To ensure our educational programming and curricula are kept highly relevant and up-to-date, VanArts has assembled and confers regularly with an industry advisory board. These prominent industry experts bring tremendous value to our educational programs, and we are grateful for their insights, contributions and recommendations.
Bill Matthews has been a guest instructor and visiting industry professional at VanArts since 1996. He is one of the founding instructors and directors of the Sheridan College Animation Program and is recently retired as Manager of Artist Development and ongoing consultant for Walt Disney Feature Animation. Bill worked on effects animation for Disney's Sleeping Beauty and for NASA, and has been writing traditional animation curricula for public schools and colleges for over thirty years.
Michael Venturini has been working in the feature animation business since he studied classical animation in Vancouver BC under legendary animator Lee Mishkin. Though he currently works at Pixar as a 3D animator, he began his career in 2D animation at Warner Bros. Feature Animation as a clean-up assistant, and animator on The Iron Giant. After becoming a 2D animator at Warner Bros, Mike decided to make the exciting transition to 3D animation by joining the Pixar team. Mike has worked on a total of 10 films including Space Jam, Iron Giant, Road to El Dorado, Osmosis Jones, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and was a Directing Animator on Ratatouille and Up. Along the way, Mike has also spent four years as an animation instructor with students who are now working at studios such as Pixar, Blue Sky, Disney, Sony, ILM, & PDI.
Mike Venturini on IMDB
Matt Welford, current Visual Effects Supervisor at MPC Vancouver, has been a friend of VanArts since his prior position as Head of the Compositing Department at WETA Digital in New Zealand. He started his career at Mill Film in the UK before moving to WETA to work on Peter Jackson's award-winning Lord of the Rings trilogy. Matt also created and supervised compositing and visual effects for films including King Kong, X-Men: The Last Stand, Prince Caspian, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and most recently, James Cameron's upcoming film Avatar. He has visited our school on several occasions to review student work and offer his professional feedback.
Matt Welford on IMDB.
News Story on Matt's most recent visit to VanArts
With a career spanning some 30 years in photography, marketing and technology, James has a heartfelt interest in seeing other photographers succeed. He brings a wealth of innovation and vigorous energy to Vanarts. James is well known for his expertise and dedication as a teacher and mentor to other photographers. Over the years he has been a resource to many of his former students who have gone on to create successful photographic careers of their own.
An accomplished commercial photographer in his own right, James’ career has also extended into the corporate world. He has held positions as Industry Consultant, District Technical Manager and later, Canadian Marketing Manager for Cincom Systems. He was Head Instructor at one of the most respected photography schools in Western Canada, where he taught Basic and Intermediate Photography, Advanced Darkroom, Practical Studio Lighting, Large Format Photography, Professional Development, Product Photography, Advanced Studio Lighting, and Developing Photographic Style. James now owns and operates his own portraiture business. With his partner Gaetanne, he also co-owns and operates Then Comes Marriage Wedding Photography, providing wedding photography services in the lower mainland.
Before becoming "Cancer Man" on the hit TV series The X-Files, William Davis had a long career as a teacher, director and actor. He has been the Director of Canada's two leading acting schools: the National Theatre School and the Vancouver Playhouse Acting School. He was the founding Artistic Director of Festival Lennoxville in Quebec, Director of the Dundee Repertory Theatre in Scotland and Assistant Director at the National Theatre of Great Britain.
Mr. Davis has directed over 100 professional productions at major theatres in Britain and Canada. He founded the William Davis Centre for Actors' Study in 1989, which now offers its highly regarded curriculum at VanArts, where he now also sits on the Board of Advisors. Bill founded the William Davis Centre for Actors' Study in 1989, which now offers its highly regarded curriculum at VanArts. Additionally, Mr. Davis sits on the Board of Advisors at VanArts.
For more information, see also:
www.williambdavis.com
William B. Davis at IMDB
Andrew Gordon has been animating characters professionally for over 12 years. He joined Pixar Animation Studios in 1997 where he has been an animator on A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and Ratatouille. The characters he has worked on include Mike Wazowski from Monsters, Gill from Finding Nemo and Edna Mode, the costume designer in The Incredibles. Andrew also worked as supervising animator on the short film Presto. His work has also included directing several promotional spots for Broadcast, Web and Blueray content.
Mr. Gordon studied animation in Vancouver and NY, and prior to his work at Pixar, he worked in the Looney Tunes division of Warner Brothers. He was awarded "Outstanding Character Animation in an Animated Motion Picture" by the Visual Effects Society for his work in Finding Nemo.
Andrew has been teaching animation in California since 2000. He has lectured on animation around the world, including Masterclasses in China, Spain, Singapore, Austrailia and Italy. He is a contributing teacher to AnimationMentor and the CSU Summer Arts program. He is one of the founders of Spline Doctors, a blog/podcast dedicated to animation education. He is currently teaching animation at California College of Art in Oakland and just recently finished animating on Pixar's Toy Story 3.
Click here to see Andrew Gordon on the imdb.
Neil Eskuri has been in the business of creating computer-generated imagery for feature films, television, and video games for over 27 years. Most recently as a Sr. Art Director for Electronic Arts in Vancouver, where he shipped 6 games including Need For Speed Carbon, Underground 2 and NBA LIVE. Prior to EA, Neil spent 10 years with Walt Disney Feature Animation as Visual Effects Supervisor, Digital Supervisor, Artistic Coordinator, and animator. The films he contributed to include Treasure Planet, Dinosaur, and Fantasia 2000. Neil has worked at several studios in the industry including Sony Pictures Imageworks, Rhythm & Hues, PDI, and Metrolight where he worked on the Academy Award winner for best visual effects on Total Recall.
Having experience with modeling, animation, lighting & compositing, EFX, shooting live action plates, and the 2D animation process, Neil possesses a broad range of knowledge for a variety of productions.
Guest Instructor Andy Beall studied classical animation under the late Lee Mishkin, a legendary Hollywood animator. His professional career began in 1996 at Warner Brothers as an assistant animator on Space Jam and later on Quest for Camelot. In 2001 he was a Lead key clean-up animator on Osmosis Jones. Andy began working at Pixar Animation Studios in 2004 as a fix animator on The Incredibles and as an animator on Jack-Jack Attack. On Ratatouille and WALL-E, Andy was a fix animation lead.
Annual guest instructor Bonita Versh majored in Life Drawing at the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee, which turned out to be the best possible training to bring to her lengthy animation career. She has worked for several studios, including Hanna-Barbera, Film Roman, Chuck Jones, Warner Bros., Walt Disney TV and Merchandise, DePatie-Freleng, Playhouse Pictures, Colosssal Pictures, Duck Soup,Nickelodeon and more.
She has directed projects in Germany, France and China, as well as a CD-ROM for Nintendo, Clay Fighter II, using clay-animation. Bonita worked for several years as a veteran director at Klasky Csupo Commercials, where she enjoyed the cutting-edge styles that the Europeans bring to the studio. Dedicated to continuing the classical tradition of animation, she loves teaching and lecturing, and is always learning more about this exciting field.
John Isaac is a distinguished member of VanArts' Advisory Board. As a photographer for the United Nations, he has photographed some of the world's most shameful tragedies from Afghanistan to Bosnia. After photographing the genocide in Rwanda, John found he was unable to continue working. His journey from despair to inspiration is evidenced in his moving photographs, which are the subject of this unique presentation.
Isaac's work with the UN, UNICEF and the Sierra Club has taken him to over 100 countries around the globe. Since retiring as Chief of the Photo Unit for the UN in 1998 he has continued his travels and produced several important books. The most recent, "The Vale of Kashmir", published in October of this year, takes an intimate look at the people and peaceful beauty of India's Kashmir region.
Ian McGuffie is one of the leading members of the Vancouver photographic community. For the past nineteen years he has been director/curator of Exposure Gallery, Vancouver's oldest photographic gallery. As an award-winning photographer his photographs have been exhibited in Europe, North America and Japan. His extensive background stems from forty years of experience in photography. He is also President of the Vancouver Association for Photographic Arts, a society for the promotion of photography as a medium of creative and artistic expression.
A graduate of Brown University and NYU’s Graduate Program in Acting, Rob LaBelle has worked as an actor, director and producer in theatre, film and television for over 20 years. He worked on such early features from ground breaking director Todd Haynes as Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story and Poison. Rob has also worked with directors Barry Sonnenfeld, Harold Becker, Roland Joffe, Wes Craven, Bruce MacDonald, Roger Spottiswoode, Stan Douglas and Zack Snyder. He was nominated for a Gemini award for his work as Eddie Nambulous in First Wave, and a Leo Award for his starring role in The Burial Society. Rob has been the Executive in Charge of Television for Infinity Features (Saved, Capote) for several years, and is currently an Executive Producer on their TV series Mental (with Fox TV Studios). He has taught acting at Colorado College and UCLA’s Overseas Program (in Florence, Italy). Rob has also served on the Executive Boards of SAG, ACTRA and UBCP.
Rob LaBelle at IMDB
With post-secondary training focussed on Marketing and Public Relations, Gibson became a Talent Agent in 1986 and has worked with Characters, Canada's largest full service Talent Agency with offices in both Vancouver and Toronto, since 1991. He represents Canadian actors for film, television, theatre, and radio in Canada, and around the globe. He produced a short film to gain a more thorough knowledge of all aspects of the entertainment industry. He also travels extensively, and relaxes by scuba diving, rock climbing, white water rafting, and sky diving. Mr. Gibson was one of the founding members of the Talent Agents and Managers Association of Canada (TAMAC), a self-governing body of the professional Talent Agents in Canada, and served on its Board. In a highly competitive industry, he is known for both his sense of humour, and his ethics.
A 4 time Emmy Nominee, based in Vancouver since 1995, Candice Elzinga has been responsible for casting some of the leading feature films, television series and movies for television shot in Western Canada. A trained actor with her BFA in Acting from the University of Alberta, Candice brings a profound understanding of the acting process to her work. Boasting a keen eye for new talent, she has earned a reputation for her in-depth knowledge of the Canadian acting community, as well as her knack for bringing a fresh, innovative eye to the projects she casts.
Sean worked on his first video game in 1994, while working as a producer at Radical Entertainment. Before this, he enjoyed a successful career as a writer and development executive in the film and television industry, most notably as Head of Development & Sales for Nelvana Enterprises, a $550M company focused on children and youth programming; and as a development producer for director Francis Ford Coppola. More recently, Sean worked at Electronic Arts, where he designed, built and managed a department of over 100 content creators, tasked with providing art content to all of the EA Sports line of products. Before joining Next Level Games, Sean was CEO of Playful Entertainment, a boutique publishing company based in Vancouver.
Mark Pullyblank is one of our most successful graduates and keeps in touch with us as a mentor and advisory board member. He has worked as an animator for Rainmaker Entertainment and Frantic Films in Vancouver and is now at WETA Digital in New Zealand, where he recently served as a technical director on James Cameron's Avatar. His other lead and supervisory animation credits include Garfield, Dr. Dolittle 3, Stargate:Atlantis, Elektra, Night at the Museum, Blades of Glory, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Watchmen and many other projects.
Award-winning photographer Alan Jacques has been involved in photography since 1972, starting out as a freelancer and instructor. He started his own film & video production company in 1981, which won him a Canadian Film & Television Association First Choice Award for his first film, Marathon - The Ultimate Challenge. In 1985 he left the film & video industry to pursue his interest in business and marketing, beginning a period of personal work.
In 2001 Alan re-discovered his passion for street photography, and continues to expand into new areas. His recent projects include Wires (a series of B/W photographs shot at Broadway & Main in Vancouver) and 3 Minutes 30 seconds (a study of the beauty and sensuality of the female form). His work has appeared in 14 gallery shows in Canada and the US, and in Black & White Magazine. He utilizes all 3 photographic media: digital, film and instant film. Alan lives in Langley, BC and has two teenage daughters. Though he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1991, the past 2 years have been the most photographically productive of his life.
