Today it’s easy to buy a digital camcorder, make a short film in one take, post it on YouTube in one afternoon and easily find 1,000—maybe even 1,000,000—people to watch it. So what’s going to push you to the number one spot in an industry where every budding moviemaker has access to such a huge potential audience? A compelling story is always crucial, but equally important for newcomers is knowing how to build a career as a moviemaker. To excel at the techniques as well as the art of moviemaking requires more than a camera and the Internet; you need an unparalleled education in the craft, too.

Zoom in on the Vancouver Film School. For 20 years, VFS has succeeded in giving students who want to work harder and more creatively than ever before the technical expertise, artistic license and professional skills to produce award-winning films and make truly valuable peer and industry connections along the way. Like VFS, MovieMaker has also built its reputation by supporting emerging moviemakers, which is why the magazine has paired with VFS to give one aspiring auteur a full scholarship to the one-year Film program.

“Our curriculum at VFS sets out to give students as many opportunities as possible to learn how to make 10-minute films,” says David Hauka, head of film production at VFS. “With 20 years of experience, VFS does that very well. Students learn everything from interpretation to method and how take ideas from first pitch to post-production.”

Hauka is not only a passionate educator, but a veteran of the industry as well, with over 20 years of experience as a director and producer. He has worked on productions for Miramax, Disney, Universal, ABC, CBS and MGM and offers his students a full platter of lessons from the trade, as well as a real taste of the culture and how to realistically get work done in a competitive industry. Each year, VFS students produce nearly 1,000 productions. “This is a proudly international campus,” says Hauka. “Our students come from all over the world to make films in English, French, Farsi, Japanese, Punjabi… and these projects in turn support local actors who work primarily in these languages.”

What draws students from all over the globe to VFS is its reputation for having a faculty of committed artists who provide an intense learning environment. Taking full advantage of the school’s fully-loaded facilities, featuring the latest digital video cameras and editing suites, the curriculum provides every student with ample opportunity to test out their ideas on set. “The instructor shoot,” for example, is one moviemaking exercise where students rotate in key crew positions to produce a short film under the mentorship of VFS instructors. But this is only one of many hands-on lessons that prepares students for their final project, when they take the helm and direct their very own short film.

To ensure that every student is given an ideal balance of valuable theory combined with a rigorous and realistic production schedule, the instructors at VFS are all leading professionals in their industries. Hauka’s faculty of more than 30 people are all either veterans or prodigies of an industry that only cares about one thing: Creativity. The VFS faculty includes awardwinning writers, directors and producers of features for the likes of Touchstone, HBO, MTV and many others.

Film is a truly collaborative process, and in the Film program there are plenty of opportunities to connect with artists from all of the programs VFS covers. Students routinely invite writers, 3D effects animators, sound designers, actors, makeup artists and digital designers to add their skills to the mix. This open access to enthusiastic students from other disciplines ensures that VFS film students consistently create highquality, emotionally-charged and technically- impressive productions. The result is that VFS grads have gone on to high-profile positions in some of the most important entertainment companies in the world.

The final project starts in the screenwriting course, where moviemakers deliver a first draft for development. After a careful script workshop, the casting process begins. The principles of visual storytelling are then applied to storyboarding and blocking with actors, and as students direct their films, lighting and cinematography, as well as a study of studio and exterior shots, inform their decisions and processes along the way. “Cinematography is the cornerstone of our department,” Hauka is quick to assert. “We teach on digital video and film so students understand both formats.”

While the instructors are all top-shelf and the gear is industry-standard, it’s being surrounded by other likeminded and driven risk-takers that inspires such consistently strong work. Every student completes a short film while at VFS—which is your ultimate calling card to a career in entertainment.

So whether their films appear on YouTube or premiere at Cannes, students are all encouraged to embark on at VFS and discover their own unique voice as moviemakers. At VFS, it’s your own direction, your own images, your own ideas. In one year, everyone graduates qualified to make their own creative decisions in life. MM