting hired.

I wasn’t the first person in the class to get work, but thanks in part to some helpful persuasion from fellow classmates who did, I didn’t have to wait too long. I started work as a design intern - a paid one, even! - at Backbone Entertainment working on Age of Empires: The Age of Kings for the Nintendo DS. It was a great opportunity and one I didn’t waste. It was tricky balancing work and school, but it helped that my group for the final project were also design interns at Backbone!

Keeping my options open and wanting to ensure stable post-graduation employment, I also sought out opportunities at EA Black Box. This was mostly because I knew they were working on a new IP, and even though nobody would tell me what it was, there was something about their enthusiasm that drew me in.

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Resident Evil: Extinction comes out tomorrow, and our friend and 3D grad Josh Herrig worked on the film. We caught up with Josh for a quick Q & A about his work on RE:E and beyond.

The trailer for Resident Evil: Extinction is killer – we can’t wait for the film. What was your role on the production?

I was in Toronto at Mr. X, and worked on Resident Evil for 4 months. I took the job as it afforded me a very unique position of being a Generalist on a film; typically you must be much more specific. Since they are a smaller house, I was able to work in several departments. I worked on over 50 shots. I modeled several of the buildings in the Vegas sequence, textured them, and lit them. I prevized several shots. Alice uses these wicked knives called Kukris in the film. I was a Lighting Technical Director for most of those shots, textured much of the blood, and in several shots, animated the knives.

We understand you’re now at Rhythm & Hues. How did that move come about?

After Resident Evil, I spoke to a couple companies in London and L.A. and also heard about the lighting apprenticeship program at R&H through an email from VFS. Since lighting is my focus, I was excited to give it a shot. I had heard amazing things about the R&H Lighting department, and really wanted to be a part of that pipeline.

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