Saas bahu aur Sensex, a comedy written and directed by Film grad Shona Urvashi, is set to hit theatres in India and the UK September 12th. It’s the first film Warner Bros. has produced in India.

After graduating from VFS in 1998, Shona went on to write and direct Chupke Se in 2003. A much-publicized dust-up with Sensex actress Tanushree Dutta is only likely to drive the box office for her new film - especially since Dutta still acknowledges that the story of some unlikely stock market investors is “a fantastic script.”

Swing by the official site for trailers, and here’s a profile of Shona herself with some details about how the film came about. And if Sensex appears at a theatre near you, check it out!

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, you know you’ve made it when you get namechecked by Ain’t It Cool News. None other than Quint himself has posted about a behind the scenes look at Disney’s Bolt. The “Lino” he mentions is Lino DiSalvo, 3D Animation & Visual Effects grad and lead animator on the highly anticipated film!

A play put on by a number of VFS grads opens tonight! This is Our Youth, the cult-hit play by Kenneth Longergan (You Can Count On Me) is opening tonight and runs through this Saturday.

The play is directed by Writing grad and T.A. Bob Woolsey, and the 3 leads are Acting grads Sean Gilchrist, Andrew Baker, and Sydney Cochrane. Sean and Andrew are also producing, and Acting grad Beverly Wu is stage managing. (Click on the image to see the full poster.)

While our Acting program is focused on training for film and TV work, what you learn is largely applicable to the world of theatre. And stage productions allow actors to continue honing their craft while contributing to the acting community.

If you’re in Vancouver, you can check out This Is Our Youth Tuesday, August 26 - Saturday, August 30, at the Havana Theatre, 1212 Commercial Drive. Doors open at 6:30, show starts at 7pm.

Thaddeus Maharaj, a fairly recent 3D Animation & Visual Effects grad, has been getting huge props lately from 3DTotal - first an Excellence Award for a 3D model called The Beast (left) - a core part of his VFS reel - then another Excellence Award for his elven archer!

Congrats, Thaddeus! How does it feel to get this kind of affirmation from something like 3DTotal?

Well - it feels amazing! It certainly is very encouraging seeing my work up on a site such as 3DTotal, where I have only seen the works of other inspirational CG artists! It has long been in my bookmarks as a site that I’d go to for inspiration, so to be featured on the site is a big deal to me, and definintely gives a boost of confidence, since as of now, I am still yet to be tested on a professional level.

I’d definitely have to give a big thanks to the people at 3DTotal for honouring me like this, and I really appreciate the service their site provides.

How was the SIGGRAPH 2008 experience, on the whole?

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Several Writing department folk have made it to the semi-final round of the PAGE International Screenwriting Awards! Congrats to recent grad Yang Hu for his feature in the Historical Film category, and grad Sean Minogue and instructor Kat Montagu who are duking it out in the TV Pilot category.

The contest’s Grand Prize is worth $10,000 — but most screenwriters enter into competitions like this for the exposure they receive from producers, studios, and agents.

Yang has been actively developing his feature, The Red Road Home, since he graduated in April — including working closely with experienced producer Raymond Massey (Whale Music, Iron Road). We talked to Yang about his feature and further ways contests can be useful.

Tell us about The Red Road Home.

It’s basically set in China in the 1960s during the cultural revolution. It’s a love story where a foreigner must work with a local university co-ed in order to escape China by swimming across a lake in the south, while smuggling out a precious painting which was set to be burned at a demonstration.

Oooh. Cool. So what do you think is the value of contests like this one?
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We want to congratulate all the students graduating from VFS this week - well done, everyone! We wish you the best in everything to come, and hope you’ll stay in touch.

And we’d be remiss if we didn’t say a special goodbye to the graduating Makeup students this week. From potluck Thanksgivings in the cafe, to wandering around in bald caps, to above-and-beyond makeup projects, you’ve been a joy to have on campus.

As if they weren’t busy enough with individual final projects in their last term, the class decided to do a collaborative Batman-inspired project to add to their portfolios.

Above left: Damon Vanhee, as Two-Face, made up by Holly Dalpee. Application time: about 2 hours. The Joker is soon-to-be-grad Harris Haralampakis, made up by Damon (application time, close to 3 hours). Though these application times don’t include the sculpting, casting, and molding of the prosthetic pieces used, which, as Damon says, adds “a ginormous pile of hours”.

With Damon below are Sugar & Spice, Jaana Kujala and Sara Goins-Ramirez, respectively.

For a trip down memory lane, check out last Halloween’s blog post, featuring a much more clean-cut Two-Face…

Congrats, all! We hope you never stop having the kind of fun you had here.

It’s the beginning of an exciting new era at VFS: we’re thrilled to welcome industry veteran Alastair Macleod as our new Head of Animation & Visual Effects.

After starting his career in the UK, Alastair moved to Canada in 1999 and established himself as an expert in the field of animation & visual effects, first with Mainframe (Action Man, Heavy Gear, Barbie in the Nutcracker), and then Radical Entertainment (The Hulk and Dark Angel games).

From there, Hollywood beckoned: among many other memorable credits, you’ve seen Alastair’s handiwork in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Catwoman, Barnyard, and Matrix: Revolutions. Alastair is excited to be returning to VFS after a previous stint as a respected and popular instructor and visual effects supervisor: “I very much enjoy the creativity and energy that is fostered in the department by all the staff and students at VFS.”

We’d like to thank outgoing head Larry Bafia for his outstanding service to the school, in helping to make VFS the premier one-year Animation & Visual Effects education, and we wish him well as he undertakes new challenges in the industry.

With Alastair’s technical expertise, industry experience, and impeccable track record as a teacher, his new role as Head of Animation & Visual Effects is an invaluable opportunity for VFS to continue to grow, evolve, and further strengthen its place in this fast-moving industry. We can’t wait to see the results.

Sound Design for Visual Media graduate Kyle Fraser is currently at Microsoft Game Studios, and so far has worked on two hotly anticipated games slated for release this fall: Gears of War 2, and Fable II, designed by the legendary Peter Molyneux.

We wanted to know all about his role at MGS thus far — and how Kyle got in on the ground floor of this powerhouse studio.

What can you tell us about the work you’ve been doing so far?

When I first arrived here at MGS, they were finishing up production on Gears of War 2, and they had me get going on the dialogue editing that needed to be done. It was about 700 lines that had to be finished. While GOW2 was in production, we were also involved with Fable II. On this title I got to help with some Foley recording, along with designing some ambient / world objects. Some of the sounds that I got to hand craft included massive stone pillars falling over, magic potions, and achievement sounds.

More recently I have been creating prototypes in Max/MSP for real-time DSP plug-ins to be integrated into the Xbox 360’s architecture. We are also gearing up for a big production sweep which will include intensive field recording… some of the trips we have in the works include a trip to Africa to record various wild animals, and maybe a visit to Europe to record rare exotic cars. There are also a few titles we have in the pipeline, but I am unfortunately unable to discuss at this moment.

We’ll ask you about those later! So how did you land the job?
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Film Production grad Mohammad (Mo) Gorjestani’s VFS film The Shade has been a success any way you cut it: festival screenings from coast to coast and acclaim from audiences everywhere. Now pre-production is ramping up on Mo’s followup short film, a dream i once had about an apple, which means the all-important search for funding (and every little bit helps). We thought it would be a good time to hear more about this new project - which should have fans of The Shade abuzz with anticipation.

Okay, let’s talk about this new film… What can you tell us about it?

It’s a short film called a dream i once had about an apple. As far as the story, it’s similar to The Shade in that the circumstances are the antagonist and not necessarily the characters. It’s about a girl stranded in a dream stuck in a desert with an indescribable craving for an apple. The irony is that she stumbles on an eaten apple and its decomposing core.

As far as the origin of the story, I had a series of recurring dreams back in 2006 that ended up being the main inspiration of this film. It’s an important story for me because I think these dreams really had an impact on me at a turning point of my life.

These dreams solidified ideas that I had always had about morality but made me realize the importance. I was really into Oscar Wilde at the time, and his play The Importance of Being Earnest, which I really admired, may have triggered some of these thoughts. Now that I think about it, the character I have in this film has a similar relationship with compassion as did the character of Earnest and his relationship with honesty.

At what stage is the project currently, and what are you hoping to get done in the immediate future?

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Entertainment Business Management grads work in all forms of entertainment: movies, TV, sports, new media… and now, radio! Recent EBM grad Preethi Ganapathisubramanian is using her marketing skills at a major radio station in India. We caught up with her to find out more!

Can you tell us a bit about your current role and responsibilities?

I work at Hello FM, which is one of the leading radio stations here in Chennai, among seven other radio stations. I am a Sales Executive, which is a part of the Radio Planning team. I have to meet up with corporate clients and generate advertising revenues for the company, and also come up with creatives like planning on-ground events along with on-air campaigns.

What’s the most exciting – or challenging – aspect to your work?

The exciting part will be getting to know so many people in the corporate world and meeting some of the CEOs of big companies, thus earning valuable contacts. The challenging part is getting huge revenues by creating a big and interesting project and convincing them to do such an activity on a regular basis.

Where do you hope this work will take you in the future?

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